Living in Japan with Abo and Okame

by Tomoko Mimi Shimada

I live in Hiratsuka City, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, with my husband Nate and our two parrots, Abo, an African Grey Parrot and Okame, a lutino cockatiel.  Mimi and Nate are our adopted American names from when we lived and worked in the USA - Nate’s Japanese name is Noriomi and mine is Tomoko.

We live in a tenth floor condo in a smallish city with beautiful views of Mount Fuji in the distance.  I thought that Abo and Okame would like to be in a high place with a view instead of looking at neighbours windows and cars on the streets.

When we lived in America we had two pet sparrows that we rescued.  One decided to return to nature and the other lived with us for four years until she died - her passing made me very sad.  After we lost our little sparrow I longed to have a pet bird.  I saw some pretty cockatiels in a pet shop in the US and I really wanted to have one, but the timing was wrong as we needed to return to Japan.  We had both had pets when we were children - I had dogs and Nate had a cat.  We knew of the responsibilities of having animals and that having living creatures is not like having a toy animal.

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Military Macaws on the coast of Jalisco, Mexico

by Dr David Waugh

The Military Macaw (Ara militaris) is nationally and internationally protected and now occurs in discontinuous, localised populations throughout its geographical distribution.  The main threat to the Military Macaw is habitat loss and it is estimated that this has caused a reduction of 30 per cent in its original distribution in Mexico.  It is the macaw species with the most northerly distribution, occurring in Mexico along the Pacific slope from Sonora to Chiapas, and on the Atlantic slope from Tamaulipas to Queretaro.

Unfortunately, almost no information exists on the key habitats and food resources required to maintain these macaw populations throughout the year.  This lack of information can hinder its conservation, given that threatened species depend on the maintenance of all habitat types, required to meet their needs.  The conservation of Military Macaw populations could be stimulated by non-extractive use, such as ecotourism, but the implementation of such strategies requires a sound social and scientific basis.

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The Lear's Macaw success story

by Dr Matthias Reinschmidt

On 31 December 1978, the German-born, Brazilian ornithologist Prof Helmut Sick - who had taught at the University of Sao Paulo - finally achieved his goal and found the Lear's Macaw (Anodorhynchus leari) in the wild.  Its natural habitat turned out to be the dry and barren region of Caatinga, Bahia, in north-eastern Brazil, where only a few rock cliffs rise out of the landscape.

Scientifically the Lear's Macaw had been known since 1856, when Bonaparte described it and provided scientific literature on the species.  A few individuals appeared in zoological facilities around the world and there were also museum specimens, but no-one knew exactly where they came from.

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