The prospect of extinction exercised the minds of early twentieth-century Australian ornithologists. By the turn of the twentieth century, the species had dwindled to the point that many feared it might not survive. But the transformations wrought by colonists, probably including the changed fire regimes consequent upon Indigenous dispossession, were deadly to the Paradise Parrot. Gilbert acquired his specimen on the Darling Downs where the bird was then reasonably numerous. Translates as “multicoloured and superlatively beautiful”. Specimen in 1844, was so awed by its beauty that he asked to have it named after himself. His employer, John Gould, declined, instead naming it Psephotus pulcherrimus, which roughly The species has always been special to those who saw it. John Gilbert, who collected the first Today, it has the unenviable status of being the only mainland Australian bird species listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as extinct. More sightings were made in the Gayndah district in the 1920s, but the Paradise Parrot has not been reliably recorded since the end of that decade. It put an end to several decades of fears that the species may be extinct.īut not for long. This year marks the one hundredth anniversary of the rediscovery of the Paradise Parrot. Prompted by amateur ornithologist Alec Chisholm, a grazier named Cyril Jerrard identified a pair of Paradise Parrots on his property near Gayndah, Queensland, on 11 December 1921.
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