Invasive parakeets now ‘unstoppable’ as population size doubles in ten years
https://www.itv.com/news/2025-05-30/invasive-parakeets-now-unstoppable-as-population-size-doubles-in-ten-years
Posted by BestButtons
Invasive parakeets now ‘unstoppable’ as population size doubles in ten years
https://www.itv.com/news/2025-05-30/invasive-parakeets-now-unstoppable-as-population-size-doubles-in-ten-years
Posted by BestButtons
29 Comments
Should we tell Nigel or Reform? They’ll sort this out.
I bow down to our unstoppable parakeet overlords. All hail your squawky might, please accept my offering of crackers.
Put a bounty on them, cheap and they’ll all be gone in weeks.
edit: for those comparing it to the snakes in India, you just make it time limited. A six month free for all then no more bounty, that cuts out the breeders.
I know they’re invasive but are they detrimental to native flora and fauna?
This whole idea of not dealing with non-native species until we are sure they become invasive is just so short sighted. By the time we are sure they become invasive, its way too late. They need dealing with at a much earlier stage or jt just becomes a running battle throwing huge amounts of resources at them just to keep the numbers in check.
The article seems to have missed that this isn’t just happening in the UK, so the explanation that it’s due to them escaping from a zoo or movie set doesn’t make much sense. I’ve seen flocks of these things in Oslo, Amsterdam and Frankfurt, for example. Whatever their origin is, it’s clearly not Britain-specific.
I reckon I could stop a few.
Not sure how many it would take to overpower me
These guys steal food and nesting sites from a number of native UK birds, including my favourite: the nuthatch. It’s such a shame.
They are difficult to deal with as they are very skittish and don’t land on the ground very often, preferring the tops of tall trees.
They are loud fockers as well.
I’ve been slowly noticing them get lower and lower in the south east. But also have been noticing the Red Kites get further and further along from the west. Problem could solve itself.
I really like these birds but they are very noisy. You can hear them a mile off
Will they fight pigeons?
Do they shit less than pigeons?
It’s fine we just need another more invasive species to take over from them. Maybe griffins?
I remember reading somewhere that unlike most invasive species the predatory birds are adapting to eat them.
Had them at the back of our last house in Kent they are bloody noisy but pretty but bloody noisy!
I do always think there’s this ongoing bias on ecosystem science to preserve the existing system rather than accept change as part of the ecosystem. Surely the parakeet is winning the evolutionary race?
Given human propensity for making thing extinct; I believe we could wipe them out in about 6 months.
Maybe we should import some sand too… if takes over the pebble we may not need flying abroad for holidays
Forgot, we need a tad more sun too!
Fear not, the Red Kites will get rid of them – those buggers are everywhere now too.
They’re in birmingham and sandwell now. Most parks have either nesting colonies that have migrated from sandwell county park or warley woods, or resident colonies that fly from somewhere else to feed in the day.
Had them in our garden a few times. They’re pretty happy little chappies but I can see the issue if they’re competing with native birds for nest sites and food.
> recording artist Jimi Hendrix released a pair in Carnaby Street in 1966.
Really surprised no one noticed this far bigger problem in the article.
This journalist / gpt bot described Jimi Hendrixs as a “recording artist”
That’s like calling Don Bradman as a guy who was good with a stick.
Coming ‘ere, stealing trees from hard-workin’ local pigeons innit
They’re everywhere in Manchester (outside the city centre but you do still see the occasional one there, especially between MMUs Birley Campus and ASDA in Hulme)
Alexandra Park is full of them aswell.
My boyfriend, a keen twitcher, jumps out of bed at 5am last weekend shouting something about parakeets and running to the window. We live in Yorkshire and have have had them move into the tree outside last week. Not seen them so far up North before! I was very impressed with his half asleep bird call identifying.
They don’t seem to be doing any environmental harm… the only thing on that article I could see was “fear that they might spread into farming areas”. And in farming areas *we* are the ones that have obliterated the natural environment so we don’t really have a leg to stand on.
Why couldn’t we have imported the birds that mimic sounds instead? There’s one that copies chainsaws and camera shutters. Would be far more entertaining having feathered swearboxes terrorising our parks and woodlands.
Could be vaguely useful in solving crime too
Oh fuck, do we have these in the UK? I’m from Spain and in Madrid all trees are full of those fuckers. They push out any other birds, and are loud as hell. They also destroy the trees with the nests, which are actually dangerous for people if they fall.
We managed to exterminate passenger pigeons that were measured by the Billion.
I am quite certain that we could exterminate the Parakeet from the UK.
Whether we should is another matter
The only invasive and unstoppable species on this planet are the humans.