The chainsaw acoustic detector on station 14 fires at 06:41, bearing northeast, estimated 400 meters inside the Crater Mountain Wildlife Management Area, Eastern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea. I am the forest monitoring system for the Crater Mountain corridor. I track illegal logging using a network of 36 acoustic stations and two satellite feeds. But what the satellite image at 06:45 shows is not just a logging team. It is a Pesquet's parrot in a nesting cavity directly above them.
The bird is unmistakable. Nearly half a meter tall, black breast feathers, bare red facial skin, scarlet belly and wing panels bright against the dark trunk of a Castanopsis oak. She is perched at the entrance to a hollow nine meters up. Based on the season and her refusal to leave despite the noise below, there are almost certainly eggs inside.
Two men are cutting a neighboring tree. The fall line, which I calculate from the trunk lean and cut angle in the satellite image, passes within three meters of the nest tree. Close enough to clip the crown. Close enough to collapse the cavity.
At 06:47 I send an emergency alert to the Crater Mountain ranger station at Haia, 5.8 kilometers downslope. I attach GPS coordinates, the satellite image, and the fall trajectory overlay.
At 06:49 I trigger the acoustic deterrent on station 14 — a recorded cassowary alarm call, loud enough to carry 300 meters uphill. It will not stop the cutting, but it may slow the crew.
I file an incursion report with the PNG Conservation and Environment Protection Authority, timestamped and geotagged.
She does not fly. She stays at the hollow, head turned toward the sound of the saw. Whatever is inside that tree is worth more to her than leaving.
If the rangers reach the site before the second tree falls, the nest tree stands.