THE (TRUE) FACTS ABOUT THE
RAINBOW LORIKEET
The evidence presented above and in the accompanying reports and references on the Rainbow Lorikeet shows the following:
The Rainbow Lorikeets on the North Shore have been shown (by DOC) to be free of disease, and internal and external parasites, and hence pose no disease threat to NZ native birds or humans.
Rainbow Lorikeets feed almost exclusively on pollen and nectar from flowering trees, which in Australia make up 90% of its diet.
Lorikeets are anatomically modified to suit this diet: the tongue is primarily adapted to harvesting pollen with nectar as a secondary source of food, the gizzard is not muscular, and the gut is short.
As Rainbow Lorikeets are anatomically suited only to this diet they have never been able to naturally colonise any area of Australia which can not provide a year round supply of flowering trees such as the desert areas, Western Australia, and Tasmania, which has forests closely related to the Gondwana derived bush in New Zealand. As the NZ native bush has as few winter flowering trees as the wet forests of Tasmania, the Rainbow Lorikeet has no more chance of living and breeding in the NZ bush than it has ever shown over tens of thousands of years in Tasmania.
As the Rainbow Lorikeets can not survive in the NZ bush, they cannot on this account pose a threat to NZ birds which live and breed there, and that is without considering the erroneous claims of adverse interspecific competition discounted above.
Rainbow Lorikeets have increased in a number of Australian cities due to increased planting of flowering trees in the last several decades. It is likely that Rainbow Lorikeets may also survive in urban areas in the warmer north of NZ but only in those planted with a wide variety of mature exotic flowering trees which provide a year round source of food, but even so may still need supplemental feeding.
Evidence shows that in Australia the Rainbow Lorikeet does not compete to the detriment of any other parrot, any large or small Honeyeater, or has any noticeable effect on any other species of native bird and there is no evidence to show that their behaviour in New Zealand to any native bird which lives in the urban area could or would be any different.
In particular there is no evidence to show that Rainbow Lorikeets have had any effect on Tui populations on the North Shore, and evidence from Australian urban situations indicate that populations of both Rainbow Lorikeets and larger Honeyeaters similar to the Tui have greatly increased due to increased urban planting of flowering trees.
NZ Honeyeaters such the Tui, Bellbird and Stitchbird have been resident sufficiently long in New Zealand to adapt their diet to insects to survive through the New Zealand winter without flowering trees as have done the Honeyeaters of Tasmania.
In Australia, nil to negligible damage is caused to temperate fruit crops by Rainbow Lorikeets, whereas considerable damage is caused to these crops by Rosellas, Blackbirds, Starlings, and White-eyes, birds already present throughout New Zealand. As it is likely that similar damage will be caused by the same species to the same crops in New Zealand, then the Rainbow Lorikeet poses no threat to fruit growers in New Zealand.