BURDENED BY BEAUTY

Northern Australia's Gouldian finch survives in huge numbers in cages around the world, but its wild population continues to struggle.

- KAREN MCGHEE

Records suggest large flocks of Gouldian finch (Erythrura gouldiae) including many hundreds – possibly thousands – of individual birds, were common across northern Australia’s savannah grasslands in the late 1800s, before pastoralism and collecting the species began having an impact. Little than a century later, this exquisite species – arguably the world’s most beautiful bird – was en route to disappearing forever from the wild.

“It was probably on a trajectory to extinction by the 1980s,” says Dr Alexander Watson, a regional ecologist at Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC). “In the late ’90s and early 2000s, people became very concerned about losing the Gouldian finch from the wild forever.” At the time, the species faced several significant threats, including a respiratory parasite that had become prevalent in Gouldians kept in aviaries and had spread to the wild population.

But historically, the species had already suffered huge declines because of high demands among bird collectors worldwide. The capturing and exporting of Gouldians began in earnest from 1897, when finch trapping started in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. The Gouldian finch was the most in-demand of almost a dozen native northern Australian finch species and thousands were trapped annually and sent offshore to the aviaries of bird collectors. The trade peaked in 1958, when more than 38,000 finches were trapped – mostly for export – including 11,000 Gouldians.