City ParrotsUrban Scarlet Macaw & Parrot Conservation

by Greg Beacham

Now that they’re proven to be profitable, we’ve entered a golden age of intelligent nonfiction films about every subject under the sun. Made on a shoestring and lovingly passed from one art house to the next, many of the best recent documentaries are made by people who see the world through their lens, with far-reaching ambitions to teach, incite and unearth universality in their subjects. But since Hoop Dreams, it’s been common knowledge that the most resonant documentaries usually are narrow tales about remarkable lives. In storytelling, less usually means more, and it’s hard to imagine much simpler abundance than in The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. Read on…

Victoria Young

The Western Recovery Team has completed the first of five surveys in Cape Arid National Park to help save the critically endangered bird from extinction. Read on…

Fabio Arjona, Executive Director, CI Colombia

Bogota: High in the mist-shrouded Colombian Andes, the yellow-eared parrot (Ognorhynchus icterotis) and the Quindío wax palm (Ceroxylon quindiuense) today have a new lease on life—as do the remarkable landscapes that sustain them. Five years ago, a unique pact was forged between CI, its partners, and the Roman Catholic church to save both species, which are on the verge of extinction. Today, the alliance is lauded as one of the most successful biodiversity conservation campaigns in Latin American history. Read on…

PRINTABLE BIRD CHECKLISTS

A new species of parrot has been described from the Amazon river basin. Although scientists have known about the existence of the Sulphur-breasted Parakeet (Aratinga pintoi) for around 100 years, its true identity has only just been revealed. Read on…

The Monitor (Kampala)

Conservation Uganda, Africa: People illegally keeping parrots have three months to register them or face five years imprisonment.

“Of recent the African Grey Parrot is facing extinction because of its high demand by mostly the expatriate community. UWA has given chance to those keeping parrots for pets to register them with us,” said Mr Tom Obong Okello a UWA Community Conservation Coordinator UWA in an interview on Monday. Read on…

By ANNE BESTON

New Zealand’s mischievous alpine parrot, the kea, is suspected of killing rare kiwi chicks in the South Island.

Kea have never before been implicated in the decline of New Zealand’s national bird. Read on…

By Peter Friederici

From coast to coast an influx of exotic parakeets is bringing eye-popping color and ear-popping chatter to even the coldest locales. At the same time, these imports are raising all sorts of questions about their environmental and economic costs. Read on…

Birds seized from smugglers will be released into wild

Parrots intercepted at the U.S.-Mexico border and cared for by U.S. officials during a months-long quarantine were returned to Mexico at the Otay Mesa border crossing yesterday. The birds transferred yesterday were among more than 170 seized in two border busts in August and October.
The exotic birds were hatched in the Mexican tropics but wound up as contraband headed to a swap meet in Los Angeles. They never made it because their smugglers couldn’t get past border inspectors. Read on…

Rex Dalton, San Diego Nature 432

Rules against avian trade aim to halt disease and conserve wildlife.

More than 200 environmental groups are asking the European Union (EU) to introduce a permanent ban on the importation of wild birds. Read on…

BirdLife International

The globally threatened St Vincent Parrot, national bird of St Vincent and the Grenadines, is under threat from a cross-country road funded by the Taiwanese Government. The road would irreversibly damage the remnants of primary rainforest on which the parrot depends, and open it up to further encroachment by illegal loggers and marijuana growers. Read on…