Abstract
My passion for parrots started long ago and as a parrot behavior consultant I am fortunate to meet a lot of birds and their owners. Every bird is special and valuable but there were always some on my list that I wanted to meet as my personal goal. During the last AFA Convention I could remove Cookie, the 83 year old major Mitchell cockatoo from the Chicago Brookfield Zoo, from my to-see-list. But this list got even shorter the year before when I visited the ACTP with my family and the parrot enthusiasts Tony Pittman, Karl- Heinz Lambert and Bärbel Zickner. On our way to the anniversary conference of the “Fonds für bedrohte Papageien” in Berlin we stopped in a small town called Schöneiche. No one would guess that this is the home of some of the rarest parrots in the world. Hidden in a small street is the entrance to the Association for the Conservation of Threatened Parrots e.V. (ACTP). Our small group was welcomed by Enrico Sydow, the curator of the facility, who guided us to the office building. But before we start our tour around the breeding facility of the ACTP just let me introduce this organization.
The ACTP is a non-profit organization founded in 2006 by Martin Guth, dedicated to preserve globally threatened bird species and their habitats. Rare Parrots were chosen as core species to underline the importance for habitat protection and to serve as ambassadors for the animal community and entire ecosystems. The ACTP focuses not only on breeding these rare parrot species to establish captive safety populations but also on breeding programs in the countries of origin of different species. Returning captive bred parrots back into the wild is one of the main goals that should be first met in 2021. Till then it is a long way to go and there for the ACTP and the government of several countries work hard to prepare the public and the natural environment to make sure that this effort will be successful. There for the ACTP supports and works not only together with scientific institutions, international agencies, and wildlife conservation organizations, supports educational programs and donates equipment for Forestry Departments but also supports the local population to strengthen the local industry.
The breeding facility of the ACTP is home of Palm Cockatoos, Red- tailed and Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos, Gang-Gang Cockatoos, Hyacinth, Lear’s and Scarlet Macaws, Red-Tailed Amazons, Golden Conures, St. Vincent Amazons, St. Lucia Amazons and the little blue star in the parrot world: the Spix’s Macaw. So now you can imagine how we felt when we passed...