By
Various authors
Reprinted with permission from
the Parrot Society of New Zealand
The poor humble rainbow lorikeet has been getting a really hard time of late on Auckland’s North shore. One of our early members has been embroiled with the Department of Conservation over his alleged release into the wild of a number of rainbows. According to DoC, they became established in the wild and began breeding.
The following is a collection of information released by DoC plus Rosemary Low’s response to their actions and allegations together with some facts about the rainbow.
For everyone’s information, this so called pest under the Biosecurity Act, was first introduced into New Zealand as an aviary bird in or around 1935. If it was a real threat, I would have expected there to be a wild colony by now!!!!
Make your own judgments!!!
And this is what DoC are
saying publicly about the rainbow lorikeet- the information below has been
taken from the information contained on their website and their press releases.
the rainbow lorikeet- from
their website
http://www.doc.govt.nz/cons/pests/lorikeet.htm
What Is the Rainbow Lorikeet?
Native to some parts of
Australia. A brightly coloured
gregarious parrot that feeds primarily on
pollen, nectar and
fruits, but will feed on grains. Almost always seen in pairs or in flocks,
which can
contain up to a thousand
birds. Like most parrots they nest in
hollow limbs or –
trunks of dead or living
trees. They are prolific, with pairs
known to rear as many as three
successive broods in a
single season thus enabling the population to increase rapidly.
Rainbow lorikeets look
very similar to the more common eastern rosella. The main
distinguishing feature
is the lorikeets' blue head.
How did they get
established?
Significant numbers of
captive bred birds have been deliberately released on the North Shore. They have been supported with supplementary
feeders in an effort to establish a wild population in Auckland. Rainbow lorikeets have been recorded in
flocks of up to 50 in the local vicinity and are now breeding in the wild.
Why are they a problem?
Australian evidence, supported by reports from the people living
on the North Shore, is that
these birds are generally aggressive to, and often dominate all
other birds trying to use the
same food source.
Lorikeets are also capable of dislodging much larger birds than
themselves e.g. sulphur crested cockatoos.
Several NZ native species utilise the same
food and nesting habitats as lorikeets.
Observations at suburban bird feeders near
the release site have confirmed that suburban tui
formerly using these nectar feeders have
been excluded by groups of lorikeets.
Australian
horticulturists regard them as a
significant pest. In some States they
are actively controlled.
In Darwin 80-90% of some tropical fruit
crops are lost to rainbow lorikeets.
Therefore they
could have a significant economic impact on
New Zealand's horticulture industry.
Rainbow lorikeets are strong flyers and
have been recorded traveling over twenty kilometres
to Australian offshore islands. Because of this ability they pose a
significant threat to those
species whose survival is only possible on
Hauraki Gulf island sanctuaries which have been
cleared of predators. The work of the Department of Conservation
and thousands of
volunteers over many years have been placed
in jeopardy.
Where are they?
Reports suggest that the
largest numbers are on the North Shore with smaller concentrations in Mt
Albert/ Remuera, Glendowie, Whangaparaoa and possible sightings of pairs from
other locations including Clevedon, Howick, Henderson Valley, and Waiheke
Island.
What New Zealand species
are affected?
Rainbow lorikeets may
pose a threat to our native honeyeaters the tui, bellbird and hihi (stitchbird)
through direct competition for food sources.
While our natives will generally defend these resources in singles,
pairs or adopt a pecking order, lorikeets will descend on a food source in a
flock and easily displace these species.
Furthermore, rainbow lorikeets are cavity nesters, as are our native
stitchbird, kaka and kakariki, so there will obviously be some competition for
nest sites. Many of these threatened
bird species are doing quite well at present on predator free islands in the
Hauraki Gulf, however these islands are well within flying distance of the
lorikeets' release site.
What is being done?
Rainbow lorikeets in the
wild have been declared an 'Unwanted Organism' under the Biosecurity Act
1993. Birds may still be kept as pets
in secure aviaries, but heavy penalties may result if they are released. A cooperative venture between the Department
of Conservation, the Auckland Regional Council and the Ministry of Agriculture
and Forestry will attempt to recapture the birds that have been liberated and
those that have bred in the wild. These
birds will then be forwarded to commercial aviculturists and into secure
captive facilities. Some birds will be
exported while a few will be made available on the domestic market. In a few cases it may be necessary to
control birds if they cannot be successfully recaptured.
