crab-eating opossum

hi, my name's henry cook. this last seasoni worked with anu on the swift parrot project in tasmania. these little birds had a terribleseason with few chicks surviving. on seeing this, i and the rest of the team hatched aplan to raise some money and save these birds. what are we doing today? dejan: today we'regoing to be banding the first swift parrots

crab-eating opossum, of the 2014 season, that's assuming they'vesurvived, this area we know has sugar gliders. it's entirely possible that they've been eaten. henry: feather down. dejan: swift parrot.

henry: this is doctor dejan stojanovic. postdoctoral fellow at anu. he's part of a team that has been researching swift parrots forthe past seven years. part of his research involves monitoring of nest success usingmotion detecting cameras. dejan: the nestlings are dead. henry: what from? dejan: well, cameratrap will tell us in a second. probably be sugar gliders. henry: sugar gliders were introducedin tasmania sometime around the mid 19th century. dejan: when swift parrots nest in an areawhere there is a low risk of glider prodation,

like bruny or maria island, we get to seethe nest succeed. henry: from incubation to hatching, as they start to grow their feathers,and almost fledging. dejan: unfortunately, the location of flowering blue gum and blackgum dictates where the swift parrot breeds. so, they can't nest on these islands everyyear. henry: which brings us to the crowd funding. we want to do something about thenest failures. we know that sugar glider prodation is directly linked to deforestation. we can'tjust switch off broad scale logging in tasmanian

old growth forest. dejan: nor can we managethe wild fires, which burn out hollows every season. henry: we want to use nest boxes assurrogate nest hollows or research tools for the swift parrot and two other criticallyendangered birds: the forty-spotted pardalote and the orange-bellied parrot. forforty-spotted pardalotes, we want to increase the number of nest sites in some severelyhollow limited locations. dejan: for the orange-bellied parrot, we'd like to assess the risk of gliderpredation to known and historical breeding

locations throughout tasmania. henry: finally, the swift parrots, we'd like to add nesting sites to some regularly used, but hollow free feedinglocations in an attempt to establish new breeding sites. we'd also like to trial some designswe have for glider proof nest boxes. dejan: we have the man power and the equipment to make this happen. all that is required are a lot of nest boxes. henry: these are australia's rarestbirds and they all share a common threat. with your help, we can make a difference ensuringthe continued survival of these magnificent species.