December 25th, 2008 by Gypsy

November 19th, 2008 by Gypsy

LA GARITA DE ALAJUELA, Costa Rica (AP) — Endangered scarlet macaws born in captivity are reproducing in the wild for the first time on Costa Rica’s southern Pacific coast. Three-week-old scarlet macaw chicks sit in an incubator at the ZooAve center in La Garita, Costa Rica.

The ZooAve Center for the Rescue of Endangered Species has released 100 of the birds into the wild in the past decade. But biologists didn’t spot offspring until last year, biologist Laura Fournier said.

Since then, they have recorded 22 chicks born in the wild, and four more scarlet macaw couples have laid eggs, Fournier said.

The parrots once occupied all of Costa Rica. But hunting and poaching dramatically cut their population, and they are now found only in two national parks along the coast.

The biologists’ goal is for 200 birds to populate an isolated coastal area.

Chicks are hatched at the ZooAve center in La Garita, northwest of Costa Rica’s capital, San Jose. At 6 months, they take a 200-mile trip to the southern city of Golfito and then travel by boat to a beach and finally the isolated San Josecito conservation center, far from human settlements. There, they spend up to three months in captivity before being released.

The parrots, which live up to 80 years, can start reproducing at age 7. Of ZooAve’s 86 scarlet macaws, 54 are in the reproduction program.

Many parrots in the breeding program were confiscated by environmental authorities or turned in by their former owners. Some can’t leave the sanctuary because they don’t know how to survive in the wild.

“Many don’t even know how to feed themselves,” Fournier said.

September 27th, 2008 by Gypsy

LONDON - Chris Taylor, a 30-year-old British computer programmer, grew suspicious of his live-in girlfriend when his pet parrot began to imitate her saying, “I love you, Gary.”

Ziggy, an 8-year-old African gray parrot, would also make kissing noises whenever the name Gary was mentioned on TV and would mimic Suzy Collins saying, “Hiya, Gary,” every time she answered her mobile phone.

Confronted with the evidence, Collins admitted to a month-long affair with a coworker named Gary and moved out of their shared Leeds apartment that same night.

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