Experts say it’s only luck that the rose-ringed parakeet (Psittacula krameri), native to Africa and the Indian subcontinent and now the “most common invasive parrot on the planet”, hasn’t yet become established in the wild here in Australia.
But, as the species wreaks havoc across parts of the Northern Hemisphere, Australia’s Invasive Species Council is warning the imminent arrival of highly pathogenic bird flu could be a catalyst for the parakeet becoming our country’s next big pest invader.
Anarchy in the UK?
According to urban myth, ’60s counterculture icon Jimi Hendrix released a pair of pet rose-ringed parakeets named Adam and Eve in swinging London’s Carnaby Street in 1968.
Today, an estimated 50,000 or more of the feral parrots – sometimes also called Indian ringnecks or ringneck parakeets – crowd out the United Kingdom’s native birds and paint the skies green. And Hendrix is often blamed for beginning it all.
But this story is apocryphal, at least as far as the parrots’ British origins are concerned. So is the one about Humphrey Bogart, Katherine Hepburn, and the parrots released from the film set of the famed 1951 movie The African Queen . . .not to mention the one about a drunken, aviary-damaging punch up between George Michael and Boy George.
Pet owner ‘panic’
The true story of this parrot species’ establishment in the UK is far more banal, but it serves as a stark warning to Australia.
Research published in 2019 in the Journal of Zoology used a technique called geographic profiling to determine the historic patterns of distribution of the birds and found the most likely explanation was pet owner “panic”.
The study found that a series of inflammatory newspaper articles in the late 1920s and early ’30s that warned of human deaths from psittacosis or ‘parrot flu’, led worried bird owners to release avian pets en masse across Britain.
A second outbreak of psittacosis in the early 1950s and another spike in newspaper reports is thought to have catalysed a further wave of mass releases, reinforcing the establishment of wild populations.
“[Pet owners] released their birds because they didn’t want to get sick,” explains Lyall Grieve, a biosecurity analyst with Australia’s Invasive Species Council.
Currently, an unknown number of rose-ringed parakeets are kept as pets around Australia, but it’s likely to at least be in the thousands. Lyall says more needs to be done to educate bird owners about what to do with their pets in the event of an H5 bird flu outbreak.
“You can see how quickly stories spread on social media. It won’t take much for people to panic about a disease outbreak, especially after having been through the COVID pandemic,” he says.
“So, we want to make sure that bird owners in Australia who do have potentially invasive parrots in captivity don’t panic, don’t see the wrong information, and don’t do the wrong thing.”
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‘Almost impossible to stop’ once established
Salit Kark is a professor of conservation and environmental science at The University of Queensland. Her research group has worked extensively on the impact of introduced birds on Australia’s native species, including birds like the rose-ringed parakeet that nest in hollows.
Salit says it’s probably just luck that rose-ringed parakeets haven’t already become established here, given how many instances of escaped pets there have been.
The Atlas of Living Australia – a publicly accessible database – collates distribution data for wildlife in Australia. It documents that there are have been about 800 sightings of the birds in the wild here since 2007.
But the actual number that have escaped is likely to be much higher. Wild-born parakeets are typically green in appearance, but in captivity they’ve been bred in variations of blue, yellow, turquoise, white and olive, making identification confusing.
A 2016 paper published in Biological Invasions gathered evidence from multiple sources including lost pet websites and found there were at least 864 parakeet incursions – mostly escaped pets – into the wild between 1999 and 2013.
If the species was to become established, it would have the potential for significant economic and ecological impact, Salit warns.
“They are the most common invasive parrot on the planet. They are a huge risk,” she says.
“Where they’ve established, they cause a lot of damage. They’re a huge agricultural pest. They like sunflower seeds and lots of other [seed crops] as well. They like fruits [and] grapes.”
She says the best chance to stop an invasion of the birds is right now, before it’s too late.
“The risk is in that transition between introduction to the wild, which is happening all the time in Australia, and the next phase, which is establishment,” Salit explains.
