Carolina parakeet was native to U.S.

The Carolina parakeet, the only parrot once native to the eastern United States, has been extinct since the 1920s.From a nearly seven-foot ostrich skeleton to tiny hummingbirds, birds are one of strengths of the Bruce Museum's natural history collection. Most are housed securely in a compact, climate-controlled area of the museum's basement, awaiting their turn to become part of an exhibition, research project, educational program or loan to another institution. Some species have come from the tropics, Asia and Africa, but most are common birds of New England; however, a few are very rare.

Click to read more ...

How to breed a Carolina parakeet

Walton Ford's unsurpassed impression of the Carolina parakeetIt is likely that in historic and prehistoric time the Carolina parakeets interbred with close relatives in Mexico and the Caribbean. The genes that made Carolina parakeets unique could still linger in these populations. With the advances in Molecular biological techniques identifying those genes is now possible. Screening the conure populations of Mexico and the Caribbean could identify specimens with genes of the lost Carolina parakeet. Bringing such birds together trough selective breeding should result in birds that much resemble Carolina parakeets genetically. Genes that can’t be found could be synthesised. Ultimately resulting in the deextinction of the Carolina parakeet.

Click to read more ...

Scientists debate ‘DeExtinction’

The Carolina parakeet (Conuropsis carolinensis) was the only native species of parrot in the eastern United States, having ranged from southern New York to the Gulf of Mexico, and as far west as Wisconsin. Photo by Julie DermanskyIt sounds like a scene from Jurassic Park: molecular biologists, ornithologists, and a bioethicist came together at a private meeting at Harvard Medical School in February of 2012 to discuss bringing back the passenger pigeon.

Click to read more ...

A talkative bird gone without a word

Mark Catesby's illustration of the parakeet. It's from Catesby's Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands, which was published in several editions in the mid 1700s. Courtesy of Wilson LibraryThe Carolina parakeet, a small, gregarious parrot with a vibrant green, yellow and blood-orange plumage, once flitted and chattered widely through the state’s forests and lowland swamps.

Click to read more ...

New York's (now lost) native parrot

From an 1825 illustration by John James Audubon.As strange as it might sound, there were once parrots -- parakeets, specifically -- that were native to New York State. The range of the Carolina Parakeet stretched as far north as the Great Lakes, and there are historical reports of them in Albany.

Click to read more ...