One of Australia's rarest and most elusive species has been caught on camera in a remote part of the outback -- a rare sighting that marks a major milestone in its preservation.
After remaining unseen for over a century, it was rediscovered in 2013. Today, one of the few surviving populations of the night parrot is found at Pullen Pullen Special Wildlife Reserve in western Queensland, on Maiawali Country -- the exact location has been kept secret.
Conservationists say the sightings are so rare, the bird has "only ever been captured on trail cameras a handful of times". "Three of those have been out at Bush Heritage Australia's Pullen Pullen Reserve," ecologist and night parrot specialist Nick Leseberg said this week.
The night parrot has been listed as critically endangered, the most severe classification before a species is declared extinct. The bird, which was only rediscovered 12 years ago, was among 19 animals and plants added or uplisted on the federal government's ballooning list of thousands of threatened species and ecosystems.
Night parrot numbers plummeted in the 19th and 20th centuries from Australia's arid zones as feral predators spread and pastoralists destroyed its native grasslands.
Since then, just a handful of populations have been discovered, and many of the locations are being kept hidden to ensure the birds aren't disturbed. The species was listed as endangered until September 5, when it was uplisted to critically endangered. Up-to-date conservation advice was assessed, and it was confirmed there was a "very low number" of mature individuals left.
Today, it's estimated there could be as few as 100 night parrots left in the world and no more than 550. Because the night parrot is so rare, few people alive have seen one.
As a keen twitcher, BirdLife Australia's Sean Dooley has personally seen between 760 and 770 of the nation's bird species. "There's only about five land birds I haven't seen, and the night parrot is one of them," he told Yahoo News last week.
The Biodiversity Council describes Australia as a "mega-biodiverse" region, shaped by millions of years of geographical isolation. But alongside this richness is a troubling reality -- Australia has one of the worst records for biodiversity loss.
Critics argue governments are failing to protect native species, with the World Wildlife Fund's latest report card giving federal and state authorities an 'F' grade. Since the first report card in 2022, more than 160 species have been added to the threatened list, bringing the total number of plants, animals and ecological communities at risk of extinction to over 2000.
The not-for-profit group Bush Heritage Australia believes the purchase of special parcels of land to become exclusive conservation zones is one major way to halt the trend.
Pullen Pullen Special Wildlife Reserve is one of them. Since purchasing the reserve, Bush Heritage has been working closely to study the elusive night parrot to better understand its ecology and how best to protect it.
"The two major reasons for biodiversity decline to date have been land clearing," Freshwater and wetlands ecologist Dean Gilligan said. "A lot of it happened very early on with European colonisation and settlement, where selectors and squatters opened up the land for agriculture, but it's still happening today,"
"The land clearing rates in Queensland and New South Wales are still very, very high. On top of land clearing, the second most important reason for species loss is invasive species, and so when you purchase the land, you've still got to implement those weed and pest animal control programs."