Swift Parrot x Dark Mofo - by Zowie Douglas-Kinghorn
ISLAND | ISSUE 158On the eve of the winter solstice, Zowie Douglas-Kinghorn explores a tale of sex and death
I gulp as the ogoh-ogoh looms over me, ready to prey on my fears. The usually diminutive swift parrot (or Lathamus discolor) is rendered in behemoth glory as a papier-mâché Balinese sculpture. Beneath the parrot’s clawed foot is a small parcel made of palm leaf: a canang sari. This offering contains a sprig of lavender, a rose, and a small coin folded inside. There is no white flower – in a traditional Balinese canang sari, white petals are laid toward the east for Iswara, the god of nature.
Standing before the ogoh-ogoh with paper in hand, I offer my hastily written fears. I feel like I once felt in front of a statue in a church: confessional and prepared to pour out misgivings before a glazed eye. But the swift parrot in demon form looks ferociously angry – its pupils resemble the throbbing heart of a flame. In Indonesia, the ogoh-ogoh is usually burnt on Nyepi the Day of Silence preceding Balinese New Year. In lutruwita/Tasmania, the burning ceremony takes place on the eve of the winter solstice, at Hobart’s waterfront. You can hear it from the suburbs; the roaring, booming and crackling is otherworldly for a structure made of paper.
The swift parrot is front and centre at this year’s Dark Mofo. Festivalgoers deposit their fears in the paper sculpture to be burnt at the Ngrupuk procession, in a ritual of purification and sacrifice. The purpose of the ogoh-ogoh is to rid the natural environment of any spiritual pollutants emitted from the activities of living beings – especially humans. Fittingly, the sculpture takes the form of a critically endangered bird. Swifties are the fastest parrots in the world. Amazingly, they are thought to cross the divide between the Apple Isle and the mainland in as little as six hours.
As atmospheric carbon dioxide reaches the highest levels since humans evolved, the Australian Conservation Foundation recently found that Australia has the worst rate of mammalian extinction. More than 29 native mammal species have been declared extinct since colonisation, and countless more amphibia, crustacea and other fauna have now been embalmed in historical memory; those, that is, that we recorded before killing them off. The first bird lost to extinction in mainland Australia after 1788 was a parrot – the paradise parrot. It seems that the swift and orange-bellied parrots will soon follow. With fewer than 50 OBP breeding pairs left, some of the birds now migrate across Bass Strait in a plane: they are too rare to risk flying through storms. Swift parrot numbers are also plummeting, threatened by logging, invasive species and involuntary polyandry on the frontlines of the world’s sixth mass extinction crisis.
It troubles me that in our culture, climate and animals are framed by environmental algebra, where human stories are separated in brackets from their ecological syntax. The challenge of addressing extinction often removes the subject from its surroundings. But at the crux of the environmental crisis are people – or more particularly, the way we treat things and places which are not people.
*
New Zealand’s longest-running court battle concerns a person who was once a river. For 170 years, leaders from the Maori Iwi first nation have fought to grant the Whanganui River legal personhood. After winning their case in 2016, a group of Indigenous representatives will now act as advocates for New Zealand’s third-largest river and the legal system will recognise the waterbody as a being with the same rights as a citizen.
Jacinta Ruru, a Professor from the University of Otago, says the laws completely flip the presumption of human sovereignty over the environment; the legal instruments carve out a niche in the stratified common law, creating an alternative space that recognises the Maori group’s longstanding relationship with the river, a legal personhood anchored to a relationship with humans.
Over the past 200 years, the colonial pastoral project has carved deep scars on the land, both in New Zealand and Australia. Historian James Boyce writes on the squatter expansion from Van Diemen’s Land to Port Phillip in birrarunga/ Melbourne: ‘Perhaps the most pressing issue of our time [the 21st century] is the necessity to rein in the continent-wide resources rush that began with the seizure of the grasslands in 1835.’ Riding on the fantasy of endless expansion, the aftermath of colonialism involves the ongoing damage to homelands where Indigenous peoples have taken care of the land for millennia. We can’t collectively process loss through purging or fantasy; descendants of white settlers need to acknowledge the cauterised history of genocide. The truth has to be dwelt in.
