There are now 118 orange-bellied parrots in the wild

[FfFfFfFF 58,133]

There has been little good to say about the recent history of the critically endangered orange-bellied parrot. Numbers of the small migratory bird, which makes a return trip from Tasmania’s south-west wilderness to the mainland’s coastal scrubland each year, have fallen so sharply scientists consider it at risk of extinction within five years.

Just 23 birds arrived at the species’ breeding site at Melaleuca, deep in the Tasmanian World Heritage Wilderness Area, last spring.

But six months on there are tentative positive signs, with the number of birds heading north for the winter reaching 118, the first time the flock has topped 100 in more than a decade.

“It is an amazing feeling to have had over 100 birds migrate together, but at the same time it’s one step. The real change we need to see is the number of birds in spring. That’s census time.”

Troy says there is precedent for rebuilding a species from numbers this small. She gives the example of the black robin in New Zealand, which was reduced to one mature female in the wild before numbers rebounded into the hundreds.

“There are plenty of populations of bird around the world where genetic diversity is low, but a species has still been able to recover,” she says. “It is definitely a concern, but not necessarily a showstopper.”

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/27/numbers-of-critically-endangered-orange-bellied-parrot-soar-from-low-20s-to-more-than-100

[RAMROD 117,125]

Not sure why, but I got triggered when I read orange part and it shouldn't happen.

Hope these birbs are surviving. Don't wanna lose them the way blue macaw does.

[ARTPOPe 10,169]

Wow, what beautiful creatures 

Hopefully their population size will keep increasing and then stay stable in the long run.

Oceania really has some of the most beautiful birbs in the world.

[DC 25,164]

But all it takes is just 1-