A night parrot. Photo: Rachel Murphy
The “holy grail” for Australian bird watchers is the night parrot, a reclusive ground-dwelling species once thought to be extinct that seems to live in large unburned clumps of desert spinifex.
Indigenous rangers have discovered as many as 50 critically endangered night parrots living in the Ngururrpa Indigenous Protected Area (IPA) in the far east of Western Australia’s Pilbara region. Researchers say it is the largest known population in the world.
The researchers used a type of acoustic recorder called a songmeter, and found evidence of night parrots at 17 of the 31 sites they checked on the Ngururrpa Indigenous Protected Area.
They found that a key threat to the birds’ habitat is fire which occurs in the surrounding sandplain country every six to 10 years.
They also found that while dingoes are common in night parrot habitat, they regularly eat feral cats which could be helping the survival of endangered species.
The authors say any predator control methods should avoid harming dingoes.
