SABC2 News: Scientists Investigate A Virus Infecting Wild Cape Parrots

[AFRIKAANS BROADCAST]
On Saturday 18th May 2013 the SABC News team from Bhisho joined the Cape Parrot Project team in Alice (Eastern Cape, South Africa). In 2009, the Wild Bird Trust (www.wildbirdtrust.com) and the Percy FitzPatrick Institute of Ornithology (University of Cape Town) (www.fitzpatrick.uct.ac.za) took over the management of a pecan orchard owned by the University of Fort Hare. We fenced it and started annual population assessments, while working with local communities to harvest all remaining pecan nuts. The primary function of the "Cape Parrot Sanctuary" is to provide a safe feeding site for the local population, keeping Cape Parrots away from commercial pecan farmers in nearby Fort Beaufort and Adelaide. Without the sanctuary the local farmers will have to react to Cape Parrots feeding in their orchards.
Pecan are an unsuitable food resource for wild parrots over a long period of time with high tannin and fat levels. Cape Parrots, however, near starve between January and March each year and need pecan nuts to put weight back on and moult before the snowy winter. The parrots should be eating a perfectly balanced diet of yellowwood fruits. This junk food is keeping them alive, but beak and feather disease is thriving and pigments are disappearing from the feathers. The remaining 1,000 Cape Parrots need urgent conservation investment with a focus on restoration of indigenous forest habitat and combatting the current viral outbreak.
South Africa's national parrot needs your help... Please join the Cape Parrot Project group on Facebook: / capeparrotproject