How can you help?
If you own a pet rainbow
lorikeet you must be a responsible owner and keep your pet in secure
caging. Should you hear of, or see
rainbow lorikeets in the Greater Auckland area please contact the Department of
Conservation's Auckland Area Office Phone (09) 445 9142.
PSNZ NOTE:
To confuse the reader, DoC’s website has a picture at the top of the page of an Eastern Rosella. Although DoC refers to the Rosella in the first paragraph, there is no mention that the picture is NOT of a rainbow and this is very misleading.
WHAT THE MEDIA REPORTED
Conservation Minister Nick Smith today
authorised the capture of Rainbow Lorikeets in Auckland saying they posed a
serious threat to New Zealand's native birds like the tui and kakariki, as well
as being a potential pest to horticultural crops and urged the Auckland public
to assist DoC, ARC and MAF in eradicating the Aussie invaders.
"The lorikeet may look cute but it has the potential to
become a major pest. You would think we would have learnt from the disastrous
importation of possums from Australia. It makes me angry that people would be
so foolish as to intentionally introduce this bird and release it with no care
for the consequences".
"The scientific evidence against the lorikeet is
compelling. They will drive out native tui and other endemic honeyeaters by
stealing their food and over time will take over nesting sites and territory.
They pose a further threat by introducing overseas bird diseases to our more
vulnerable native birds. The birds are also a major economic threat to apple
and pear orchardists. In Darwin up to 80 - 90% of tropical fruit crops are lost
to Rainbow Lorikeets."
"I am disappointed that an administrative oversight has
resulted in the Department failing to successfully prosecute the person
responsible for releasing lorikeets on the North Shore. Systems have been
corrected to ensure any future person will not get off. But our primary goal is
to get Aucklanders to understand the risk these birds pose to our native
wildlife".
"Birds like the kakariki and tui go to the core of what
it is to be a New Zealander. I don't want Auckland to become just another
Aussie city devoid of New Zealand bird life. If people want lorikeets they can
either have them in a cage or travel to Australia".
Officials from the Department of Conservation, the Ministry
of Agriculture and Forestry and the Auckland Regional Council are working
together to halt the threat from lorikeets. Reports from the public show that
the lorikeets are now widespread throughout the Auckland region. The
co-operation of landowners on the North Shore enabled a small flock of
lorikeets to be captured this morning.
The birds will be tested for diseases, offered to the zoo or
humanely put down. The Minister asked Aucklanders to assist in the challenge
before numbers grew to the point where control was impossible.
DOC PRESS RELEASE: 15 JULY 1999
Conservation Minister Nick Smith today announced
the classification of Australian rainbow lorikeets as an 'unwanted organism'
under the Biosecurity Act, and the approval of the Department of Conservation's
plan for rainbow lorikeet capture.
"Lorikeets are an unwelcome Aussie pest and pose a
serious threat to native birds like the tui, bellbird, stitchbird, parakeet and
kaka. Significant crop damage in Australia shows that the birds also pose an
economic threat to orchardists."
There are an estimated 200 rainbow lorikeets flying wild in
the Auckland area following the deliberate releases by a North Shore resident
over the last decade. The lorikeet capture plan has been developed by the
Department of Conservation, in collaboration with the Auckland Regional Council
and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. The Department will attempt to
recapture as many birds as possible using established techniques. The
recaptured birds will be made available to commercial aviculturists contracted
by the Department to find secure homes for the birds.
"Public support for the development of this plan has
been overwhelming. New Zealanders understand the serious threat that the
rainbow lorikeet poses to our native species. Even breeders, and those who keep
them as caged birds, accept that they have no place in the wild. I am
particularly concerned about the possibility that lorikeets could reach the
sensitive offshore islands that are important sanctuaries for our threatened
species."
A special exemption has been granted to enable responsible
owners to continue to keep lorikeets as caged birds. Stronger penalties now
exist for those who do not keep the birds in secure aviaries or who release
them into the wild. The rainbow lorikeet are also to be added to the Fifth
Schedule of the Wildlife Act 1953, joining species like magpies and ferrets as
not protected.
"Introduced species like possums, rabbits, stoats and
ferrets have proved to be an environmental disaster. Lorikeets have the
potential to be equally destructive. If Aucklanders are to hear the morning
song of the tui in the future, we must take action now to control the
lorikeets."
