1Introduction

1 Introduction

This document constitutes the National Recovery Plan for the Swift Parrot (Lathamus discolor). The plan considers the conservation requirements of the species across its range and identifies the actions needed to improve the species’ long-term viability. This recovery plan supersedes the 2011 National Recovery Plan for the Swift Parrot (Saunders and Tzaros 2011).

The Swift Parrot is listed as Critically Endangered under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). It was listed as Endangered under the EPBC Act in 2000, however the listing status of the Swift Parrot was re-assessed in 2016 due to new information showing a significant threat from predation of females and nestlings by the introduced (to Tasmania) Sugar Glider (Petaurus breviceps) (Stojanovic et al. 2014).

Sugar Glider impacts in Tasmania are compounding and adding to the already recognised threats to the Swift Parrot, including habitat loss and alteration and Australia’s changing climate. The re-assessment concluded that the risk posed by this previously unidentified threat was significant enough to justify moving the species from the Endangered category to the Critically Endangered category of the EPBC Act list of threatened species. The re-assessment also concluded that the recovery plan should be updated to include measures to reduce the impact of Sugar Gliders.

The 2011 Recovery Plan was reviewed by the Swift Parrot Recovery Team in 2016–2017. The review concluded that despite increases in knowledge across a range of domains and progress implementing many of the actions, the plan’s overall objective has not been achieved and ‘that there were ongoing declines in the number of mature individuals, and in the area and quality of habitat available for the species, including clearing of breeding habitat’. Of 28 specific actions in the plan, at the time of the review: seven were considered not to have commenced or had otherwise made only minimal progress; some progress had been made for 14 actions; and seven were identified as completed and/or ongoing.

Overall the review found that population trend information for Swift Parrots remained uncertain, as there was no estimate of population size or equivalent indices that could be used to estimate a population trend. However, based on modelling of known reproductive success parameters and predation by Sugar Gliders, it was demonstrated that the population was likely declining.

The review also concluded that at the time of writing the 2011 Recovery Plan, the Sugar Glider threat was not recognised and that, as a result, the plan was lacking any recovery actions to address that threat. The review concluded that a new recovery plan should be developed for the Swift Parrot to account for predation by Sugar Gliders and address the ongoing loss of breeding habitat in Tasmania.

The accompanying Species Profile and Threats Database (SPRAT) provides additional background information on the biology, population status and threats to the Swift Parrot. SPRAT pages are available from: http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/sprat.pl