World Parrot Day: Focus on Vanishing Cape Parrot
World Parrot Day Will Focus on Fate of The Vanishing Cape Parrot
Since its inauguration in London by the World Parrot Trust in 2004, World Parrot Day highlights the threat to wild and captive parrots throughout the world.
World Parrot Day will be particularly significant for South Africa. The Wild Bird Trust’s Cape Parrot Project will use this day to highlight the threatened status of the colourful Cape Parrot.
What is even more significant is that the Cape Parrot is only found in South Africa and has been listed as Birdlife’s Bird of the Year for 2023.
“The Cape Parrot is listed as critically endangered with a population of less than 2 000 in the wild. Threats include the legacy of historical logging for furniture and railway sleepers as well as current degradation of our remaining Afromontane forest patches, which it depends on. There are also disease outbreaks, direct persecution, and illegal capture for the wild-caught bird trade.
The current distribution of the Cape Parrot is restricted to a mosaic of Afromontane Southern Mistbelt forests from Hogsback in the Eastern Cape through to the southern KwaZulu-Natal.
There is a small and disjunct population in Limpopo province. It is dependent on large indigenous trees, particularly Yellowwoods, for food and as nesting sites, where they use existing cavities to lay eggs.
The Cape Parrot is also known as the Knysna papagaai, woudpapagaai (Afrikaans), isiKwenene (Zulu). isikhwenene (Xhosa) and hokwe (Tswana).
To ensure this species does not go extinct, the Cape Parrot Project is working to engage communities, organisations and the public to the threats the bird is facing and to educate on how we can maintain a healthy habitat for the parrot. The goal is a sustainable ecosystem for not just the parrots, but all the forest species and for surrounding communities
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