“We can’t collectively process loss through purging or fantasy; descendants of white settlers need to acknowledge the cauterised history of genocide. The truth has to be dwelt in.”
The lack of connection to the unknowable ‘Other’ – the distance that pares land and creatures away from their contexts, to be bought and sold, cleared and tagged – is at the helm of settler-colonial philosophy. The Anthropocene is riddled by psychological detachment from ecological values where ‘species’ are separated from their habitats, externalising our ecological frames through rituals of purity and erasure as we collectively mourn the spectres of extinction. Timothy Morton writes in Queer Ecology, ‘We are losing touch with a fantasy Nature that never really existed.’
*
By worshipping idealised versions of the ‘outside’, we risk losing connection to the wildness inherent in life: relational, shifting, elusive.
“By worshipping idealised versions of the ‘outside’, we risk losing connection to the wildness inherent in life: relational, shifting, elusive.”
We are ill-equipped for dialogues of extinction as language tends to fail the remarkable diversity and resilience of ecology. The intricate literature of beings, encoded in spiralling threads of DNA, is deeply interwoven; it cannot unspool into categories. The very meaning of the word species is relative – something which is similar to something else. The other definition of a species – a creature that can breed productively with another creature – is also flawed and, these days, highly contested. With the advent of cloning, entire cell nuclei can be swapped from one species to another to reproduce in hybrid forms. In a modern test of de-extinction, in 2003 two bantengs (an endangered species of South-East Asian wild cattle) were born at the San Diego ‘Frozen Zoo’ from the womb of a modern cow. One of the clones died. The other went on to live a short and lonely life at San Diego Zoo. In 1849, banteng were brought to Australia’s Northern Territory, where they can now be found grazing wild on the ranges and savannah, but the lack of genetic diversity from sparse breeding pairs has caused a bottleneck at the gene pool. As it turns out, you can’t remove animals from their environment without ultimately erasing who they are.
*
During the winter I spend a few days in lunawanna-alonnah/ Bruny Island. In the national park, I think I see a green flame spurt through the sky. I realise it’s a swift parrot when it lands on a telegraph wire beside a cottage, quickly taking off again to alight upon a casuarina tree. It clambers onto the thin branches, bobbing like a Christmas ornament. I fumble with my phone and try to capture the bird in a digital mesh, but it’s too late. My camera blinks and the parrot disappears into the woods.
I imagine the flocks of parrots that would once arc above the island, setting green fires like an aurora in the wintry sky. The sharp, fluid whistle of birdsong sounds in my ears like the crack of a feathery whip, or knives being sharpened. In the book Where Song Began, biologist Tim Low writes on the early origins of music, saying that the songbirds of prehistoric Gondwana are among the oldest species known to make melodies. I breathe deeply, remembering how I once saw two whistling kites cling to each other’s chests and spin like figure skaters, locked in embrace.
“I imagine the flocks of parrots that would once arc above the island, setting green fires like an aurora in the wintry sky. The sharp, fluid whistle of birdsong sounds in my ears like the crack of a feathery whip, or knives being sharpened.”
Sugar gliders were introduced to Tasmania from the mainland by colonial traders in the 1830s. Swifties have not developed any defences against the sugar gliders; they did not evolve together, but they both rely on the sweet nectar and hollowed trunks of blue gums as their main sources of food and shelter. The cute-looking gliders eat the eggs from swift parrots’ nests, invading their homes and sometimes killing the mother parrots. Widespread deforestation in Tasmania’s southern refuges means there are fewer niches available, and so gliders and parrots are pitted against each other for real estate.
