Help Us Record Swiftie Families This Summer!

UPDATE: We're approaching halfway! 

 

We're so grateful to the community of people from across lutruwita/Tasmania, Australia, and this special planet we're on who have joined us in this project. We're almost halfway to purchasing these bio-acoustic recorders, which means we're almost halfway to putting our plan to protect critical habitat into action. 

 

 

 

These bio-acoustic recorders (example shown above) will supercharge our ability to record Swift Parrots in their nesting hollows. Currently we are standing out there in the rain, hail, shine, and snow (all in one day!) with microphones, which limits what we're able to do. Deploying four of these bio-acoustic recorders will allow us to record for days at a time in different locations, and to be able to process hundreds of hours of data in minutes to pinpoint exactly when and where Swift Parrots have been calling. With this data, we can prove how important this area is to the ongoing survival of the Swift Parrot and engage with government, regulatory bodies, timber buyers, and the community in protecting it for good. 

 

Thank you for your support - it means the world to us (and the swifties!). 

 

 

 

Can you help us save Swift Parrot families and their homes this summer? We need $5000 to buy bio-acoustic recorders to record swift parrot nestlings calling to their parents, to prove how important this area is for their survival. 

 

The Swift Parrot is an incredible bird. Each year they fly across Bass Strait to the tall forests of lutruwita/Tasmania to bring the next generation of their species to life. They do this nowhere else on Earth but here. What a great privilege for us who also live here. And what a great responsibility too. For decades now, a politically-driven logging quota has seen much of the Swift Parrot habitat flattened. This year is no different.

 

 

Dozens of logging coupes that contain critical habitat are on the chopping block in an area West of nipaluna/Hobart that encompasses the Denison Valley, Barnback Ridge, and Russell River areas on Melukerdee country. These areas contain significant stands of nesting and foraging habitat, and some of the largest stands of Blue Gums on the planet. Successive governments have mismanaged native forests since colonization, and despite the presence of Swift Parrots throughout these forests they are not formally considered an important breeding area. There is still time to save these ecosystems which are critically important to the survival of the Swift Parrot, but we must act now. 

 

 

Our citizen-science community has been surveying these areas for twelve months, marking out potential nest sites and foraging trees and paying close attention to the flowering gums on which the Swift Parrot relies. With the help of the community we'll be able to definitively record Swift Parrots families in their nests with bio-acoustic recorders. Confirming these nest-sites will prove it to be an important breeding area worth saving, while the longer work of full protection of habitat and land returns to traditional owners carries on.

 

We're seeking $5000 to purchase four bio-acoustic recorders. With these, we can record the sites being used by this generation of Swift Parrot parents to raise their young, and protect them from logging.

 

Can you help us?