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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mjh73" data-source="post: 1978823" data-attributes="member: 82187">50 is the best estimate produced by the Orange Bellied Parrot Recovery Team, consisting scientists and volunteers from the state governments of Tasmania, South Australia and Victoria. I believe the count is based on individual birds identified at the feed table at Melaleuca, and other summer / breeding season counts carried out in areas where the birds have previously been although of late the only breeding birds have been identified in the area of Melaleuca. The wilderness of SW Tasmania is incredibly hard to survey so there may be populations being missed. We live in hope.Winter counts are carried out on the mainland at sites that have previously held OBPs in the past. I volunteered with Birds Australia on these this year. In three surveys I didn't see a single OBP, and that pattern was repeated elsewhere. Very very few birds were found in likely habitats.Whilst the birds have been in decline for a while, likely caused by a number of factors known or theorized, the rate of decline appears to have accelerated recently and there is uncertainty about why. There has been a captive breeding population for a while, that has had some success. However there are concerns about the number of founders, and hence the genetic fitness of the captive bred birds. The plan is to take young birds (i.e. not 20 from 50, but a proportion of however many young birds fledge this season) to supplement the captive breeding program and reduce the risk of in-breeding depression. I would agree that is perhaps not ideal, but with the uncertainty about the cause of the recent slump a certain amount of triage was required. The experts (I am not an expert - I am an engineer and amateur ornithologist) decided that until more was known about the problem(s) in the wild, the short term need was to ensure a more viable captive breeding population.I have no idea about how many birds might be in private collections, but I would question how fit they would be as a genetic resource anyway, given the problems with the population that was designed for that reason. I wasn't aware that OBPs were particularly popular with aviculturists anyway, non of the papers I have read recently indicated a problem with collectors poaching wild birds (at least not since the birds have become protected). Hence any captive birds would likely be rather elderly so I wonder how physically fit individuals would be too. Still I guess anything is worth considering. Where did anyone suggest climate change as the cause of decline in the OBPs? Destruction and / or changed management of habitat was the most likely original cause of the large decline this century. There are many other factors that will have acted to reduce the population, and small populations are inherently more at risk than large populations. Climate change may be one of these factors, I don't think you can dismiss it with your 'birds have been here since the dinosaurs' analogy! Yes some birds have been proven to be very adaptable. Others have not. It is a vast oversimplification to extend the ability of one species to survive in a different climate or on an inappropriate diet to another species. OBPs have been found adapting their feeding habitats to potentially 'inappropriate' plant species, however we don't know how this effects their fitness overall. If you are supposing that NO bird species is at risk from climate change then I think you need to get out a bit more....Whilst I support your sentiment, I think you are wrong in the case of the OBP. The cage bird trade does not appear to be a current threat. The choice the scientists have had is between strengthening the captive breeding population now, or potentially finding in the next 2-3 years that the bird is extinct in the wild and we are left with some inbred birds in zoo cages that are not a good basis for a reintroduction program. Much as I dislike things being in cages I would rather that than lose the birds completely.</blockquote>

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