Western Ground Parrots were known to Aboriginal people in the Perth area by the name of Djar-doon-gur-ree. Noongar people in the Albany district referred to them as Ky-lor-ing. This parrot species was once widely distributed ranging from an area south of Geraldton to Israelite Bay on the South Coast of Western Australia.

With settlers clearing large tracts of land from the late 19th century onwards, much of the bird's habitat had been destroyed by the middle of the 20th century. As early as 1912 ornithologist F. L. Whitlock commented on the scarcity of the species when he found it difficult to locate its nest. Eventually, in the spring of that year he found a nest; no other nests have been located since.

By 1983 the Western Ground Parrot had disappeared west of Albany and was only found in the Waychinicup / Manypeaks area, Fitzgerald River and Cape Arid National Parks. After extensive wildfires in the Cape Arid region in the late 1980s, the Western Ground Parrot disappeared from there as well, but was rediscovered in the park in 2003.

No birds have been found in the Waychinicup region since 2004 and the Fitzgerald River National Park population has been in steep decline for nearly a decade.

The first comprehensive survey carried out in the 1980s estimated Western Ground Parrots numbers at approximately 380 birds.

At the start of the Western Ground Parrot Recovery Project in 2003, the population was estimated to be less than 200 birds.

By 2010 less than 140 parrots seem to be left in the wild. The majority of the population is now surviving in Cape Arid National Park.