Colorful Boundary Trespassers: Burrowing Parrots Crossed the Andes 120,000 Years Ago

Burrowing parrots at a feeding place. These parrots originated in the steppes of the Andean slopes in Chile, from where they expanded to Patagonia reaching as far as the Atlantic Ocean. (Credit: Fabián Llanos)

The Andes of southern South America form a hostile mountain range with glaciers, salty deserts and high elevation steppes. Birds from more moderate climate zones cross this mountain range only rarely. Nevertheless, many species live on both sides of the Andes, as in the case of the burrowing parrot Cyanoliseus patagonus.

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Parrots With a Paint Job: Wildlife Traffickers Bleaching Parrots to Increase Value

Bleached Burrowing parrotIllegal wildlife traffickers in Argentina are bleaching the plumage of common parrots and passing them off as their rarer and more valuable cousins. Wildlife groups say the burrowing parrot, a breed that inhabits most of the country’s territory, is being captured in large numbers and dyed in order to give it the appearance of a much rarer Amazon species that can fetch at least double the price on the thriving black market.

The bird, which has an olive green back, blue wings and a yellow belly with a red stain, is given a hydrogen peroxide bath to give it the appearance of a blue-and-yellow macaw, which has a much higher price tag of up to $530. They are then sold at fairs in Buenos Aires and elsewhere as part of an illegal trade in exotic wildlife worth millions of dollars annually.

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Wildlife traffickers bleach parrots to increase value

Monk parakeet, the yellow on the head is the result of bleach and paint. Image by Alfredo Acevedo Alfaro.It may not be dead, have shuffled off this mortal coil or joined the bleedin’ choir invisible, but anyone purchasing this parrot should know that it has had a paint job.

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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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Protecting Argentina's parrot colony

Burrowing Parrots, family in flight. Image by Erik SchepersYou might think that 180,000 squawking, screeching parrots living in 35,000 nests along 12km (seven miles) of coastline would draw quite a lot of attention.

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