Feather Forensics
tracing the origins of parrots with stable isotopes and citizen science
Australian parrots are some of the most traded parrots in global pet trade, yet we currently lack the tools to monitor and manage this trade.
With the help of citizen scientists, we aimed to create a tool to identify between captive and wild parrots, using stable isotopes in their feathers.
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Feather collection
Learn about the feathers collected by the Feather Forensics citizen scientists.
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Detecting illegal wild harvest
We measured stable isotopes in cockatoo feathers to identify birds illegally harvested from the wild.
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Managing invasive species
We investigated if we could use feathers to assist in the management of invasive populations of Rainbow Lorikeets.
This work forms part of Dr Katherine Hill’s PhD thesis, which is available online.
This research is supported by:
