Leave the twitchers alone

Phil a couple of answers to your comments. We don’t know where the birds are or where they go to. You mightn’t know but others certainly do, and isn’t that what they are working on now, the movements of the birds ? How would you make a fence big enough to keep the birds in ? They built a 6 ft fence 5500 km long in 1880 and it at one stage was 8600km long. The fence wouldn’t be to keep the birds in it would be there to keep the predators and people out. How would we make it small enough to know there are no cats in already ? Least of their problems, how do you think they eliminated the cats out of the Bilby compound, the problem is the cats that replace the exterminated ones and that is where the fence comes in. Poaching. There is no market for it ??? There will never be a market for a species that is thought to be extinct, but don’t kid yourself there is not one now. Why did the articles say a clutch of eggs would be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars ? Imagine what the rarest parrot in the world would bring in $ if put on display in London. New York or Holland ? You could name your price at the door. There are more appealing parrots than that. The rarest parrot in the world not appealing ? Why is every birdie in Australia breaking their neck to see one ? There are plenty of common and otherwise rare species that are much prettier and more visible. Phil all the prettier Australian Parrots are now common overseas and most are now a dime a dozen due to the unlimited trapping years ago and the smuggling over the last 40 years. Hundreds of thousands of native finches and tens of thousands of parrots left this country due to slack border controls during the 60s and 70s Trapping wasn’t stopped in W A till the mid 60s and a trapper I met was netting 1200 Gouldian’s and a similar number or Pictorella’s a day at $ 12 each, good money in those days and they were certainly not all ending up in the domestic market. And they were being sent overseas in the simples fashion. Being pretty is in the eyes of the beholder and I would describe the Night Parrot as a very pretty bird in its own way. Barney