By David Waugh, Correspondent, Loro Parque Fundación
Malherbe’s Parakeet (Cyanoramphus malherbi) was described in 1857 and named after M. de Malherbe, a benefactor of the Metz Museum, France. The type specimen was at the museum in 1891, but lamentably now cannot be found. Even worse, this ‘Critically Endangered’ parakeet of New Zealand is teetering on the brink of extinction, now only occurring in three southern beech (Nothofagus spp.) forest valleys in the South Island. As a conservation measure, populations have been established on four smaller offshore islands which are predator-free.
Introduced predators, principally stoats (Mustela erminea) and rats (Rattus spp), are almost certainly the main cause of the parakeet’s decline. Furthermore, there might be insufficient nest holes due to forestry harvesting policy and heavy browsing by cattle and introduced wild herbivores alters the parakeet’s foraging areas. Psittacine Beak and Feather Disease might also be a problem. To this litany of threats, two natural hazards have just been flagged. According to a recent study*, Malherbe’s Parakeet is exposed to earthquakes and tsunamis (tidal waves)!
The study explores the global overlap between species distributions and the occurrences of four natural hazards: earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, and volcanoes. All things being equal, species have evolved resistance to natural hazards, but life becomes more difficult when they are also faced with detrimental direct and indirect human impacts. In fact, the study underscores that the ongoing extinction wave of animal species on the planet is overwhelmingly a consequence of human activities. But it also raises the often-overlooked question of how much more susceptible to extinction through natural hazards the species with restricted distributions or populations with few mature individuals might be.