The story of the Paradise parrot – the only mainland Australian bird marked ‘extinct’
The Guardian, Other, 02/05/2021, Paul Daley
Conservationists could make a case for saving a gorgeous bird but preserving its prosaic habitat was, in the 1920s and 30s, a bridge too far Few but the most dedicated ornithologist 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. […] As James Cook University historian Russell McGregor writes in CSIRO Publishing’s Historical Records of Australian Science series: ” the environmental transformations wrought by colonists, probably including the changed fire regimes consequent on Aboriginal dispossession, were deadly to the Paradise parrot.