The feral parrot takeover continues

[47of74]

Our new parrot overlords are taking over

Quote

Visitors to Chicago’s Hyde Park or New York’s Green-Wood Cemetery may be surprised to hear the raucous squawks of lime-green monk parakeets. These birds, descendants of escaped pets, have managed to create thriving colonies in these cities despite the annual cold weather. It turns out they’re far from unusual—escaped pet parrots have established breeding populations in nearly half of U.S. states, according to a new analysis.

The United States was home to just two native parrot species, the Carolina parakeet (now extinct) and the thick-billed parrot (now only found in Mexico). But that doesn’t mean Americans don’t have plenty of opportunities to see free-flying parrots. As new research describes, there are 56 parrot species living in the wild across 23 U.S. states. Of those, 25 species have formed breeding colonies.

A team of scientists, led by Cornell graduate student Jennifer Uehling, reviewed parrot observations from 15 years of community science observations—specifically, the annual Christmas Bird Count and Cornell University’s ubiquitous eBird database. Birders log their sightings along with comments, and reviewers confirm any rarities with more details, further observations, and photos. The researchers determined that a bird population was “established” if birdwatchers had observed the species 25 or more times (a purposely high but relatively arbitrary number) and if records included observations of breeding.

The data review showed that 56 species had been observed 118,744 times at 19,812 unique locations, according to the paper published in the Journal of Ornithology. The monk parakeet accounted for more than a third of the observations, while red-crowned Amazons and Nanday parakeets accounted for 13.3 percent and 11.9 percent of the sightings, respectively. California, Florida, and Texas accounted for most of the records.

It would be so cool if someone could train our new parrot armies to say "FUCK TRUMP" on command.