Rainbow Lorikeets
THE (TRUE) FACTS ABOUT THE RAINBOW LORIKEET
AN UNWANTED ORGANISM
To exert their power over Birkenhead citizens who have witnessed the behaviour of the Rainbow Lorikeet with Tui and other birds, and who have the temerity to write to newspapers asking if DOC really knows what it is doing, the Department has been finally reduced to invoking the sledgehammer of the Biosecurity Act to well and truly flatten this fly.
In doing so they have elevated the Rainbow Lorikeet to an extraordinary peak of infamy, its special status as an "unwanted organism" now more dangerous than Rats, Stoats, Ferrets, and Weasels, all of which are merely unprotected. How then did DOC come to this ludicrous conclusion?
Dr G Hicks, the Chief Scientific Officer of DOC said in the NZ Gazette 15 July 1999: "I hereby determine that the organism Rainbow Lorikeet are (sic) unwanted organisms for the purposes of the Biosecurity Act (1993) as I believe that they are capable or potentially capable of causing unwanted harm to indigenous flora and fauna".
Obviously Dr Hicks formed his belief from reading the Rainbow Lorikeet Fact Sheet.
What indigenous flora?
No previous claim has been made by DOC that Rainbow Lorikeets have ever damaged any native plant. The evidence presented above shows that Rainbow lorikeets have a diet of 87% to 95% pollen and nectar mostly from Eucalypts in their natural range, with the remainder being insects and fruit. In Australia they are one of the major pollinators of Eucalypts, while in New Zealand they are no doubt efficient pollinators of our urban Pohutukawa and Rata, both having similar flowers to Eucalypts. What harm to what indigenous flora?
What about the fruit?
As shown above, DOC scientists had already invented enough "facts" on damage to commercial fruit crops in Australia to make Rainbow Lorikeets an unwanted organism purely on the basis of a threat to our fruit export trade alone. That is after all one of the major purposes of the Biosecurity Act. Unaccountably the Lorikeet has been deemed an undesirable organism not on account of harm to introduced flora, but for harm to indigenous flora. An examination of the evidence laid before Dr Hick in this regard should prove truly fascinating.
But the Minister of Conservation has not completely forgotten his earlier astounding claims about fruit damage - in his news release with the Gazette order (Smith 1999b), Dr Nick Smith is still raving that the birds "pose a serious economic threat to orchardists". At least this claim is a little less rabid than his earlier claim that " in Darwin 80-90% of tropical fruit crops are lost to Rainbow Lorikeets" (Smith 1999a).
What indigenous fauna?
As Aristotle understood so long ago, the only bird at risk from Rainbow Lorikeets is other Rainbow Lorikeets. Unfortunately his simple principle appears to be not yet understood either by the scientists of Department of Conservation, or by the voices from Forest and Bird.
What about the disease threat to humans?
Not mentioned: presumably there is now no further need for that propaganda.
DOC’s only possible reason?
Rainbow Lorikeets are foreign - possibly even worse to some minds - they are Australian.
But this fails to take into account that many of our "native" birds are Australian, some of these being very new: Silver-eyes, White-faced Herons, and Spur-winged Plovers all became established after the arrival of Captain Cook and Joseph Banks but are still natives by definition. And if Rainbow Lorikeets had arrived in New Zealand of their own accord, they too would be natives.
DOC has now budgeted $245,000 over three years for trapping or quietly poisoning this harmless bird, one of the most beautiful and intelligent birds in the world, an inspiration to all who behold it.
The Department of Conservation calls this "protecting our biodiversity".
Others call it as a prostitution of science.