Americans love the parrot to death

Red-fronted Amazons (Amazona viridigenalis) in Palm Beach, FLAmericans, drawn to the colorful feathers and personalities of the parrot and the macaw, fuel illegal smuggling of Mexico’s exotic birds. A recent report, The illegal parrot trade in Mexico, presents estimates sure to sadden bird lovers and perhaps even the bird indifferent. Parrots and macaws are disappearing from their homeland at an alarming rate.  The cause of their death: Americans love parrots and macaws and want to own them.

Between 65,000 and 78,500 wild parrots are captured illegally each year. Of these, more that 75%, 50,000 to 60,000, will die before ever reaching a purchaser. See video below for pictures of smuggled birds. Approximately 90% of all Mexican parrot and macaw species exist in increasing peril of extinction from the wild.

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Fighting Real Parrots With a Fake Owl

Exotic green birds in Whitestone, Queens, have built nests up on Con Ed equipment, which often starts fires and destroys costly machinery. Many of Con Edison’s challenges are well known — blackouts and steam pipe explosions included — but a lesser-known problem has proved no less nagging: how to protect equipment from the thousands of monk parakeets that nest in the utility poles of Queens and Brooklyn.

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A cockatoo on the brink of extinction

Carnaby’s Black Cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus latirostris) family group. Photo: SandraA BIRD with lifelong fidelity to its mate and a mournful cry is heading towards extinction in Western Australia. If it were allowed to happen, the demise of Carnaby's black cockatoo would echo the "lack of foresight and rank stupidity" that led to the Tasmanian tiger's extinction in 1936, according to former CSIRO wildlife research scientist Denis Saunders.

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Big brood of rotund rare parrots

The breeding season coincides with the ripening of the kakapo's favourite fruitOne of the world's rarest birds, New Zealand's kakapo, is now not quite so rare thanks to the arrival of 34 kakapo chicks.

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Who's a pretty inmate then?

Taylor Rehoming Centre volunteer Fran Ponting with Storm, the Patagonian Conure parrot which flew into the Verne Prison PORTLAND’S Verne Prison has had to deal with an escapee – but this particular jailbird fled into the jail.

The lost parrot flew into the prison and was found by a member of staff, who took it into the RSCPA’s Taylor’s Rehoming Centre in Dorchester.

Tess Every, deputy manager of the centre in the grounds of Kingston Maurward College, said: “He flew up to the member of staff because he was very tame.

“She brought him in to us and we advertised him and gave him a chance to be claimed.

“We gave the owners seven days to come forward but with no luck.”

The Patagonian Conure parrot was eventually adopted by centre volunteer Fran Ponting, who took the bird on as a friend for the yellow-naped Amazon parrot she already had at home.

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