Experts celebrate as head-turning bird species makes impressive comeback from brink of extinction: 'A remarkable turnaround'

Years of conservation work are finally paying off for Tasmania's orange-bellied parrot, whose numbers once dipped to just 17 known individuals in the wild.

Today, that number is estimated to be in the low hundreds, according to the Good News Network, which summarized the conservation success. Since 1994, the Orange-bellied Parrot Tasmanian Program, managed by the state's Natural Resources and Environment Department, has been releasing captive-bred individuals into the wild. It recently released a group of 28 juvenile parrots to join an adult breeding and nesting colony.

Madeleine Ogilvie, secretary for the department, told Australia's ABC News that its wildlife experts predict more than 200 orange-bellied parrots will migrate north — a critical journey for the species — this breeding season.

"That's a remarkable turnaround compared to the 2015-16 breeding season, when only 15 nestlings were produced, and an estimated 35 birds migrated north," she told the news outlet.

Orange-bellied parrots are one of only three migratory parrot species in the world, according to the Victoria state government. These birds help sustain the environment in a number of ways — for instance, birds play a critical role in seed dispersal through their droppings. And according to the National Audubon Society, bird poop is also an important fertilizer.

This is one of many wildlife conservation success stories in recent years. For instance, conservationists announced that lion cubs had been born for the first time in 150 years in South Africa's Zululand. And Argentina's Patagonian coast has welcomed back sei whales thanks to global bans on commercial whaling that have allowed these animals to slowly recover their population over the past century.

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In Australia, "the release [of captive-bred birds] … is a critical component towards maintaining the population and ensuring the species doesn't go extinct," independent bird ecologist Eric Woehler told ABC News.

Still, the species' gene pool remains extremely limited, so scientists are considering cross-breeding to save them from extinction, Phys.org reported.

"Capturing several specimens and breeding them would lead to more birds, but their gene pool would still be too shallow to allow them to overcome diseases once they were released into the wild," the site explained. "The only way to save them … is to diversify their genes."

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