NZ HERALD REPORT May 12 2000
Rainbows'
end is a life sentence behind bars
12.05.2000 - By ANNE BESTON environment reporter
A raucous Australian interloper finally faces eviction from
Auckland after a court case and public outrage delayed it more than a year.
The colourful rainbow lorikeet, a native of Australia, is
being rounded up by Department of Conservation (DoC) staff after being released
here about seven years ago.
The department charged North Shore man Rex Gilfillan with
releasing 50 of the birds, but he escaped prosecution on a technicality.
He remains opposed to their removal, and bird-lovers rushed
to his support last year when the department killed 15 of the birds during a
trial eradication.
This time, DoC has decided the colourful parrots will not be
killed.
Instead, they will be sold to local caged-bird enthusiasts
and to exporters, who say there is a market for them in their homeland.
DoC spokesman Warwick Murray said the rainbow lorikeet
(Trichoglossus haematodus moluccanus) had been declared an unwanted organism under
the Biosecurity Act 1993. He believed that buyers could be found for all the
birds - believed to number more than 200.
The lorikeets are nectar-eaters and are found mainly on the
North Shore around Birkenhead, where they were originally released.
They have also been spotted on Waiheke Island and in
Henderson and Clevedon.
So far six birds have been captured in the latest round-up,
which started last month, said DoC's officer in charge of the operation, Paul
Keeling.
Sweet bread and fruit and caged "calling birds" are
used to lure the lorikeets into traps.
They sometimes swoop on their pursuers, but this was
"larrikin behaviour" rather than an attack, said Mr Keeling.
"They're pretty cheeky."
The director of the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society,
Kevin Smith, said the release of the lorikeets threatened our native
nectar-eaters such as tui.
The parrots should be captured while their numbers were still
relatively small, he said.
"If people love lorikeets so much, they should go to
Australia to see them."
-----//---
a modern witch hunt
by ROSEMARY LOW
In the league table of
countries world-wide with a high number of endangered bird species, New Zealand
comes 11th. But a sizeable proportion
of its unique endemic species are already extinct. By about 1600 the Moa had gone, along with the Giant Eagle and
about 32 other species. Since about
1840 ten more land birds have become extinct, including the Huia and the
Stephens Island Wren. These more recent
extinctions were mainly caused by the introduction of alien mammals such as
rats, cats and stoats and food competitors such as deer and brush-tailed
possums. Since 1840 more than 80 alien
species of mammals, birds and fish have become established in New Zealand.
As the native fauna
evolved in the absence of land mammals, bloodthirsty animals such as rats and
stoats caused the extinction of some species, while others, such as the Kakapo
are critically endangered and survive in very small numbers. In recent years the Department of
Conservation (DoC) has been acclaimed for its work in eradicating predators
from offshore islands, which have become intensively managed reserves for
endangered species.
Here they breed and
thrive in the absence of predatory introduced creatures such as rats, stoats,
ferrets and weasels which, of course, are unprotected species.
Nevertheless, it would
be quite within the law there to breed and release these pests.
Recently however,
another introduced species has been declared a pest in New Zealand, a species
which DoC considers potentially so deadly it has been designated as an
'unwanted organism' and unlike rats, stoats etc., is now covered by the Biosecurity
Act (1993). This means that if you
breed one of these infamous creatures and let it go, you could be jailed for a
year.
What manner of creature
could be accorded such status, more lethal than a stoat, a potential plague
species which (according to DoC) could carry disease like a rat? None other than
Australia's Rainbow
Lorikeet (Trichoglossus haematodus moluccanus) - one of the world's most
beautiful birds! Before you gasp with
incredulity, you will doubtless believe that DoC must have very good grounds
indeed. They have made the decision to
spend NZ$245,000 (approx. 74,240 pounds sterling) to trap and kill (by breaking
their necks or by lethal injection) and to poison and shoot the feral Rainbow
Lorikeets in the Auckland area.
In a 'fact' sheet issued
by DoC to justify their action they make various claims about Rainbow
Lorikeets:
1. They may carry avian disease ... salmonella,
avian cholera and avian TB.
2. They are prolific, with pairs known to rear
as many as three successive broods in one season.
3. The six or seven Rainbow Lorikeets released
in Perth in 1968 had expanded their numbers and range by the 1980s and had
become a nuisance. The same could happen
in New Zealand.
