page_title: Torresian imperial pigeon
section_title: Status
hierarchical_section_title: Torresian imperial pigeon / Status
caption_attribution_description: Ducula spilorrhoa English: A Torresian Imperial-pigeon at Wildlife Habitat, Port Douglas, Queensland, Australia.
context_page_description: The Torresian imperial pigeon, also known as the nutmeg pigeon, white nutmeg pigeon, Australian pied imperial pigeon or Torres Strait pigeon, is a relatively large, pied species of pigeon. It is found in forest, woodland, savanna, mangrove and scrub in Australia, New Guinea, Aru Islands, islands in the Geelvink Bay, D'Entrecasteaux Islands and Louisiade Archipelago. It has also been recorded as a vagrant in New South Wales, Australia. As far as known, most populations are resident or only take part in minor local movements, but the population in Queensland leaves for New Guinea in February–April and returns in July–August.
context_section_description: The birds were once present in large colonies in Cairns, Australia.   Edmund Banfield wrote in 1908 that in Dunk Island "fully 100,000 come and go evening and morning", with flying colonies as wide as two miles.  It was described by Harold Frith in 1982, who stated these processions as "one of the great ornithological experiences of the tropics."  However, the birds were subject to mass slaughter in the 19th and early 20th Centuries because they were thought of as pests or easy targets for recreational shooting.  Populations dropped rapidly before conservation activists such as Margaret and Arthur Thorsborne led a campaign to protect them and monitor their numbers.
  Anecdotal evidence from Weipa, Cape York Peninsula in 1979 was that many birds migrating from Papua New Guinea were shot and pickled as provisions for the merchant shipping fleets moving through the Torres Strait.  The population of birds visiting Weipa in the 1980s was so low that the birds distinctive call was heard but sightings at that time were rare.  The population in Weipa today is thriving as flocks feed voraciously twice daily on Carpentaria Palms in suburban back yards from August each year.
  The population is now slowly increasing because of their protected status in Australia, where there are now an estimated 30,000.  The species remains locally fairly common in parts of its range, and is therefore considered to be of least concern by BirdLife International and IUCN.
caption: In Queensland, Australia
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