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Population Status and Distribution of Naturalized Parrots in Southern

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WESTERN BraDS Volume 28, Number 4, 1997 POPULATION STATUS AND D!STRmUTION OF NATURA!-!i PARROTS IN Sou'rI-RN CALWORNIA KIMBALL L. GARRE'I-r, Sectionof Vertebrates,Natural History Museumof Los AngelesCounty, 900 ExpositionBlvd., Los Angeles,California 90007 Data on the identity,population sizes, trends, geographical distributions, and ecologicalrequirements of naturalizedpopulations of non-native,non- game bird speciesin western North America are limited (see reviewsby Hardy 1973, Johnstonand Garrett 1994). At the same time, concerns aboutthe actualand potentialimpacts of suchpopulations on nativebiota and natural ecosystemsare of increasinginterest to ecologists(Temple 1992). The resulting"information gap" is perhapsnowhere as evidentas with the populationsof parrotsin southernCalifornia. Flocks of parrotsof severalspecies are widespreadin urban and suburbanregions of southern California yet have remainedvirtually unstudied, with the few published crudepopulation estimates (Hardy 1973, Froke 1981) now beingsorely out of date. Even the speciesidentity of parrotscurrently inhabiting southern Californiawas largely uncommented upon until the briefreview by Johnston and Garrett (1994). To date, no parrot specieshas been acceptedfor the Californiastate bird list(California Bird RecordsCommittee 1996), reflect- ing both the absenceof good populationdata and a lack of agreementon whatconstitutes a naturalized or "established"population. Following Holmes and Stroud(1995), I use the term "naturalized"when referringto estab- lished,non-native parrots in southernCalifornia, avoiding the commonly misusedterm "feral," which impliesformer domestication. In thisera of increasinghuman modification of the ecologicallandscape, biologistscan no longerreasonably exclude non-native taxa in the questfor basicdescriptive data. Parrotsare not adequatelymonitored by standard North Americansurveys; few BreedingBird Surveyroutes (Droege 1990) are locatedin urban regions,and naturalizedspecies are only erratically reportedon ChristmasBird Counts.The distinctionbetween native ("indig- enous")and non-native("exotic") bird speciesis undeniablyof paramount importancein the studyof historicalavian biogeography and evolutionary Western Birds 28:181-195, 1997 181 DISTRIBUTION OF NATURALIZED PARROTS IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA biology,but such distinctions are increasinglyblurred in human-manipulated landscapes. The historyof free-flyingPsittacidae in southernCalifornia is sketchy, with muchinformation on earlyestablishment being anecdotal and unpublished. Earlyreports (including Hardy 1964 and 1973, Fiskand Crabtree 1974, and numerousunpublished or newspaperaccounts summarized by Froke1981) ledto preliminaryanalyses (Dana et al. 1973, Shelgrenet al. 1975) of parrots aspotential agricultural pests in California.The legaland illegal importation of hundredsof thousandsof parrotsinto the United Statesfor the pet trade (Banks1976, Froke1981, Traffic1987; Table2) acceleratedduring the late 1960s and early 1970s, settingthe stagefor a vasfiymore diverseand abundantparrot fauna in Californiaduring and after the 1980s.The mecha- nismsof intentionaland unintentional release of parrotsinto the wildin urban southernCalifornia are probablydiverse and complex;some releases---e.g., fromaviaries, pet stores,or smugglers'holdings--have been told and retold to the pointof qualifyingas entrenched"urban mythology!" This paper summa- rizesour current knowledge of thenaturalized parrot fauna in theregion in an era followingthis import "boom." METHODS From 1994 throughJune 1997 I solicitedsightings of parrotsfrom the greaterLos Angelesregion (Ventura, Los Angelesand Orangecounties, inlandto westernSan Bernardinoand Riversidecounties) through Audubon chapter newsletters,avicultural clubs, and variouspublic media. I also distributedbasic field-identification information through Audubon newslet- ters (Garrett1995) and presentations.Target species were identifiedfrom existingliterature and includedadditional species for whichI or othershad mademultiple sightings during casual field work prior to 1994. Sightingsof all free-flyingparrots were requested, however, whether or not theywere on the "target"list. I requestedthe followinginformation: identity of the parrot(s)if known(with supporting documentation, especially if the identifi- cation was uncertain),exact location,date and time, and parrot behavior (flying,roosting, feeding, etc., with details). I field-checkednumerous sites, especially where parrotsconcentrated at roostingor regularforaging areas. Methods for estimatingpopulation sizes of parrots in the wild have been describedand criticallycompared by Casagrandeand Beissinger(1997); becausemy primarygoal was to estab- lish only the