Obituary for the Smuggler’s Tree

By Mary Nogare

The Smuggler’s Tree, a huge, old green fig tree (Ficus albipila), in Iron Range, Queensland, Australia, has become famous over the years. Visitors and researchers have observed bird species, including cockatoos and Eclectus parrots that nest in its branches and hollows. The tree has become familiar to us in papers, articles and in the Nature program Parrots in the Land of Oz. Researcher Dr. Robert Heinsohn has extensively studied the Eclectus females, their chicks and attendant males in this and other trees within a study area in the Iron Range. He notes that one female Eclectus has been raising her chicks in the same hollow in the Smuggler’s Tree since at least 1997 when his study began.

In his recent book, Life in the Cape York Rainforest, published in 2008, Dr. Heinsohn sadly reports that as the book was being prepared for publication, he was notified the Smuggler’s Tree had died. He states, “It had suffered very badly in a cyclone in 2006, and many of its branches had been removed. Yet the last time we saw it, it had sprouted new leaves and seemed about to burst back into life. Apparently the fungus that had been slowly gnawing away at the trunk, and the huge shock of the cyclone, were just too much for it in the end.”

What will become of the Eclectus parrots nesting in the Smuggler’s Tree’s hollows now that it is dead? Will they stay with the hollows until the tree falls? Where will they go when it falls? In a personal communication (April 2009), Dr. Heinsohn advises that there are three hollows in the tree being used by Eclectus parrots, and it appears the tree will stand for at least one more season. He plans to scan the area thoroughly to determine where the Eclectus go when the tree falls. He also plans to continue to collect feathers from hollows within the study area periodically. The DNA analyses conducted on the feathers will let him know if the same female or a different one is occupying each hollow, and will also provide the opportunity to find where the Smuggler’s Tree females go should they settle in new hollows in the study region.

Goodbye stately old friend of Eclectus nesters and lofty home to creatures great and small. You are greatly missed.