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Environmental Issues - Courtesy of ECOVER - the Environmental Magazine
At least three dozen different parrot species are now considered threatened or endangered in their quickly shrinking native tropical and sub-tropical habitats (mostly in South America). As such, the health of wild flocks in the U.S. and other developed countries around the world may well be key to preserving these birds that could otherwise go extinct.
Mt High Reaches out to Military
What are the conservation implications of all the wild colonies of escaped pet parrots that have turned up in and around some major U.S. cities? -- Mike Gifford, Kirkland, WA
A pair of Quaker Parrots (also known as "Monk Parakeets") on a branch in Brazil, one of their shrinking native habitats. Preserving the health of the many wild flocks in the U.S. and other developed countries around the world may well be key to preventing these birds from going extinct altogether. Photo courtesy of Getty Images
Today wild parrot flocks thrive in urban and suburban areas of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Florida, Texas, Washington State and elsewhere. San Francisco and Brooklyn each host particularly large flocks, especially considering their relative lack of green space. Wild parrot flocks are also reportedly thriving in cities across much of Western Europe. Most of these parrots, of course, are not former pets themselves, but the descendents of birds that long ago may have escaped during transport from their jungle homes to pet stores generations ago.
Conservationists are optimistic that the parrots’ successful adaptation to more northerly urban environments bodes well for their future, despite the loss of much of their ancestral rainforest habitat. According to Roelant Jonker of the non-profit City Parrots, encouraging the formation of wild flocks of urban parrots promises to be a much more effective conservation tactic than trying to raise more birds in captivity where they would not so readily pass on their genes or learn the survival, adaptation and social skills necessary to survive. To Jonker, the proof is in the pudding: Some 2,500 wild red-crowned Amazon parrots (a quarter of the world’s total) are thriving in and around California’s biggest urban areas at the same time their population numbers are plummeting back in their native rainforest habitat.