Taylor Swift can pack stadiums but can she save a species?
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
Senator David Pocock hopes so and wants the megastar to use her vast influence to help pluck the world's fastest parrot from the jaws of extinction.
Australia's critically endangered swift parrots are the original swifties - the nickname for Tay Tay's enormous legion of fans.
Scientists believe there could be as few as 750 mature birds left, with projections that number could shrink to under 100 within the next six years.
Yet logging continues in the native forests they depend on for survival, including their only breeding grounds in the mature forests of Tasmania.
Senator Pocock has designed T-shirts that meld photos of the bird with a poster from Swift's Eras Tour, which hits Sydney on Friday night.
Sale proceeds are going to a bird research group but the senator hopes the star and her fans will highlight the parrot's precarious situation while she's in Australia.
"We've seen the plight of the incredible swift parrot get the attention of Leonardo DiCaprio recently," he says.
"Given the ridiculously slow and completely inadequate response from Australian governments to save this iconic species, a Taylor Swift intervention might be their best hope of not going extinct."
Earlier this month, DiCaprio told millions of Instagram followers the only way to protect the parrot and other threatened species is to end native forest logging.
An updated national recovery plan for the parrot, which has been clocked at close to 90km/h, has been in draft stage for years.
But scientists on the Swift Parrot Recovery Team who had input into the document say it does not adequately acknowledge the logging threat.
"This plan absolutely will not save the swift parrot from extinction," says team member Dr Dejan Stojanovic, from the Australian National University.
Until state and federal politicians bite the bullet on logging in native forests the swift parrot will continue to dwindle before vanishing, he warns.
Alice Hardinge, from the Wilderness Society Tasmania, says there's no quick way to replace the mature, hollow-bearing trees the parrots need to breed.
"It would take hundreds of years to even begin to restore what has been lost."
Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek is yet to make the draft recovery plan law, with her department pointing to delays at getting key states onboard.
Earlier this month, federal senators were told NSW would not be signing on.
They were also told key paragraphs had been altered in places to put more emphasis on the threat of sugar gliders eating swift parrots.
Dr Stojanovic and other recovery team experts have told AAP habitat destruction and fragmentation is the parrot's biggest threat, and glider predation is worse in areas where the forest has been disturbed.
Ms Plibersek says logging is not currently regulated under federal environment laws but that will change when they are rewritten.
She also pointed to half a billion dollars in spending towards saving native species and eradicating feral animals, including specific programs for the swift parrot.
AAP has sought comment from Tasmania's public forestry company, which trades as Sustainable Timber Tasmania.
Its website says major threats to the survival of the swift parrot, as identified by the draft recovery plan, are predation by sugar gliders and the loss of habitat.
In NSW, where the parrot feeds, the Forestry Corporation says timber harvesting only occurs in a very small proportion of state forests that support its food trees, and surveys ensure suitable habitat is set aside.
The parrot also feeds in Victoria, but that state recently ended logging in native forests.
Australian Associated Press
