The swift parrot is one of Australia's most critically endangered birds, with predation by introduced sugar gliders threatening its breeding population on Tasmania.
Swift parrots experience significant welfare threats from predation during the breeding season. Female parrots incubating eggs in hollow trees are particularly vulnerable to sugar glider predation at night, often being killed at the nest with their eggs or chicks. The high predation rate on breeding females causes population-level demographic collapse. Individual birds surviving near-misses with predators may sustain injuries. Climate change is altering the distribution of suitable mast-seeding eucalyptus that swift parrots depend on for breeding. Conservation interventions including predator trapping, nest box installation, and habitat protection directly benefit individual bird welfare as well as species survival.