Other Animals

An Emperor Penguin chick is filmed jumping off a 50-foot tall ice cliff. Image capture from National Geographic/YouTube One of the primary animals in the Antarctic is the Emperor Penguin. These penguins are the biggest of all penguin species. They can be over 3 feet tall and weigh between 50 to 99 pounds. They are

Image by Gabrielle ROMANO from Pixabay A sad fact is that many birds die from collisions with windows and buildings, A sobering 40% survive these collisions with the rest either dying on impact or shortly afterward, even if taken to avian care facilities. That’s an unfathomable 60% of birds that perish who strike buildings. A

Lafeber brings the taste of fall to pet birds everywhere with its award-winning Pumpkin Spice Nutri-Berries. Lafeber unveiled its newest flavor—Pumpkin Spice Nutri-Berries—at the 2024 SuperZoo tradeshow in Las Vegas and proudly took home the Runner-Up prize in the New Product Showcase Bird Category! SuperZoo is one of the largest pet retail trade shows in North

Image by Aidan Semmens from Pixabay Migration paths for migratory birds are necessary for survival. For quite a long time — centuries, science has marveled at the pathways and how they’re so closely adhered to. The community questions how migratory birds locate their migration routes so easily, and studies have been undertaken to figure that

Griffin had his 29th hatchday celebration in April. He is not really considered all that old for an African grey parrot, whose lifespan in captivity seems to be about 40-60 years—although my Dutch veterinarian colleague had one in his practice that lived to 99 (authenticated by the bird being passed down from one family member

Webinar: The Grey Way: Preparing for Winter & the Holidays Date: Friday, September 20, 2024 Time: 12:00 pm PDT (double-check your local time with this time zone converter) Join us for a FREE, live, interactive webinar hosted by Laura Doering, former editor of Bird Talk magazine and Birds USA magazine. Our special guest, Lisa Bono,

Webinar: Avian Vet Insider: A Bird’s Eye View of a Vet Visit Date: Friday, September 13, 2024 Time: 12 p.m. PDT (double-check your local time with this time zone converter) Join us for a FREE, live, interactive webinar hosted by Laura Doering, former editor of Bird Talk magazine and Birds USA magazine. Our special guest,

WCN’s California Wildlife Program (CWP) has pledged $1 million to the Wildlife Crossing Fund, an organization dedicated to matching public funding to establish wildlife crossings throughout California to benefit connectivity and safe migration for pumas, bobcats, deer, foxes, coyotes, and countless other wildlife. This grant will go toward supporting the construction of the Wallis Annenberg

Photo by Doug Swinson on Unsplash Owls, a unique and unmistakable species that encompass over 200 species inside its two families, are adorable, nocturnal birds. One family is known as true (Strigidae); the other as barn-owl (Tytonidae). They are found in almost every corner of the world. We have covered stories about owls and their

Photo by Luís Fábio Silveira The Golden Conure, also known as the Queen of Bavaria Conure, is referred to as the Golden Parakeet in South America (Guaruba guarouba). It is endemic to Brazil and is one of the most trafficked New World parrots due to its brilliant and beautiful yellow plumage. I had the enormous

Hyacinth macawImage by Hans from Pixabay Raise your dominant hand if you know what August 13th is? If your left hand is up, you are correct—it’s International Left-Handers Day! In honor of southpaws, let’s take a fun, somewhat scientific, look at parrots’ and other animals’ left or right preferences, as well as some surprising ways

Today is World Elephant Day, when we celebrate the captivating giants that roam Africa and Asia and their vital role in healthy ecosystems. These iconic and massive animals shape entire landscapes and act as stewards for forests, and the wonder that they inspire has made them one of the most recognizable animals on Earth. In

Photo by Ovidiu Creanga on Unsplash The goal for all of us is to understand our beautiful birds and to learn how to help them become better at thriving in their own wild communities. This is essential to avoid the catastrophic loss of some of our beautiful species of every class of bird, particularly our

With a firm grip, Simbarashe Pride Chatikobo shook one of the pen’s wooden struts, testing its stability. Fortunately, the raised platform of the kraal—a fortified enclosure for small livestock—did not budge, indicating that the training he facilitated for the farmers living near Zimbabwe’s Matusadona National Park had been successful. Raising this farmer’s kraal off the

“Beakiation” is a newly coined word to describe how birds in the wild use their beaks to move from tree to tree–similar to how monkeys do with their limbs. A recent 2024 study was launched by the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT), with work done by Edwin Dickinson, Melody W. Young, and Michael C

