Doubts raised over Australian ´New Parrot` claims.

24/04/2007 00:00:00 February 2007. A few months ago North Queensland naturalist and wildlife cinematographer John Young claimed to have found a previously unknown fig-parrot in rugged, almost impenetrable, montane forest after a long and exhaustive search across two Australian states. (click here to see the original report).

Although John Young said he had known of the bird’s existence for a decade, he only recently obtained clear evidence that this new parrot differs from the elusive and endangered Coxen’s fig-parrot that overlaps in range. Amazingly, the bird had gone undetected for 130 years since John Gould described the first fig-parrot in Australia.

However The Australian newspaper, queried Mr Gould´s discovery and the photo that he claimed was of the parrot.

An Environmental Protection Agency spokeman said ´In light of the allegations made by the Australian newspaper regarding the authenticity of the double eyed fig parrot photo published in the Courier Mail, the Environmental Protection Agency engaged Dr Spring of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in December 2006 to study the photos. Dr Spring is a recognised expert in verifying authenticity of photos.`

´At the time, John Young Wildlife Enterprises agreed to provide Dr Spring with a number of high resolution images for analysis. To the EPA's knowledge, those images have not been made available to Dr Spring. Consequently, this issue remains unresolved.`

Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service will not be undertaking further investigations into the claim of a new subspecies of fig parrot until further evidence is presented.