Where we work

Friends of the Orange-bellied Parrot (OBP) group works across the OBP's range with a focus on Tasmania's west and northwest coasts, King Island and Melaleuca in the far southwest.

What we do

The objectives of our group are to:

Conduct migration and winter surveys in various locations from Strahan to Woolnorth and on King Island when funds are available.
Raise awareness of the plight of the OBP.
Raise funds to support the activities of volunteers and other recovery actions.
Help support the monitoring program at Melaleuca (SW Tasmania) including working bees.
Assist with any habitat management projects.

The group is overseen by a committee that is elected at an Annual General Meeting each September. The current committee is:

President - Marianne Gee
Treasurer - William Oliver
Minute Secretary - Peter Marmion
General committee members - Alan Goldizen, Anne Goldizen and Sally Simco.

Wildcare news articles about our work are at the bottom of this page. We are also on Facebook.

Visit the gallery to view images of the Friends of the OBP in action.

Visit branch files to see newsletters from the OBP Recovery Team and other PDFs including links to OBP news, research papers and video footage.

2027 migration surveys

We will be running more surveys next autumn (March and April) at

Strahan (includes Trial Harbour & Granville Harbour)
Arthur River (south of Temma to West Point)
Woolnorth
Sisters Beach to Stanley
Sunday 25 April to Sunday 2 May - King Island - made possible through a grant from the Wildcare Tasmania's Tasmanian Nature Conservation Fund and funding from fundraising by Friends of the OBP.

Note that the dates for the first four surveys are yet to be confirmed.

Fundraising

We receive tax deductible donations to our fundraising through the "Support Friends of the OBP" portal that is on our webpage. Note that donations made through the "Donations" tab at the top of any of Wildcare's webpages go to the Tasmanian Nature Conservation Fund.

Friends of the OBP also receives income from Wildcare's online shop with 100% of profits on our merchandise supporting efforts to save the critically endangered Orange-bellied Parrot and the work of volunteer OBP monitors at Melaleuca.

On occasion, we have a stall at a market or festival, with these taking us through to the end of the year:

One of our members runs a Redbubble shop that features Orange-bellied Parrot designs, with all profits donated to Friends of the OBP. You can either browse all products from the home page or navigate through "collections" near the top of the page. The Redbubble platform has sales at least once a month with t-shirts often discounted by 25%, so it's worth checking now and then if there's something you really like.

Five designs were recently added that fit onto phone cases for the iPhone 18 model to allow for the bigger camera area:

OBP monitoring at Melaleuca

Volunteers with Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania (NRE Tas) observe Orange-bellied Parrots visiting the feed tables, recording individual leg bands and nest observations. This data is collected for the department's OBP Program staff to monitor survival and breeding success of wild and captive-bred release birds. While Friends of the OBP may assist the NRE OBP Program in various ways, we have no direct involvement with their volunteer program other than distributing information about the expression of interest process when it becomes available.

Excess baggage reimbursement

If you are a member of the Friends of the OBP and are selected by NRE as a volunteer for the OBP monitoring program, a reimbursement for a limited amount of excess baggage may be available. Please email friends.of.the.obp@gmail.com for details.

For all other enquiries about any aspect of volunteer work through NRE's OBP Program, including monitoring OBPs at Melaleuca or assisting at the OBP captive breeding facility near Hobart, please email volunteering@nre.tas.gov.au

Contact us

Email friends.of.the.obp@gmail.com (Marianne Gee, President and representative to the National OBP Recovery Team).

Follow us on Facebook.

Friends of the OBP

Wildcare Friends of Orange-bellied Parrot Autumn Surveys May 2023