“Once they’re established, they’re very quick, smart, assertive animals, it’s going to be almost impossible to stop them.”
And that’s exactly what has happened in the Americas and across Europe.
“They’re everywhere. Even in cold places like Paris and London and Berlin [and] Mediterranean places like Madrid, even Jerusalem. They’re in the United Arab Emirates, they’re everywhere,” Salit says.
Regulations for trading the species in Australia vary by state, but across most of the country it’s able to be traded with little restriction. A quick search online shows rose-ringed parakeets for sale in most states and territories.
“It’s a very bad idea to trade them,” Salit says. “And it’s not just them, there are other [invasive parrot] species [traded here too].
“We’ve got to prevent the spread. We’ve got to prevent the introduction to the wild and educate people.”
Why haven’t they established here yet?
Pest introductions are rarely straightforward. For animals to colonise a new habitat there needs to be, at a minimum, a breeding pair or several breeding pairs. Those need to find each other at the right time and in the right seasonal conditions, and their offspring need to survive and multiply.
It can take numerous introductions before the stars align and numbers take off.
According to Western Australia’s Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD), about 25 parakeets were removed from the wild between 2005 and 2007 in the state. At least two of the groups had reportedly bred.
So, we know the species can reproduce in the wild here.
Again in Western Australia, where the species is considered an “extreme” establishment threat, and where importing and trading it is restricted, 20 birds escaped an aviary in 2017, with 13 remaining unaccounted for.
Salit says she hopes the aggression of Australia’s birds, which is a unique trait among our species, is helping keep an outbreak of the parakeets at bay.
“There’s nothing like it anywhere else on the planet. [Australian birds are] the most aggressive bunch of birds,” she explains.
But if the parakeets are able to outcompete our natives, it could be ecologically catastrophic, not just for Australian parrots and hollow-nesting animals, but for the services they provide ecosystems.
“People don’t realise the huge issues and risks to biodiversity,” Salit says.
“Australia has so many amazing native parrots. They’re very important for pollination of our trees. Australia is one of the only places on the planet where you see large birds eating nectar.
“It’s very rare for birds to pollinate in general.”
Government department proposes removal of parakeet from Live Import List
Australia is currently the only continent free from the highly pathogenic H5 avian influenza strain. New Zealand also has not yet had a case. But it’s widely accepted it’s only a matter of when, not if, the disease will arrive.
Educating the public before it arrives is essential to help reduce the risk of a repeat of the UK parakeet scenario, says the Invasive Species Council’s Lyall Grieve.
The federal government has recently announced $100 million in funding to “prepare and protect the nation against the potential arrival of H5 avian influenza”.
A spokesperson for the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) says $10 million of that was “to support nationally coordinated communications that provide clear, trusted, and consistent messaging for stakeholders and the Australian public regarding H5 bird flu”.
The spokesperson said that steps can be taken to protect pet birds, including not letting wild birds and pets interact, keeping wild birds away from feed and water containers, and keeping aviaries and equipment clean.
Lyall says he applauds the federal funding, but that he’s not seeing enough evidence of clear public outreach so far.
“The funding we’ve seen now committed by the government is fantastic. We see that some of it is being allocated to some kind of communications package,” he says.
“But we really want to make sure that’s a comprehensive one that is going to communities, not just industry, not just poultry, but to people who own birds that pose a risk.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) says rose-ringed parakeets are classified as an “extreme threat by the Environment and Invasives Committee”.
“The department recognises that some psittacine specimens on the Live Import List have the potential to become highly invasive in Australia and may carry diseases that could impact native threatened species, the spokesperson says.
“The ring-necked parakeet can cause significant harm to grain crops, oil-seed crops, fruits and vegetable crops in their native range, and are a known pest of multiple commodities currently grown in Australia, such as cereals, vegetables, citrus fruit and grapes. It is for this reason the department proposes to remove it from the Live Import List.”