4. The lorikeets are aggressive and often
dominate all other birds trying to use the same food source.
5. Australian
horticulturists regard them as a significant pest. In Darwin, 80-90% of some tropical fruit crops are lost to Rainbow
Lorikeets.
6. Because
of their ability 'to travel' they pose a threat to species that can survive
only on the Hauraki Gulf islands, which have been cleared of predators.
Let us examine these
claims
1. They may carry disease. This is true of any bird. However, in February 1999 DoC trapped and
killed 17 Rainbow Lorikeets in Auckland.
According to the Rainbow Trust, an Organisation set up to put in
perspective the impact of these lorikeets in Auckland , not one of the birds
killed showed any trace of avian or human disease, nor any internal or external
parasites. The Trust asks why the
result of these postmortem examinations were not made public. As far as it is known, Rainbow Lorikeets are
no more susceptible to 'avian cholera' (caused by the bacterial organism
Pasteurella multocida) than any other
bird. This organism can affect most
types of birds; rodents and wild birds are important vectors for this disease.
2. They are prolific. Rainbow Lorikeets lay
two eggs in a clutch and might rear one or two youngsters in each clutch. Is there any evidence that they rear as many
as three clutches in New Zealand?
3. The birds, which have become established in
the Perth area, live in mature suburbia full of winter flowering trees. There is not enough food for them to live in
the new suburbs or in the native bush.
According to Professor Recher of Edith Curtin University in Perth “the
effect of the Rainbow Lorikeet on the avifauna of Perth is neutral”. No private or commercial fruit grower has
complained about the lorikeets to the Vertebrate Pest Officer.
4. Observations in New Zealand indicate that
small birds such as Bellbirds are ignored by the lorikeets and feed with
them. Indeed, they might benefit from
the protective presence of the lorikeets against aggression by the larger
Tuis. It has been suggested that this
could even help the Bellbird to restore the range it once had.
5. More than a slight degree of exaggeration
here. I have no figures for Darwin but
in the northern part of Australia, in the Northern Territory for example,
tropical fruit losses to flying pests average 2-3% and this includes fruit bat
damage. If losses were in the of 90%
fruit farmers have gone out of business or netted their crops years ago. In temperate areas of Australia, with a
climate not unlike that of Auckland, Rainbow Lorikeets have a negligible impact
on fruit or on other crops that are grown in New Zealand. As an example, in the Lenswood area of the
Adelaide Hills in Australia, crop damage reported by apple and pear growers
averages about 5%. Rosellas are the
worst pests, followed by Musk Lorikeets.
Rainbow Lorikeets are lesser pests.
The last time I was in the Auckland area, I saw feral Rosellas. How is it that this introduced parrot, along
with the feral Greater Sulphur Crested Cockatoos in the area, have escaped the
attentions of DoC?
6. If the Rainbow Lorikeets reached the
Hauraki Gulf islands they would pose a threat to the endangered species for
which these islands are a sanctuary.
This is a ridiculous claim because they would be unable to survive in
native bush. Pollen and nectar from
blossoms form about 90% of their diet.
They could not survive the winters in these islands any more than they
could live in Tasmania. In fact, the
native bush might not provide enough flower sources for them to survive the
summers, so they would soon return to the mainland.
When I first heard about
the campaign against the Rainbow Lorikeet in the Auckland area, my first
reaction was that there are as many introduced European birds to be seen in the
suburbs as native species. We are not
talking about an area of native habitat but one that has been totally altered
by man, by introduced exotic flora and fauna.
More than 1,600 species of introduced plants thrive in New Zealand
today.
If the Rainbow Lorikeets
had infiltrated island reserves and could thrive there, my reaction would be
that they must be eradicated at all costs, as a danger to the unique and
threatened endemic bird species.
Or if, even in the suburbs, the
lorikeets could have a serious impact on native birds by taking over their nest
sites, this could be cause for concern.
But four introduced hole-nesting species - Indian Mynahs, Rosellas,
Cockatoos and even Kookaburras - got there first! Indeed, it has even been suggested that by taking over nest holes
that the mynahs would otherwise be using, the lorikeets would be helping to
keep down these pests. But
realistically, there are not enough lorikeets to make an impact on the mynahs.
