Australian vets warn that red-winged parrots may be consuming alcohol-rich mangoes, and are dying from intoxication.
December is the end of the mango season in Western Australia’s Kimberley region, so there’s a lot of fallen fruit on the ground. Mangoes are high in sugar and can produce a lot of alcohol, even though they rot under the sun.
The abundance of free alcohol has been a serious threat to red-winged Parrots in the area, who are just addicted to fermented Mangoes.
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Paul Murphy, a veterinarian at the Broome Veterinary Hospital said that six birds suffering from ethanol poisoning were brought in to his hospital over the last week.
“Usually, they’ve been suffering for a couple of days… They’re quite lethargic and at various stages of malnutrition,”He said.
These parrots weren’t the luckiest, however. “there are a lot of them, unfortunately, that don’t make it to the clinic because they pass away before people find them,” Murphy regretted.
Due to the same factors, some birds died. “drunken behavior”Their motor system was affected by alcohol. “We’re hearing a few reports of flying into windows and sitting on the floor, not being able to fly and being vulnerable to cats and other predators,”According to the vet.
Scientists have found that only red-winged pararots seem to have problems with fermented mangoes.
Alcohol-related deaths are the price they’re paying for the reproduction of their favorite tree.
“The ethanol is clearly serving some sort of ecological value for the tree”Michael Considine, associate professor at University of Western Australia told ABC News that the fermented mangoes attract birds and then disperse the seeds.
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