There are now three swift parrot males for every female. The adult sex imbalance leads to a multitude of flow-on effects for the swifties, entwined in a love triangle of sex and death. Traditionally monogamous, the parrots have now been forced into polygamy.
Outnumbered, the nesting mothers have to put up with unwanted attention from male parrots in breeding periods. When there’s more than one father in the nest, the family dynamics become tricky: some mothers spend time fending off potential suitors, others might seek out more company in exchange for food or protection. Should a female swift parrot choose to take a lover, the father might devote his time – better spent finding food for his babies – fighting off prospective partners from the nest. This level of distraction for both parents means they can’t nurture their young, leading to neglected fledglings with poor chances of survival. Populations are in freefall; some researchers predict no swift parrots will be left in about 15 years.
Swifties aren’t the only ones changing their behaviour to cope with human pressure. Around the world, humans are driving the evolution of birds at high speed. Research suggests swallows have evolved shorter wings for faster take-offs around road hotspots to avoid traffic accidents. Songbirds in the UK have evolved longer beaks since the 19th century, perhaps to more easily extract seed from the bird feeders popular in English gardens. Birds are a symbol of fragility, but also of survival; they are considered by many to be living dinosaurs. They form a relic of the past from the famed extinction caused by the external force of a meteor. But in the 21st century we can’t externalise disaster. We humans need to acknowledge our collective agency in the environmental crisis.
*
It’s the winter solstice. The burning of the ogoh-ogoh is about to begin; the small bird, nestled in a burning pyre of tree limbs, will soon be sacrificed. The fact that this parrot sculpture is likely built from the pulp of another bird’s habitat is pertinent – Sustainable Timber Tasmania (the new face of Forestry Tasmania) recently tried to attain Forest Stewardship Council certification, but was knocked back thanks to its penchant for destroying swift parrot habitat in areas such as the Wielangta reserve in South-East Tasmania. Thousands of hectares across the island are threatened by poor regulatory oversight and illegal logging operations. Caught between fragmented ecosystems, there’s no safe place for swifties to call home.
In June 2019, 17 000 hectares of Tasmanian black gum forests (Eucalyptus ovata) were declared critically endangered, reflecting the swift parrot’s status under federal legislation. Because swift parrots are highly nomadic, roaming widely until they find sugar hotspots, they require a holistic approach to conservation. Currently, methods being rolled out include programs to kill sugar gliders, and installation of solar-powered nests which lock against predators.
Allowing ecologies to regenerate to the point where biodiversity can return and flourish is crucial not only for swift parrots, but for myriad organisms who rely on each other for survival. And it’s not going to be easy. The challenge of reforestation is complicated by proliferating noisy miner birds (Manorina melanocephala), who operate in tough competition with parrots for food. The famed biologist Edward O Wilson writes, ‘[t]he fauna and flora of an ecosystem are far more than collections of species. They are a complex system of interactions, where the extinction of any species under certain conditions could have a profound impact on the whole.’ It seems the fastest parrot in the world can run but can’t hide when there’s nowhere to rest.
“It seems the fastest parrot in the world can run but can’t hide when there’s nowhere to rest.”
In the nebulous mesh of interrelationship, there is so much that we don’t know about the beings we share the planet with. Every day, new species are discovered and added to the mosaic; meanwhile, others silently disappear. Captive breeding programs and reforestation are conservation efforts that remain constricted by our culture’s divides between people and non-people. As populations of non-people silently plummet, researchers are grappling with the conundrum of using genetic cloning to de-extinct species.
But the question is, even if we do bring them back, will they be the same creatures that we tell children stories about? The homes that cradle us are so much a part of our identity, just as the ecosystems that allow animals to thrive are inseparable from their inhabitants. The biological code is the foundational layer beneath ecosystems; DNA is not written like a guidebook. The same way you won’t find a story if you open a dictionary, ‘a gene doesn’t tell you how to read it and make it an organism. The genetic code is more like a database than an instruction manual,’ says biologist David Ehrenfeld. De-extinction offers these problems: if we go beyond the realm of species loss and return back again, where will the animal go? What kind of life will they have? Are they still doomed to future extinction if we don’t change how we live as humans?