I deplore the liberation
of non- native species as their influence is rarely beneficial so I believe it
was an irresponsible act to liberate the lorikeets whose numbers have since
increased. On the other hand, some Australian birds have colonised New
Zealand's shores naturally. These
include Silver-eyes and White-faced Herons.
There are two aspects of
this story and DoC’s attitude to the Rainbow Lorikeets on which I would like to
comment. First, why has DoC chosen the
Rainbow Lorikeet as the subject of its witch-hunt when other animals are known
to have an extremely harmful or lethal impact on the native avifauna? There is no such proof in the case of the lorikeet.
Secondly, the sums of
money that DoC propose to spend on eradicating the lorikeets are nothing short
of scandalous. Last September DoC
advertised inviting applications for the position of Rainbow Lorikeet Project
Manager - a contract for a minimum of two years. The budgeted salary for this position was in the region of
NZ$58,000 (17,575 pounds) per year or $116,000 (35,150 pounds) for the two year
contract. On top of this is the sum of
nearly one quarter of a million dollars already mentioned which has been
budgeted for the killing of lorikeets.
How can DoC afford to squander such sums before it even has evidence
that the Rainbow Lorikeet is, or is potentially, such a dreadful menace?
The funds could surely
be used more appropriately to protect Kaka from stoats. In a recent published newsletter DoC stated
that Kaka chicks are likely to be at risk from stoat attacks this year, adding:
"We are in the luxurious position of having all the kaka nests monitored
and we will not allow more than two females to be lost. If this happens we will fall back on a
contingency of intensive trapping..." In other words, trapping will not be
a priority until two female Kakas have been killed. Given the small number of female Kakas of breeding age known to survive,
this policy seems incomprehensible.
How can DoC justify
spending or budgeting so much money on eradicating Rainbow Lorikeets yet leave
nesting Kakas to the mercy of stoats?
Furthermore, surely some
kind of lorikeet census should be carried out to confirm that this expenditure
is justified.
According to Rex
Gilfillan, who lives in Auckland, reported sightings in the Birkenhead area
that is at the centre of the controversy, have fallen drastically. On January 18 he sent me a fax to the effect
that the Birkenhead lorikeet population had fallen from 121 last year to 3 at
the present time. Some lorikeets may
live in areas outside Birkenhead but from his own experience he knows that the
birds in the area do not move far from an assured daily food source. Many reports of supposed Rainbow Lorikeets
actually refer to Eastern Rosellas.
Why is DoC conducting
this witch-hunt? The Rainbow Trust says
that the Department of Conservation calls this ‘protecting our
biodiversity'. Others call it a
prostitution of science.
In February the North
Shore Times Advertiser published the latest information from DoC as follows:
"DoC staff are
getting reports of lorikeets attacking native birds and gathering in flocks
around North Shore City.”
... Last year DoC backed
off plans to kill the birds and will now sell them to the bird industry, as a
way of recovering costs for the capture programme. Mr Keeling [the conservation officer] says only one capture of
the birds was made in Birkenhead last year and since then no further birds have
been caught. Mr Keeling describes the
DoC’s work as 'ground breaking' because it involves catching lorikeets in
suburban backyards. He says that DoC
now has two officers working on the lorikeet project and may employ a third
officer.
DoC will approach
colleges and schools with new fact sheets about the rainbow lorikeet programme
in the hope children will become an important source of information. Arborists and golf course managers will also
be given the information because they are also people likely to notice large
lorikeet flocks, says Mr Keeling."
So how many lorikeets
are there now in the Birkenhead- Northcote-Glenfield area? According to Rex
Gilfillan, who has closely monitored their numbers from the start of this
controversy, there are SIX!
I am asking WPT members
to make their views on this matter known by writing to the Hon Sandra Lee, The
Minister of Conservation, Beehive Suite 6.6, Parliament Buildings, Wellington,
New Zealand (fax number 64 4473 6118)
For further information
please contact The Rainbow Trust, PO Box 34-892 Birkenhead, New Zealand or
visit their web site at www.rainbow.org.nz
This article was
reproduced from PsittaScene Volume 12, No 1, February 2000 thanks to the World
Parrot Trust.
To briefly cover the
issues from the Rainbow Trust perspective, the following are extracts from
their website at: www.rainbow.org.nz.
