Drunk Parrots aka Lorikeets

Source : http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article7142337.ece

It is usually the locals who go ‘troppo’ during the tropical wet season in Australia’s Northern Territory, however this year it is the native parrots.

‘Drunk’ red-collared lorikeets have been found stumbling around, falling out of trees, or simply passed out around Darwin after being struck down by a mystery illness which causes them to display classic signs of human drunkenness.

Concerned locals have discovered the ‘pickled parrots’ all over Darwin’s roads, yards and parklands and taken them to The Ark Animal Hospital in Palmerston, where veterinarians have been treating up to eight birds a day for the past few months.

“They act quite like a drunken person would,” Lisa Hansen, a veterinary surgeon at the Ark Animal Hospital told The Times.
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“They stumble around and are very uncoordinated. Some have even fallen off their perches in the aviary.”

Earlier today one of the lorikeets was found in the bottom of an aviary at the clinic leaning up against the mesh.

“He looked just like a drunken person leaning against a wall to keep himself upright,” Ms Hansen said.

Another glassy-eyed bird was lying on the floor of a cage, looking like he had just had a big night out. Others have been found with their heads under paper seemingly trying to block the world out, or wandering aimlessly around in an apparently intoxicated state.

Ms Hansen said another symptom of the bizarre illness which is similar to human drunkenness was the change in attitude of the usually “obnoxious” birds, which suddenly become “really friendly and jovial”.

They also appear to suffer hangovers – including headaches, disorientation, lethargy, and feeling generally unhappy – for a few weeks after they are sick, and some take months to recover. Others have died from the illness.

Ms Hansen said there are many theories about the cause of the mystery illness – which Darwin vets have dubbed the ‘drop lorry’ or ‘drunken lorikeet’ disease – including fermented nectar from a plant they are eating, or an outbreak of a mystery virus.

Veterinarians at the Ark Animal Hospital, a community clinic which is seeking donations, feed the lorikeets the equivalent of avian hangover food: sweetened porridge and fresh fruit. They then care for the birds until they are ready to be let back into the wild.

According to Ms Hansen, the drunken lorikeet phenomenon regularly occurs at the end Darwin’s wet season, which typically lasts between November and May each year, however this year there has been an increase in the number of birds that have appeared sick, with over 200 treated so far.

Red-collared lorikeets are a native bird of northern Australia and are a sub-species of the better known Rainbow Lorikeet. The red-collared bird, which is distinctive for an orange stripe over the nape of its neck, is found in the Northern Territory, the north of Western Australia, and far north-eastern Queensland.