GREG ROBERTS
The Australian
12:00AM March 10, 2018
A second critically endangered night
parrot disappeared after its mate vanished when it was caught and fitted with a
radio transmitter by a team of experts charged with saving the birds from
extinction.
The revelation prompted calls for
the federal government to sack the night parrot recovery team and appoint a
senior public servant to oversee the conservation program. The night parrot is
one of the rarest birds in the world. It had scarcely been reported for more
than a century before naturalist John Young photographed one in Queensland in
2013.
A pair of night parrots was
discovered in Western Australia last March. The Weekend
Australian reported last week that recovery team chief Allan Burbidge led
an expedition to the site five months later. The team caught one of the parrots
and fitted it with a transmitter, but no trace of the bird was found
subsequently. Recovery team sources said for the next three nights, a second
parrot called frequently at the site in search of its mate. The second bird
then evidently vanished.
Dr Burbidge says the transmitter
failed, and there is no evidence the bird fled because it was traumatised, or
fell victim to a predator because it was injured or encumbered by the device.
But one of his team, Tasmanian zoologist Mark Holdsworth, said it was possible
the parrot perished. “That couldn’t be ruled out.” he said.
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