Visit the site for a much more in depth view of the research that the author
has gone into to support his view that the humble rainbow lorikeet poses no
threat whatsoever on the New Zealand environment.
Rainbow Lorikeets
THE (TRUE) FACTS ABOUT THE RAINBOW
LORIKEET
AN UNWANTED ORGANISM
To exert
their power over Birkenhead citizens who have witnessed the behaviour of the
Rainbow Lorikeet with Tui and other birds, and who have the temerity to write
to newspapers asking if DoC really knows what it is doing, the Department has
been finally reduced to invoking the sledgehammer of the Biosecurity Act to
well and truly flatten this fly.
In doing
so they have elevated the Rainbow Lorikeet to an extraordinary peak of infamy,
its special status as an "unwanted organism" now more dangerous than
Rats, Stoats, Ferrets, and Weasels, all of which are merely unprotected. How
then did DoC come to this ludicrous conclusion?
Dr G
Hicks, the Chief Scientific Officer of DoC said in the NZ Gazette 15 July 1999:
"I hereby determine that the organism Rainbow Lorikeet are (sic) unwanted
organisms for the purposes of the Biosecurity Act (1993) as I believe that they
are capable or potentially capable of causing unwanted harm to indigenous flora
and fauna".
Obviously Dr Hicks formed his
belief from reading the Rainbow Lorikeet Fact Sheet.
What indigenous flora?
No
previous claim has been made by DoC that Rainbow Lorikeets have ever damaged
any native plant. The evidence presented above shows that Rainbow lorikeets
have a diet of 87% to 95% pollen and nectar mostly from Eucalypts in their
natural range, with the remainder being insects and fruit. In Australia they
are one of the major pollinators of Eucalypts, while in New Zealand they are no
doubt efficient pollinators of our urban Pohutukawa and Rata, both having
similar flowers to Eucalypts. What harm to what indigenous flora?
What about
the fruit?
As shown
above, DoC scientists had already invented enough "facts" on damage
to commercial fruit crops in Australia to make Rainbow Lorikeets an unwanted
organism purely on the basis of a threat to our fruit export trade alone. That
is after all one of the major purposes of the Biosecurity Act. Unaccountably
the Lorikeet has been deemed an undesirable organism not on account of harm to
introduced flora, but for harm to indigenous flora. An examination of the
evidence laid before Dr Hick in this regard should prove truly fascinating.
But the
Minister of Conservation has not completely forgotten his earlier astounding
claims about fruit damage - in his news release with the Gazette order (Smith
1999b), Dr Nick Smith is still raving that the birds "pose a serious
economic threat to orchardists". At least this claim is a little less
rabid than his earlier claim that " in Darwin 80-90% of tropical fruit
crops are lost to Rainbow Lorikeets" (Smith 1999a).
What
indigenous fauna?
As
Aristotle understood so long ago, the only bird at risk from Rainbow Lorikeets
is other Rainbow Lorikeets. Unfortunately his simple principle appears to be
not yet understood either by the scientists of Department of Conservation, or
by the voices from Forest and Bird.
What about
the disease threat to humans?
Not
mentioned: presumably there is now no further need for that propaganda.
DoCs only possible reason?
Rainbow
Lorikeets are foreign - possibly even worse to some minds - they are
Australian.
But this
fails to take into account that many of our "native" birds are
Australian, some of these being very new: Silver-eyes, White-faced Herons, and
Spur-winged Plovers all became established after the arrival of Captain Cook
and Joseph Banks but are still natives by definition. And if Rainbow Lorikeets
had arrived in New Zealand of their own accord, they too would be natives.
DoC has
now budgeted $245,000 over three years for trapping or quietly poisoning this
harmless bird, one of the most beautiful and intelligent birds in the world, an
inspiration to all who behold it.
The
Department of Conservation calls this "protecting our biodiversity".
Others
call it as a prostitution of science.
Rainbow Lorikeets
THE (TRUE) FACTS ABOUT THE RAINBOW
LORIKEET
The evidence
presented above and in the accompanying reports and references on the Rainbow
Lorikeet shows the following:
The
Rainbow Lorikeets on the North Shore have been shown (by DoC) to be free of
disease, and internal and external parasites, and hence pose no disease threat
to NZ native birds or humans.
Rainbow
Lorikeets feed almost exclusively on pollen and nectar from flowering trees,
which in Australia make up 90% of its diet.
