Press Pack Interview with Chris Packham- Invasion of the Parakeets

TX: 15th June at 8pm 

Ring-necked parakeets are among Britain's most divisive birds, loved for their beauty and blamed for harming native wildlife. Chris Packham follows a family of parakeets as they grow. He investigates claims that they steal nesting sites and damage crops, and asks whether these charismatic newcomers are ecological villains or unfairly targeted outsiders?

Ring-necked parakeets divide opinion like few other birds. Why do you think people feel so strongly about them?

I think the first thing is that they're higher parity, so they're not a species that you miss. They're bright green, they scream, and they fly around in daylight in public places. I think then there is a genuine underlying xenophobia in life, which makes us fearful of change and new things. So, the arrival of a species like this, or at least the increase in its numbers, is something which excites people's fear, and that's what we explore in our programme. Change, and a fear of change is something which underpins this programme, and so much more of our contemporary life, and I do think it's something that we need to address. If we address that, which is something of a side issue for many people, maybe that will stimulate them to think, well, I need to keep an open mind, or at least make sure that I'm very well informed before I come up with views about more immediate impacts within our life..

What is it about them that captures your imagination?

It is there the fact that they've come here. I'm excited by the fact that we have a species which has come into the UK and has rapidly increased in numbers, and I'm excited, and that will go into answering part three. 

Their numbers have exploded in recent decades. Should we be concerned by their rapid success?

I don't think we should be concerned by their rapid success. I think we should be concerned that we understand why they are enjoying a rapid success, and again, that underpins the point and the way that we approach our programme, that we need to look at the science, what it is, what is it about this species and the UK's environment at the note at the moment, which has facilitated its rapid success

Do we have enough evidence to know what impact parakeets are having on Britain's native birds?

We have growing evidence, and we are working with the scientist Amy Leader, who's doing most specific targeted work on that. The evidence that we do have isn't specific to parakeets in particular, and their impact. It's looking at broader data, not that that shouldn't be a means of understanding the basic ideas about what's happening, and equally perhaps it should be an early warning system, but the early warning system shouldn't lead to us jumping to conclusions. It should lead to more scientific research, and that's what we say in our programme. 

Your film features people who are taking action against parakeets. Were you surprised by the strength of feeling they provoke?

Very sadly I wasn't surprised because I see that in our everyday life where people act through fear and ignorance and take extreme action because they are ill educated or ill informed and that again is why we've made the programme. We want to draw a line in the sand with this and say, look, this is the situation as it is at the moment, from a from a purely impartial, independent scientific perspective. This is what you should be formulating your opinions on. And was I surprised? No. Was I sick of? Of course I was, because what we're looking at is just wanton acts of vandalism. They're not going to achieve anything, even if this animal were deemed to be invasive, and you know, and we should be taking steps to try and control, control its population. The actions that we saw from them are nothing that ilk at all. They're not scientifically about cull in any way, shape, or form. 

How should we approach the question of controlling a species that many people have come to love? 

It's not just about the biology and the ecology, it is about the cultural impact and the cultural connection that people have with species. An enormous number of people like the grey squirrels in their parks and gardens,  and the foxes, because they are entry-level wildlife for them, that's what they have in their environments, that they don't live in an extraordinarily rich biodiverse environment, and none of us do, you know, in one of the most biodiverse depleted areas in the world, so even in our, you know, nature reserves, but not in that state, but they're, you know, they are a species, the parakeets that people in cities, as our research shows, and are looking at the social side of this, you know, shows that people have a strong connection to, they like them, they fill their life with, with, with, with life, which otherwise wouldn't be there.

After making this film, where do you stand on the future of ring-necked parakeets in Britain? Should we celebrate them, manage them, or simply learn to live alongside them? 

Well, we should certainly learn to live alongside them. I think that's it. I think that, irrespective of any more work that's done, we are now in a position where it would. Be you know reckless, culturally insensitive, and economically unviable to remove them, so we have to learn to live alongside them, and that's in to that extent I think that we should celebrate them for the time being, and if it turns out that at some stage in the future they, the changing population and or its behaviour means that they damage that natural human interest then we would have to learn how to manage them in hopefully in a passive way, but if not, then in a humane way. But I think we're far away from that. 

 Do you think there's an element of what some have called "ornithological xenophobia" in the way parakeets are portrayed?

I do, I think it's an ugly side to, to life, and it strangely, we see it in broader society, but it, it manifests in, you know, what you might call special interest groups, like, like birding and interest in wildlife, there's very, very definitely a tendency towards that. 

When we describe species as "native" and "non-native", is there a risk that the conversation becomes more emotional than scientific?

Yes, language is incredibly important. Native and non-native, I think, are perfectly valid. So is invasive, so long as we understand what they mean and why we use those terms again in a scientific way, and not in a way which is designed to stir up antipathy and cause divisiveness or fuel hatred again, without any proper access to the truth, if you like. Language is incredibly important in our culture. That's why it's used so skilfully by those people who do want to generate division, and so on and so forth. We have to be very careful with the way that we use our words, and I thought that Leila, our contributor, was really brilliant when she spoke about that. 

Do you think the debate around parakeets tells us as much about people as it does about birds? 

Very much so  And I think you can see in our programme, you know, you can see hatred and you can see love and you know it from someone who loves life and all life, everything in the creeps course of the stings and slimes, you can, you know, which side I'm going to fall on, and ultimately when it comes down to the individuals, it's not the squirrels fault or the parakeets fault that they're here, if they are, you know, in the case of the squirrels, the wrong species in the wrong place at the wrong time, it's down to us, not down to the squirrels. So, again, you know, we should look at our behavior, our attitudes and practices, and not focus our ire on an animal which has been, you know, against its will, transported to the UK and established itself here, because it simply wants to do what all other life wants to do, which just survive. 

Can we celebrate the beauty and success of ring-necked parakeets while still asking difficult questions about their place in Britain's ecosystems?

Yes, very certainly. And that, and that again, I think, is what we've tried to do with our program. You know, I say at the beginning, I like parakeets, but I must find out the truth about them, and that pragmatism is something that we all need to bring into our lives, and we're making decisions that are going to impact, you know, our future, because the future of Britain's ecosystems is something that we are dependent upon, we need them to be, you know, harmonious intact, dynamic, but resilient, and it may well be that we need to look for future ecosystems which are not like those in the past. They may well need to integrate species which have come from overseas, because the species that have lived here, we've destroyed, and the world is going through a climate breakdown, the temperatures heating up, rainfall patterns, and heat stress is becoming unpredictable, so we need to think creatively about change.