Inieke Udokang and her colleagues readied their binoculars and slowly stepped into the darkness, the soft light from their headlamps casting hard shadows across the cave’s stone facets. Before long, their lenses settled on several balls of fur with large ears clutching a high ledge—a roost of short-tailed roundleaf bats, staring curiously at their new

July 29, 2024 By Dr. Jim Sanderson, Director of Small Wild Cat Conservation Foundation When I visited Chile in 1997 to begin my PhD program for the Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation (WEC), University of Florida (UF), I had two objectives: Guigna ecology and Guigna conservation. As most UF-WEC graduate students discover, if threats

What do you want to live on after you? Many of our supporters envision a world where wildlife thrives, people coexist peacefully with their wild counterparts, and compassion knows no bounds. Inspired by WCN’s dedication to these ideals, some choose to include WCN in their estate plans. This choice isn’t just about leaving money; it’s

Male Eclectus parrot Photo by Victoria Ballesteros on Unsplash Many of the things that we do are simple automatic behavior. Nonetheless, we are still quite careful in the way that we handle ourselves to ensure the best possible results. Birds are the same. It’s important to understand just how our beloved birds are different from

Macaws in Tambopata, Peru. Image courtesy The Macaw Project The old and lush forests surrounding the Tambopata River in southeast Peru are home to clay licks that attract up to 32 species of parrots, including Amazons, Pionus, several species of macaws, and caiques. The Macaw Society (formerly known as the Tambopata Macaw Project) conducts long-term

Two male lions, Tibu and Jacob, recently made headlines by making a record-breaking night swim across the Kazinga Channel, a nearly mile-long river teeming with crocodiles and hippos in Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda. And then they did it five more times. Why did the two brothers make this perilous journey over and over? They

Many wildlife species are dubbed “elusive.” Pangolins are hard to study due to their nocturnal and secretive nature. Snow leopards are rarely sighted. Dr. Rocío Palacios, Executive Director of Andean Cat Alliance, has admitted that most of her staff has never laid eyes on the Andean cat, causing them to nickname it a “ghost.” Still,

Red-Fronted Macaws; image by Twycross Zoo The conservation of parrots is an active undertaking with many components including study, experimentation, training, and more than a few other tricks to help further declining populations of birds in the wild.  And with all this work, you’d hope that the population of rare parrots would be proliferating heartily.

Webinar: The Grey Way: Moving – Applying Behavior Techniques to Prepare Your Birds Date: Friday, August 16, 2024 Time: 12:00 pm PDT (double-check your local time with this time zone converter) Join us for a FREE, live, interactive webinar hosted by Laura Doering, former editor of Bird Talk magazine and Birds USA magazine. Our special

Webinar: Species Spotlight: Peruvian Parrots Date: Friday, August 9, 2024 Time: 12:00 pm PDT (double-check your local time with this time zone converter) Join us for a FREE, live, interactive webinar hosted by Laura Doering, former editor of Bird Talk magazine and Birds USA magazine. Our special guest, Stephanie Lamb, DVM, DABVP (Avian Practice), will

Mechanical Parrot 70154 by JM Bricklayer We like to keep our ears to the ground for anything that relates to our feathered friends. That is true when we discover how human-like they can be via scientific studies. It’s also true when we’re able to play games that give us a chance to think like a

Webinar:AFA: 50 Years of Aviculture – Protection, Conservation, Education Date: Friday, August 2, 2024 Time: 12:00 pm PDT (double-check your local time with this time zone converter) Join us for a FREE, live, interactive webinar hosted by Laura Doering, former editor of Bird Talk magazine and Birds USA magazine. Our special guest, Jamie Whittaker, AFA

It has been several years since I wrote about my parrots’ speech comprehension, and when I did so, I discussed only anecdotal evidence. I now realize that it might be useful to delve a bit more deeply into that topic, first discussing the formal studies we did with Alex, and then sharing another anecdote about

Flying burrowing parrots in Argentina. Photo by Daiana Lera One Earth Conservation (OEC) has developed a replicable model for successful parrot conservation projects in the Americas by working in places that receive little attention and where parrots are threatened. OEC works in the field with local, marginalized, and mostly Indigenous people to create local Parrot

Alexis Lours, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons Mathematics is often called a universal language, understood by all intelligences in our universe—and perhaps beyond. We know crows are incredibly smart birds. The term “crow” actually refers to all 35 species in the Corvus family. Their intelligence continues to amaze us with new discoveries. Recently, carrion