Sydney, Sep 23 (IANS) Australian researchers have found the largest-known population of a critically endangered native parrot in a desert in the country, according to a study published on Monday.

Researchers led by a team of Indigenous rangers found a stronghold of at least 50-night parrots living in an Indigenous Protected Area (IPA) in Western Australia (WA).

The night parrot is a small parrot that is endemic to Australia. There were no confirmed sightings of the bird between 1912 and 1979, leading to speculation that it was extinct. The species is listed as critically endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species.

For the new study, researchers used acoustic recorders to survey the presence of night parrots at 31 sites in the Ngururrpa IPA, a 29,000 square kilometre area in the Great Sandy Desert in remote northern WA, between 2020 and 2023.

They found evidence of night parrots at 17 of the 31 sites and estimated that at least 50 individuals live in the IPA, making it the largest-known population, Xinhua news agency reported.

At sites where parrots were detected, researchers deployed camera traps to survey predators and analysed 40 years of satellite images to assess the threat of fires to roosting habitats.

They concluded that fires that occur in the surrounding sandpan country every six to 10 years are a key threat to the night parrot habitat.

Dingoes, wild dogs native to Australia, were common in the habitat, but the research found that they protected the night parrots by deterring predatory feral cats from the area.

The research was led by Ngururrpa Rangers in collaboration with the University of Queensland, the Indigenous Desert Alliance and the Parna Ngururrpa Aboriginal Corporation.