Status: Critically Endangered
Estimated numbers left in the wild: 50-100
Country found in: Australia
The orange-bellied parrot is a small 20 cm long parrot found in Southern Australia and it is one of only three species of parrot that migrate.
The orange-bellied parrot only breeds in South West of Tasmania and winters on the coast of southern mainland Australia, foraging on saltmarsh species, beach or dune plants and a variety of exotic weed species. The diet consists of seeds and berries of small coastal grasses and shrubs. With a wild population of 14 birds as of early February 2017, the orange-bellied parrot is rated as critically endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)’s Red List of Endangered species.
Orange-bellied parrots are being bred in a captive breeding program with parrots in Taroona, Tasmania, Healesville Sanctuary, Adelaide Zoo, Moonlit Sanctuary Wildlife Conservation Park and Priam Parrot Breeding Centre. The captive population consists of around 320 birds.
Why are these birds threatened?
- Fragmentation and degradation of over-wintering habitat
- Competition with introduced seedeaters
- Abandonment of former breeding habitat due to altered fire regime and competition for hollows (with the introduced common starling)
- Disorientation from brightly lit fishing boats (during the migrations across Bass Strait)
- Introduced predators
- Disease (such as psittachine circoviral disease)