Lorikeets
are anatomically modified to suit this diet: the tongue is primarily adapted to
harvesting pollen with nectar as a secondary source of food, the gizzard is not
muscular, and the gut is short.
As
Rainbow Lorikeets are anatomically suited only to this diet they have never
been able to naturally colonise any area of Australia which can not provide a
year round supply of flowering trees such as the desert areas, Western
Australia, and Tasmania, which has forests closely related to the Gondwana
derived bush in New Zealand. As the NZ native bush has as few winter flowering
trees as the wet forests of Tasmania, the Rainbow Lorikeet has no more chance
of living and breeding in the NZ bush than it has ever shown over tens of
thousands of years in Tasmania.
As
the Rainbow Lorikeets can not survive in the NZ bush, they cannot on this account
pose a threat to NZ birds which live and breed there, and that is without
considering the erroneous claims of adverse interspecific competition
discounted above.
Rainbow
Lorikeets have increased in a number of Australian cities due to increased
planting of flowering trees in the last several decades. It is likely that
Rainbow Lorikeets may also survive in urban areas in the warmer north of NZ but
only in those planted with a wide variety of mature exotic flowering trees
which provide a year round source of food, but even so may still need
supplemental feeding.
Evidence
shows that in Australia the Rainbow Lorikeet does not compete to the detriment
of any other parrot, any large or small Honeyeater, or has any noticeable
effect on any other species of native bird and there is no evidence to show
that their behaviour in New Zealand to any native bird which lives in the urban
area could or would be any different.
In
particular there is no evidence to show that Rainbow Lorikeets have had any
effect on Tui populations on the North Shore, and evidence from Australian
urban situations indicate that populations of both Rainbow Lorikeets and larger
Honeyeaters similar to the Tui have greatly increased due to increased urban
planting of flowering trees.
NZ
Honeyeaters such the Tui, Bellbird and Stitchbird have been resident
sufficiently long in New Zealand to adapt their diet to insects to survive
through the New Zealand winter without flowering trees as have done the
Honeyeaters of Tasmania.
In
Australia, nil to negligible damage is caused to temperate fruit crops by
Rainbow Lorikeets, whereas considerable damage is caused to these crops by
Rosellas, Blackbirds, Starlings, and White-eyes, birds already present
throughout New Zealand. As it is likely that similar damage will be caused by
the same species to the same crops in New Zealand, then the Rainbow Lorikeet
poses no threat to fruit growers in New Zealand.
Rainbow Lorikeets
THE (TRUE) FACTS ABOUT THE RAINBOW
LORIKEET
Conclusion
DoC could have told the simple
truth: that any new introduction is unpredictable in effect, and not desirable
on that account alone. But perhaps that was not sufficiently convincing. It
seems that the very paucity of adverse data about the Rainbow Lorikeet in the
published literature has led to the use of exaggeration and invention by the
author(s) of the Department of Conservations Fact Sheet.
This
biased and untruthful propaganda has been successful in alarming and terrifying
the public about the potential danger of Rainbow Lorikeets to fruit crops, to
native birds through competition, and to both birds and humans through disease.
The same
message has been parroted by a number of "authorities" and
politicians who show only they have not researched their subject.
This
mounting hysteria has resulted in a modern witch-hunt against the Rainbow
Lorikeet. That ignorance resulted in persecution in 17th century Salem may be
excusable, but it is shameful to find the same ignorance still flourishing in
the Department of Conservation in the 20th century.
The
Department has an immediate responsibility to report the true facts about the
Rainbow Lorikeet: in distributing the Rainbow Lorikeet Fact Sheet both in
printed from and on the Internet, they are continuing to seriously mislead the
public.
That
scientists in important and responsible Government positions should fail to
adequately research and correctly analyse such readily available data can only
lead to reduced public confidence in future decisions by the Department of
Conservation.
There is
unfortunately an even greater concern: if this same appalling level of
expertise and competence is also being applied to the understanding and
conservation of our native birds, we should be truly worried for their future.
"The
deficiencies of advice seem inexplicable except on the basis of a departmental
desire to achieve the purported outcome . . ."
These
words form part of Judge Andersons judgement of 12 March 1999 against the
Minister of Conservation in the High Court case over the reserve status of the
Calliope naval land on North Shore.
Nothing
new.
YOU BE THE JUDGE!!!!