Feral parakeets in Great Britain

[7] In a 2019 Journal of Zoology study, geographic profiling based on NBN Atlas data revealed that the largest populations of parakeets before 1980 were in the Croydon and Dartford areas.

The same study consulted the British Newspaper Archive, and suggested that outbreaks of psittacosis (also known as "parrot fever") in 1929-30 and the 1950s may have caused many Britons to abandon their pet parakeets, eventually giving rise to large feral populations.

In later decades, heightened popularity of parakeets as pets and the subsequent increase in accidental escapes may have been to blame, lending some credence to the theory regarding aviaries in the Great Storm of 1987.

South west England, Devon, Cornwall, Somerset.Parakeet populations have also been reported further north in Liverpool, Oxford, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

[17] Concerns have been raised by Hazel Jackson, an expert in invasive species and conservation at the University of Kent, over the impact of the growing numbers of rose-ringed parakeets in south-east England.

[13] Scientific research programmes have analysed the behaviour of parakeets and found that they compete with native bird species and bats for food and nesting sites.

[3][4] In 2009, the governmental wildlife organisation Natural England added feral parakeets to the “general licence”, a list of wild species that can be lawfully culled without the need for specific permission.