Cursed lorikeets

Forest and Bird, Issue 293, 1 August 1999, Page 3

Cursed lorikeets

—Gordon Ell

Your feature "The Curse of the Lorikeet’ raises relevant issues about the release of caged birds, such as the rainbow lorikeet, into the wild. (Forest & Bird, May 1999). But with self-introduced birds the issue is not so clear-cut. The author certainly doesn’t make it any clearer. On the one hand he suggests that many of our bird species, now considered native, at some point came from elsewhere, filling some empty gaps. He then says we should be cautious in accepting self-estab-lishing natives. Why now should we be selective, when this process has always been occurring? Is this not a contradiction? If new birds are filling empty niches is this not a good thing, that nature is working actively to repair itself? Is it that there is a red patch on the neck of many conservationists that they think that heavyhanded control of nature is still the way? If it is successful and aggres-

sive or unattractive get rid of it? James Drummond, an early naturalist, sums up the issue well, writing of introduced birds in 1907: ‘Inquiries have failed to bring out any evidence of a determined or concerted plan on the part of the introduced birds to attack and drive away the native birds. He goes on to say ‘the native birds would have retreated in the same way even if English birds had not been introduced, and respondents to his questionnaire noted ‘modern civilisation, ‘bush clearing; ‘rabbits, dogs, guns, cats and stoats and weasels’ as the main reason for decline. Scott Butcher, Christchurch. The article raised questions which need debate: is a self-introduced species which destroys rare birds peculiar to New Zealand to be automatically protected or not? The problem occurs with other self-introductions, for example in the insect world, but unlike birds

these don’t have automatic protec-

tion under statute.