​Less than 80 years ago, regent honeyeaters ruled Australia’s flowering gum forests, with huge raucous flocks roaming from Adelaide to Rockhampton.

Now, there are less than 300 birds left in the wild. Habitat loss has pushed the survivors into little pockets across their once vast range.

Sadly, our new research shows these birds are now heading for rapid extinction. Unless we urgently boost conservation efforts, the regent honeyeater will follow the passenger pigeon into oblivion within the next 20 years.

If we let the last few die, the regent honeyeater will be only the second bird extinction on the Australian mainland since European colonisation, following the paradise parrot.

Our new paper was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

Crates R, Langmore N, Ranjard L, Stojanovic D, Rayner L, Ingwersen D, Heinsohn R (2021) Loss of vocal culture and fitness costs in a critically endangered songbird. Proc. R. Soc. B 20210225.

Several major media outlets picked up the study:

• The Conversation
• BBC
• Nature
• The New York Times
• The Guardian
• Australian Geographic
• ABC News
• Sky News
• Daily Mail