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Five years after its rediscovery shook the natural history world, the confirmed population of the critically endangered night parrot is fewer than 20, indicating the species is on the brink of extinction.
A grim outlook for what is described as the world’s most mysterious bird is emerging as bitter divisions among experts are exposed in a new book, Night Parrot, by Australian National University academic Penny Olsen, to be published soon by the CSIRO.
Dr Olsen launches a stinging attack on naturalist John Young, whose publication of the first photographs of a night parrot in 2013 in southwest Queensland is described as the avian find of the century. Dr Olsen’s book suggests the bird had an injured wing and the photographic session was staged. She...