identity,distribution, and approximatesizes of the parrot populationsof the region,and becausecontributing observers were gener- ally untrained,I did not employstandardized census methods. Field-identificationproblems have long plagued attempts to gatherpopu- lationdata on non-nativebird speciesin North America.Standard field guidestreat mostof southernCalifornia's free-flying parrot species inad- equately,if at all.For example,the NationalGeographic Society field guide (Scott1987) treatsseven non-native parrot species, only four of whichare relevantto southernCalifornia. Peterson (1990) briefly treats six exotic psittacids,five of whichhave populationsin California(his reasons for attributingthe Orange-frontedParakeet, Ara t ingacan icularia, to southern 182 DISTRIBUTION OF NATURALIZED PARROTS IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA California are unclear; it was not recordedduring the present study). Robbinset al. (1983) treat twelve parrot species,five of which occur as naturalizedpopulations in California.All of theseguides, however, mention a taxon within the Canary-wingedParakeet (Brotogeris versicolurus) superspeciesthat is marginal in Californiabut fail to addressthe more relevanttaxon B. [v.] chiriri, now generallyafforded full speciesstatus (American Ornithologists'Union 1997). Farrand (1983) treats only the Budgerigar(l•lelopsittacus undulatus) (with no establishedpopulations in California)and "Canary-wingedParakeet" (with a photographof the "cor- rect"form chiriri but a text accountof versicolurus).Griggs (1997) covers four relevanttaxa but, again, the "wrong"[-- versicolurus]Canary-winged Parakeet.Finally, the photographicguide by Stokesand Stokes(1996) does not mentionany parrotspecies. Thus only five of the ten or so naturalized parrot taxa in southernCalifornia are treatedat all in North Americanfield guides.The factthat our psittacidsare derivedfrom the avifaunasof Mexico, SouthAmerica, and the Indian subcontinentensures that no other single regionalguide coversour entire speciespool. The major monographic workson the Psittacidae(e.g. Forshaw1989) containmuch information on systematicsand naturalhistory but are not orientedto field identification. Duringthe courseof this projectI preparedan informalguide to the field identificationof thoseparrot speciesbelieved to be naturalizedin California (Garrett1995); excellentgeneral information on the identificationof Neo- tropicalparrots is givenby Whitney(1996). In additionto identificationproblems, there exists a confoundingvariety of aviculturalnames for the parrottaxa noted in thissurvey. Throughout, I use thosenames adopted by the AmericanOrnithologists' Union (1983, 1997) or extendthe nomenclaturalpolicies of that list to extralimitalspecies; for example, I call all Aratinga (and closelyrelated Nandayus) "parakeets" rather than "conures"and all Arnazona "parrots"rather than "amazons." For populationestimates and analysisI dividedthe greaterLos Angeles regioninto severalsubregions (Figure 1) as follows:North Coastcommuni- ties (Malibuto Pacific Palisadesand Brentwood);South Coast communities (Manhattan Beach south to Redondo Beach, the Palos Verdes Peninsula, and LongBeach); Los Angeles Basin (including the coastfrom SantaMonica to Westchester);San FernandoValley (including Simi Valley,Ventura Co.); San GabrielValley (including Pasadena, San Marino,South Pasadena, and Highland Park; east to Glendora);and urban Orange County. I arrivedat populationestimates by summinghigh counts of whatwere presumedto be discreteflocks within each subregion; I assumed that therewas no overlapof individualsbetween subregions. Our knowledgeof the daily and seasonal movementsand home rangesof parrotsin the regionis fragmentaryand, therefore,population estimates are crudebut likelyto be conservative. RESULTS Some 1550 parrot sightings(not all independent)were reportedto me betweenJanuary 1994 and June 1997; these,supplemented with my own field observations,involved at least33 speciesof parrots.These fit neatly into two groups:(a) 23 speciesobserved only sporadically,with reports 183 DISTRIBUTION OF NATURALIZED PARROTS IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA '\ ß ......., •\.•:: .:, SANFERNANDO '.:'::;.•.:•!:: -;...... '\ VALLEY SAN GABRIEL VALLEY NORTHCOAST • .... SOUTHC ORANGE• ...... 1200if, contour COUN• /' Figure1. Areasof parrotconcentrations in the greater Los Angeles area, showing regionsused in Table1. rarelyinvolving more than a singleindividual, and (b)ten "established" speciesobserved frequently, and usuallyin pairs,small groups or large flocks.Although proof that someof the speciesin the lattergroup are maintainingor increasingpopulations through reproduction in the wildis lackingor equivocal,I treat them all in thediscussions below because their numbersappear to be significant(>50 individualsin all but two cases). Reportsfrom urbanizedwestern
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