Welcome to my blog. Those are four words that I never dreamed of stringing together in the same sentence, let alone publishing on the web!
So having got this far what will I be writing about? As this is the WPT blogging community there will inevitably be something about parrots from time to time but I will also be writing about the other birds and mammals which I have the good fortune to work with here at Paradise Park.
This is the time of year when the admin tends to catch up with me. After a busy season now comes the time to play catch up, by transferring all of the daily diary entries onto computer. We do try to keep this up to date, that is until the start of the main season, when visitors arrive in ever increasing numbers and our full schedule of public presentations are in full swing, admin by necessity takes a back seat. Paradise Park is a member of ISIS (www.isis.org) and we use the ARKS software to maintain all of our animal records. Lots of end of year data requests arrive from studbook keepers and species coordinators at this time of the year and each one needs to be completed and returned before studbook recommendations can be made.
It is also a great time to review the collection as a whole and to take stock of where we are with regard to establishing new pairings and moving specimens on to other collections. We have just exchanged a female Buffon’s Macaw with a private collection in Ireland in order to establish a new unrelated pair in both collections. This is particularly pleasing as I have been trying to acquire new blood in this species for the last two years. Having previously exchanged another female for an unrelated bird in September of last year we now have two brand new pairs ready for the 2007 breeding season. There are many other stock moves planned for the next few months involving Blue throated Macaws, Wattled Cranes and Ground Hornbills to name but three. There can be few global communities that work together as well as the zoological community. Politics, language and even religious differences disappear when it comes to striving to achieve the best for the animals. The exchange of stock and information is so willingly given that it is such a pleasure to work within such an environment.
The news of the week however must be that the EU has decided to do exactly what we have been hoping for—all wild bird imports have been banned permanently. The temporary ban on all live bird imports has been extended until June 2007, with the new regulation taking effect on 1 July 2007. Congratulations to everyone involved but particularly Jamie and Cristiana—well done guys.
The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent World Parrot Trust’s positions or opinions.
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