City ParrotsUrban Scarlet Macaw & Parrot Conservation

Reuters

ALMATY - Dozens of parrots seized from a smuggler by Kazakh police died of hunger and thirst before they could be handed over to a zoo, Kazakh media said on Wednesday. Read on…

By DREW EARY; Martinsville Bulletin

Donna Draper, the unit administrative assistant for the Henry County Virginia Cooperative Extension Office, rarely commutes to work alone. Instead, she takes one of her pet parrots with her.

Kaloca, a 13-inch Hahns Mini-Macaw, travels with Draper to work in a carrier each morning and spends most of her time in her office in a cage.

“Kaloca loves to come to work,” Draper said. “I just started bringing her to work about a year ago because she is good company. I carry her around in a carrier, and whenever I get the carrier out, she starts hollering so that she can get in and go to work.” Read on…

CNW Group

PHOENIX - University of Georgia scientists are finalizing development of a new vaccine that could effectively eliminate in companion bird populations a debilitating and often fatal viral disease called psittacine beak and feather disease.

The virus has decimated some free-ranging populations of cockatoos and has historically been a problem for companion-bird lovers from around the globe. The virus is not contagious to humans or other pets. Read on…

NZHerald by Dianne Blumhardt

It is hardly surprising we were a bit tense at the prospect of meeting one of only 86 kakapo left in the world.

But, despite his importance, Sirocco, who gave an audience in a special enclosure, attended by his minder Jo, was a very down-to-earth bird.

We’d read of the opportunity to get close to a kakapo in the Let’s Go NZ column of Herald Travel and it seemed too good an opportunity to miss.

We travelled to the southernmost part of the country, first to Stewart Island, then to Ulva Island, where Sirocco was residing temporarily.

Darkness had fallen swiftly during our 20-minute walk from the small wharf at Ulva Island where our sturdy boat had landed us.

After a routine quarantine check to make sure we weren’t carrying rats, mice or seeds to this predator-free, open bird sanctuary, we were given torches and a briefing to prepare us for our meeting with the famous bird. Read on…

Denise Flaim

“I’m not only the president of the Sex Club for Birds - I’m a member,” jokes board-certified avian veterinarian Elisabeth Simone-Freilicher of the Veterinary Medical Center of Long Island in West Islip, who gives a popular parrot seminar called “Sex and Pscittacine.” Read on…

Ananova.com

An autistic boy who could not speak has learned his first words with the help of his family’s pet parrot. Read on…

NEW YORK (AP) It’s an urban jungle, alright

Take a walk around the soccer field at Brooklyn College, and there, among the pigeons and starlings, you’ll see them - parrots. Yes, parrots. Bright green feathers, orange beaks, native-to-South-America parrots. Read on…

Zoo donates birds’ plumage

What falls to the ground in Atlanta may end up in a Pueblo village in New Mexico; or floating atop a stream in Oregon; or in other places where feathers are worth more than their weight in gold.

Zoo Atlanta is participating in programs that send plumage from some of its most colorful birds to people who value them for culture or sport. Some wind up in the hands of Native Americans who use them in centuries-old ceremonies. Others are used in making fishing flies. Read on…

By Duncan Kennedy, BBC News, Managua

Stop at any traffic lights in the Nicaraguan capital, Managua, and you enter a parallel world of retail. Given time, between the red lights, you could almost do your entire weekly shop from the comfort of your car.

Wind down the window and people carrying seven different types of fruit loom up. Turn your head, and the tortilla man arrives. Read on…

By BEA LEWIS

DARYL CARLSON/CITIZEN PHOTO MICHELE ‘CHELE’ MILLER has spent her entire career as an educator and administrator at the Moultonborough Central School.

Walk into the office of Moultonborough Central School Principal Chele Miller and chances are the first thing you’ll notice is an African Grey parrot sitting atop his cage. Read on…