Editor’s Note
A very warm welcome to the first edition of our new online magazine. This is a truly exciting venture for us and I’m delighted to be playing a part in spreading the word about the wonderful world of the parrot. The fact that we’re doing so via the internet makes it even more thrilling, enabling us to reach an enormous audience of people who care about the conservation and welfare of these fascinating creatures.
We also hope that this will help us take our message to many other people who might as yet know little about parrots, but who who will enjoy learning more about the wonder and the joy of caring for and about them.
Each month in PI Press, we shall be featuring articles covering parrots In the Wild, as Companion Birds, their Welfare, Health and also Aviculture. There’s a section devoted to News, to Events, and we shall be including book and DVD reviews as well.
Our most important recent event was the PI Symposium which was held in Las Vegas at the end of May - see our Parrot News section for Kashmir Csaky’s report on the weekend’s proceedings. Our feature article highlights the research that PI is carrying out on the Slender-billed Conure in Chile, and Kurt Holle tells us more about the importance of eco-tourism in Peru. There’s also an update from the field on the Red-fronted Macaw, and Robin Bjork tells us what’s being done to reintroduce the Scarlet Macaw to El Salvador.
For owners of companion birds, Rosemary Low discusses the diet of parrots in the wild and how we can ensure that our pet birds can benefit from some of these delicacies as well, and Dorothy Schwarz shows us how to provide enrichment for our pet birds without incurring unnecessary cost.
We also have an impressive selection of blogs, on subjects ranging from the work of the Indonesian Parrot Project to the conservation of the Blue-throated Parrot in the Pantanal, Brazil.
For future editions of the magazine, we shall be inviting contributions from all over the world, so if you’re interested in contributing in any way, please drop me a line by email and let me know what you have in mind.
We very much hope that you’ll enjoy this edition of PI Press, and that you’ll be encouraged to access our regular PI website as well: www.parrotsinternational.org.
Gilly Lloyd
Editor
