Since the EU ban on importation of wild caught birds in 2007, the World Parrot Trust estimates probably 13 million birds have been saved from capture, many hundreds of thousands of parrots among them.  Yet habitat loss and illegal trapping continue. On the Cites 1 list of critically endangered species are over 50 species of parrot. The elegant blue Spix macaw (Cyanopsitta spixii) only exist now in private collections. Others like the Blue throated macaw (Ara glaucogularis) rarely have more than five nests which fledge chicks in any given year.  I have a Lesser Sulphur crested cockatoo hen Perdy (Cacatua sulphurea parvula).  She is captive bred but in her ancestral home Timor possibly less than 1000 individuals survive.  It is estimated that the survival of up to one half of the 356 species of parrot is threatened.

Should parrot owners care? Most species are well represented among captive breeding populations so why should we expend precious time, energy and cash on conservation projects? There are valid reasons.  The environmental crisis affects all life on earth, human and animal. We owe it to our children and theirs to preserve what we can.  And the other species with whom we share the earth’s blessings have their rights to exist over and above of their value or use to us.

It seems ironic to worry about global warming during the coldest winter for decades.  But global warming is affecting birds’ habitat.  And our activities harm it further. The destruction of forest habitats burned or ploughed up for ranching, for soya bean cultivation, for firewood means that parrots cannot find the right trees to nest in, or the right fruits and seeds to forage. In some farming regions, a flock may be forced to raid a farmer’s crops and then risk shooting or poisoning.  An ever- expanding human  population threatens the stability of wild life. In this habitat destruction there can be some exceptions. Some species of birds have learned to live in cities. They’ve shown an ability to adapt.  In Los Angeles over 5000 Amazons now live free in the city environment. And even in chilly England, flocks of escaped Indian ringnecks have bred and thrived in the South East.  There may be a future for threatened parrot species to survive in urban environments.  In The Parrots of Telegraph Hill,  Mark Bittner wrote a fascinating insight into the lives of a flock of conures surviving  and breeding in San Francisco.

The increasing eco-tourism business provides an opportunity to discover wild parrots in their natural habitat. And there are positive spin offs from eco-tourism; it becomes advantageous for indigenous people to preserve local flora and fauna. Former trappers are taught to protect their former prey and show enthusiastic birders how they live. Stewart Metz, who has done as much as anyone to protect the remaining wild cockatoos in Indonesia leads expeditions to see the birds in their natural state.

Don Brightsmith who researches wild macaws’ diet in the Tambopata Reserve in Peru believes that  parrot owners are amongst the best placed to help conservation projects.  Conservationists and aviculturalists can help one another. Research on wild parrots diet helps improve captive parrots’ diet.  Financial support from individuals and institutions funds ongoing  research. Brightsmith’s neat idea is that parrot owners pay a self-imposed tax, a proportion of what they spend on their captive birds towards keeping their wild cousins alive. If each parrot owner donated a few pounds or dollars to one of the many projects that exist (often working on a shoestring budget) we could make a substantial difference. What is learned about wild parrots’ behaviour helps our insights into captive birds behaviour.

Jamie Gilardi of the World Parrot Trust (WPT) says that “most people – even those who share their lives with parrots in their homes – have never seen a wild parrot, nor have they seen a parrot in flight!” Once they have done, he believes, even if it is only a film clip, their attitudes change radically.

Birds and mammals share a common ancestor. But we diverged from them millions of years ago. (The crocodile is the bird’s nearest mammal relative) Most birds developed the ability to fly. Only one of many extraordinary attributes like nest building, tool making, song, human speech or social relationships. Parrots are only one order among 31 orders of birds but one with which we’ve have been closely involved. Too often, we have loved them to death, trapping them in huge numbers to feed the pet bird trade and now often acquiescing in further depredations of their shrinking habitats.  And yet a vanishing species can be brought back from the brink. In the 1980s only 10 or 12 Echo parakeets (Psittacula eques echo) remained in Mauritius. Twenty years later, enlightened conservation policies coupled with decades of work by dedicated conservationists have brought the numbers back into the low hundreds. Not only for our pleasure or for our descendants; the vanishing parrots are worth preserving for their own sake.