By Paul Daley
Few but the most dedicated ornithologist (click here) will know anything about Australia’s Paradise parrot.
That is because it has the dubious distinction of being the only mainland Australian bird marked “extinct” by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Its premature vanishment almost a century ago, meanwhile, remains prescient today when it comes to how best to protect other threatened Australian avian species.
That the Paradise parrot – Psephotellus pulcherimus – was already on the verge of extinction by 1900 in its habitat on the Darling Downs in the Queensland colony speaks volumes about the dramatic environmental impact of colonisation on native grassy woodlands....
And they call it progress.