*
‘Commit your fears into the heart of a giant swift parrot, an endangered species that breeds in Tasmania and forms this year’s ogoh-ogoh,’ reads the Dark Mofo brochure. Okay, I think. What do I fear most? Intimacy. I scribble it down. Losing my mind. A lack of possibility. But my worst nightmares are of losing people. I woke up crying the other week from a dream where my friend was swimming with me through a city knee-deep in water. He was a young medical student and passionate climate activist, who took his own life a year ago. In my dream I ask him over and over: ‘Why don’t you come back?’
The swift parrot journeys to Tasmania from the mainland each year, crossing Bass Strait in the months before summer (usually mid-August) to breed. Swifties take refuge in trees that are very old or dead. This is where they raise their young: in dry sclerophyll forests, in the tree hollows of southern blue gums (Eucalyptus globulus). Amid a diminishing habitat, especially in old-growth forests which provide foraging and nesting hollows, swifties are under threat of reduction to the point of non-existence – of extinction, of being lost. I think about the word extinction. ‘Ex’ brings something outside, or into the past. It sounds like ‘extinguish’ – the snuffing of a flame.
Rising temperatures are taking their toll, as droughts have been driving swift parrots further in their migration patterns from Tasmania to New South Wales, sometimes all the way to Queensland. Climate change is bringing a whole host of threats to birdlife, including fatal diseases spread by mosquitoes whose range is extending to higher altitudes.
A biologist broke down and cried when he discussed the future of ’apapanes and ’i’iwis, species that closely resemble Australian honeyeaters but are endemic to Hawai’i and are susceptible to mosquito-borne diseases. ‘The animals you study are like your children,’ he said. ‘They are not supposed to die before you do.’
Emotions are not easily articulated within the boundaries of human and ‘Other’. I remember the neatness of the fiery green birds in a glass-covered drawer at the museum. Their bodies were rolled like cigars, with tiny clawed feet bound like hostages of the future, ropes knotted in the colonial pursuit of exotic lands. I think about the human need to collect and take stock. The impetus to keep empirical records could be drawn from a fear of living in the unknown – but an inchoate fear of loss makes it difficult to love things that can ultimately disappear. Edward O Wilson writes that we are entering the Eremocene, or the era of loneliness. There are thought to be only 1000 breeding pairs of swift parrots left, outside captivity. I imagine a kind of ark crossing Bass Strait, birds straddling the deck in pairs with bright wings clipped.
“There are thought to be only 1000 breeding pairs of swift parrots left, outside captivity. I imagine a kind of ark crossing Bass Strait, birds straddling the deck in pairs with bright wings clipped.”
In modern Western culture, death often seems to stain rapidly into taboo. It defines the past, not the future. We sever death from the present by ritualising transcendence or burial. But some imprints can’t be excised – the blur left by swallows winging across the sky. The shattered skeleton of an archaeopteryx. The mimicry of a lyrebird. The ‘Other’ shows us what we are and are not. For many people, the fear of losing other creatures is emotionally harrowing.
At the purging, I put my piece of paper in the ogoh-ogoh’s breast like an intimate secret. On the solstice, dead trees will burn underneath the swift parrot sculpture, lighting up the longest darkness of the year. It’s a beautiful sacrifice for the gods: a pre-emptive loss. ▼
You can help the swift parrot by donating to the Difficult Birds Research Group Endowment
Opening image: photo by Dark Mofo/Rémi Chauvin, 2019;
swift parrots photo by Henry Cook;
all other photos by Dark Mofo/Jesse Hunniford, 2019
This article appeared in Island 158 in 2019. Order a print issue here.
If you liked this piece, please share it. And please consider donating or subscribing so that we can keep supporting writers and artists.