‘Watching extinction in real time’: conservationists losing hope for Australia’s swift parrot if logging continues

‘No time to waste.’ Conservationists say ending logging and ‘permanently protecting remaining breeding habitat in Tasmania’ could save the critically endangered swift parrot. Photograph: Alamy

“They’re really cute. They are very chatty. When they’re around you know they’re around,” says conservation scientist Giselle Owens. “They make this little flying call – it goes ‘pip, pip, pip, pip’.”

So fascinated was Owens by the critically endangered swift parrot, she is writing a PhD on the bird, which is one of just two migratory parrot species in the world, and the farthest flying.