Roger Jaensch,Minister for the Environment
On World Environment Day the Tasmanian Liberal Government continues to celebrate the many significant milestones of our highly successful Orange-bellied Parrot Program, with the 2020-21 breeding season being one of records.
The 2020-21 breeding season saw almost 200 birds departing Melaleuca to migrate north at the end of the breeding season, the most since monitoring began in the early 1990s.
Records were also set in the Department's captive breeding program as a result of our $2.5 million purpose-built facility at Five Mile Beach, which doubled Tasmania's captive breeding capacity.
Tasmania maintains the largest captive insurance population in the country, with the Five Mile Beach facility able to hold more than 250 birds.
The captive breeding program produced 146 fledglings during the breeding season, 41 more than the previous record. This success meant 50 juveniles could be taken from the insurance population and released at Melaleuca to join the migrating flock.
Migrating birds have been reported in several mainland locations so far this winter, including a wild-born juvenile spotted in Coorong National Park in South Australia, the first time an Orange-bellied Parrot has been confirmed in the park for about eight years.
Program staff have done an amazing job over the years and the continued success of the program is a testament to the hard work and dedication of the team to maintain a strong insurance population and supplement the wild population with captive-bred birds.
The Tasmanian Government is an integral member of the Orange-bellied Parrot National Recovery Team, which draws on the expertise from a range of experts and jurisdictions to support recovery.
