GETTY African grey parrots face extinction

African greys, once as popular a sight in Edwardian parlours as on pirates' shoulders, are vanishing from their native forests at an alarming rate. Searches for the highly intelligent birds, famed for their ability to mimic human voices, have drawn worrying blanks across their former tropical range. Where roosts of hundreds of these strikingly beautiful parrots with their grey plumage and crimson tails once existed in Ghana, now only a handful of birds were found during recent studies.

GETTY African greys were once a popular sight in Edwardian parlours

Trapping the parrots for the pet trade and the loss of forest habitat are being blamed for the demise of a species that has achieved superstardom. Although Hollywood and television producers have relied on a variety of colourful parrots to play the role of Silver's trusty Cap'n Flint, there is every likelihood that Robert Louis Stevenson had the African grey in mind while writing Treasure Island. The birds were a favourite of British sailors returning from distant lands and soon became popular pets because of their devoted nature, longevity and vocabularies of more than 100 words.

GETTY The birds were a favourite of British sailors returning from distant lands

With captive bred grey parrots selling for up to £1,000 each on the internet, their popularity as pets remains high even though the trade in wild birds was outlawed in the 1990s. Scientists from BirdLife International and Manchester Metropolitan University have been carrying targeted searches for the parrots across Ghana but writing in Ibis, the official journal of the British Ornithologists' Union, they paint a gloomy prognosis for the grey and the closely related Timneh parrot. No active roosts were found in Ghana for the grey parrots and only 18 individual birds were counted at three sites that held up to 1,200 birds two decades ago. The authors, Nathaniel Annorbah, Nigel Collar and Stuart Marsden, warn: "Ghana has lost 90 - 99 per cent of its grey parrots since 1992, a time when the population had presumably already been seriously reduced by two decades of extremely heavy trade.

GETTY Captive grey parrots can sell for up to £1000 on the internet

Ghana has lost 90 - 99 per cent of its grey parrots since 1992 Nathaniel Annorbah, Nigel Collar and Stuart Marsden writing in Ibis