The town of Hilario Ascasubi near Argentina’s eastern Atlantic coast has a parrot problem.
Thousands of the green-yellow-red birds have invaded, driven by deforestation in the surrounding hills, according to biologists. They bite on the town’s electric cables, causing outages, and are driving residents around the bend with their incessant screeching and deposits everywhere of parrot poo.
“The hillsides are disappearing, and this is causing them to come closer to the cities to find food, shelter and water,” biologist Daiana Lera said, explaining that much of Argentina’s forest land has been gradually lost over the years.
In the past few years, the parrots have started to arrive, seeking refuge in the town through autumn and winter. At times, according to locals, there are up to 10 parrots for each of the town’s 5,000 human inhabitants. During the summer, the birds migrate south to the cliffs of Patagonia for the breeding season.
For other parrot enthusiasts who were wondering as I was, these seem to be Patagonian Conures (not endangered, and somewhat common as a pet). I hope this spurs people into conserving their habitat.
Lol, no. They’ll cull the remaining parrots until they’re no longer a nuisance. Fast forward 10 years and some rodent or insect population will cause even worse problems for the town, and it’ll turn out the parrots were a primary predator of said problem. This will continue repeatedly until the collapse of human civilisation.
That escalated quickly.