Are King-Parrots Endangered? Two Opinions

Are King-Parrots Endangered? Two Opinions

The third bottle of a very nice Barossa Shiraz was making a strong case for itself on the table between them. Outside, the Adelaide Hills were doing that soft, purple dusk thing that made even the most cynical ornithologist feel a bit poetic. Inside, however, the conversation had taken a sharp turn into the absurd.

“All I’m saying,” said Dr. Helen Thorne, her words slightly slurred, “is that the numbers are concerning. Habitat fragmentation, climate change pushing them out of their traditional ranges, increased competition… the Australian King Parrot is a bird under pressure.”

Her companion, Dr. Kenji Tanaka, snorted into his glass. “Pressure? Helen, they’re fine. They’re

basically the suburban dads of the bird world. They turn up, they eat your roses, they yell at their kids, and they leave. They’re not endangered. They’re annoying.”

“That’s a very unscientific assessment,” Helen countered, pointing a wobbly finger at him. “You’re not looking at the big picture.”

“Oh, I’m looking at the big picture,” Kenji said, leaning forward with the gravitas of a man about to deliver a profound truth. “I’m looking at the real picture. You want to know if King Parrots are endangered? Let me ask you this, Helen. How many King Parrots are victims of carjacking?”

Helen blinked. “What?”

“Carjacking,” Kenji repeated, as if it were the most logical metric in the world. “Very few. Statistically negligible. You don’t see a Kingie at a set of traffic lights in a stolen Hyundai, do you? No. They’re not cut out for that life.”

Australianbirdguide - Are King Parrots Endangered?

“Kenji, what on earth are you talking about?”

He ignored her, his eyes wide with inebriated revelation. “Home invasions? Almost none. They might fly in through an open window for a biscuit, but that’s not a home invasion, that’s a burglary with wings. It’s not organized crime. Roid rage?” He pulled out his phone, squinting at it. “Let me look it up… ‘King Parrot steroid abuse’… nothing. Nada. Surprising, really, with all that aggression at the bird feeder. But no. They’re clean.”

Helen stared at him, her mouth slightly agape. “You’ve lost the plot. You’ve completely and utterly lost the plot.”

“And identity theft!” Kenji declared, jabbing his phone for emphasis. “Well, they do all look kinda similar…”

The sentence hung in the air. Helen’s face, flushed from the wine, went through a series of complex emotions before settling on righteous indignation. “You can’t say that!” she sputtered. “That’s… that’s Racist! Er… Featherist! Er… Birdist! Ornithologist!”

https://sites.google.com/view/birds-of-australia/is-the-king-parrot-endangered

Kenji waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, don’t be so politically correct. It’s a legitimate observation. The females are different, sure. But the males? All a sea of red and green. You tell me you can definitively pick out Kevin from the bunch without a leg band. You can’t. It’s a security nightmare.”

“This is the most ridiculous argument I have ever heard!” Helen stood up, swaying slightly. “You’re trivializing a serious ecological issue with… with bird crime statistics!”

“I’m using a holistic, multi-disciplinary approach to conservation assessment,” Kenji said, tapping his temple. “You’re stuck in the old ways. You see a declining number in a specific, poorly-surveyed region and you hit the panic button. I’m looking at the species’ overall resilience. And what does the data tell me? They are not, as a demographic, predisposed to grand theft auto, domestic terrorism, or financial fraud. Ergo, they are not endangered.”

“That’s not how ‘ergo’ works!” Helen practically shouted. “Endangerment is about population size, range, and threats like land clearing, not their proclivity for white-collar crime!”

“It’s about danger, Helen!” Kenji shot back, finally losing his cool. “You say they’re in danger. I say: where’s the danger? Show me the danger! Is it the terrifying threat of a King Parrot getting a subprime mortgage? Is it the scourge of King Parrot insider trading? No! The danger is you seeing a problem where there isn’t one!”

“The danger is you being too drunk to remember what a habitat is!”

They glared at each other, the air thick with wine fumes and mutual exasperation. The intellectual chasm between them had never seemed wider. Helen saw a fragile creature facing a thousand cuts from human expansion. Kenji, in his current state, saw a robust, if slightly larcenous, survivor that had somehow managed to avoid the pitfalls of modern society that plagued so many other species.

Finally, Kenji broke the silence. He picked up the bottle, refilling both their glasses with a surprisingly steady hand.

“Look,” he said, his voice softer. “I’ll concede that they face local pressures. I will. But endangered? No. Not yet. They’re too… sensible. Too boring. They’re not the type to get mixed up in anything truly dangerous.”

Helen sat back down, accepting the glass. She took a long sip, the fight draining out of her. “You’re a menace, Kenji Tanaka.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_king_parrot

“I’m a realist,” he said, a small smile playing on his lips. “And a realist knows that the King Parrot is far more likely to be a victim of a cat, a car, or a grumpy gardener than it is of a violent home invasion or a sophisticated identity theft ring. The data is clear.”

Helen shook her head, a reluctant smile finally breaking through. “I’m going to pretend this entire conversation never happened.”

“Probably for the best,” Kenji agreed, raising his glass. “To the King Parrot. May it continue to live a life of mundane, law-abiding obscurity.”

“To the King Parrot,” Helen echoed, clinking her glass against his. “And to you, my friend, who is a very, very silly man.”

https://www.facebook.com/people/Australian-Bird-Guide/61585402364385/

In the gathering darkness of the Adelaide Hills, two ornithologists drank to a bird that was, depending on your perspective and blood alcohol level, either a species on the brink or a perfectly respectable, non-carjacking member of society. The truth, as always, was likely somewhere in between.