New Bird Arrivals
Mortalities should be individually stored in tightly sealed plastic bags and thoroughly frozen soon after death. Wrapping the specimen in paper towel will help keep feathers from being ruffled. If necessary, tails can be curled as it is easier to deal with a curled tail rather than plucked feathers.

The Smithsonian Institution, Museum of Natural History, Division of Birds should be contacted before sending any mortality. (Of course, there are many other museums, both in the US and abroad that are also interested in acquiring captive parrot specimens, Dean emphasized.) This will allow us to decline an offer or to recommend another museum to contact.

We are most interested in parrots and pheasants, but other groups of birds are also needed. In the parrot group, macaws, South Americans and Australians are all desirable.

Include with each specimen all available data: common and scientific name, date of death; hatch date, sex, and family history if known. Also please note if the bird died of a disease or virus in order to alert the museum. If the specimen is to be necropsied, the veterinarian should be encouraged to do as “cosmetic” a postmortem as possible – taking care to preserve the sternum and skull, and to not pluck feathers.

Specimens should be packed in an ice chest. Plastic bags with each bird can be wrapped in newspaper for extra insulation; then packed with dry ice. As little as five pounds can last two days if not broken into small pieces. Packets of blue ice can also be used. Seal all container seams. Most airlines and shippers will only allow 10 pounds or less of dry ice in a package.

Please include your full name and address with shipment so that the donation may be properly acknowledged. Mark the outside of the chest “perishable.” FedEx will not ship animal carcasses, so specimens should be labeled as “research material.”

Perishable shipments must be sent by overnight delivery. The museum can generally pay shipping charges when Federal Express is used, but must be contacted prior to shipment to arrange for the shipping funds. Try to send shipments Monday or Tuesday so they arrive before the weekend. Contact the museum concerning shipment at the Division of Birds, National Museum of Natural History, Telephone  202-633-0786 (collections manager), fax #202-633-8084.

During our discussions of captive aviculture, Dr Graves emphasized that the most important aspect of having birds is to keep proper records. “If you cannot keep records it is an incredible waste of information and money,” he said. “Data base is the pillar of any simple biological study.”

In conclusion, one can see that the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History is all about scientific research. And they are still in need of many top quality parrot specimens. I urge everyone to consider contacting them. They have, for example, only six or seven study skins of Hyacinthine Macaws; seven Noble Macaws, some in poor shape, and lesser numbers of many other psittacine species.

If you get a chance to go there in person, be sure to take a moment to inspect the Carolina Parakeets, perhaps even the Cuban Macaws, the Passenger Pigeon or the Great Auk. ‘Twas a moving experience for me to see first hand the color and size of avian species no longer flying on earth.

I recently made the decision to send my beloved Sun Conure, Kiwani, who passed away last year, to the collections, along with a Princess Parakeet and a fledgling Yellow Front that died of an accident. Having visited the museum’s collections several times, it kind of makes me proud for Kiwani, Gracie and Baby to be able to have a sort of “life after life” in such hallowed company. And science needs these study specimens right now before it is too late.

Editor’s Note: If you’re interested in contributing to this important area of scientific research, it’s worth remembering that the British Museum, and other organisations around the world which house collections, are likely to need specimens for study as well.

E B Cravens

EB Cravens has been raising, training, keeping and rehabilitating psittacines since the early 1980s, both as manager of a respected exotic bird shoppe in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and at his small hobby breeding facility on the Big Island, Hawaii. Through various writings and lectures in the U.S. and abroad, EB puts forth the ideas of “Natural Parrotkeeping”–the looking to nature as a guide for success in captive aviculture and petkeeping. His research has for more than two decades been focused upon the critical need for allowing flight to weaning parrot chicks, and the many related behaviors which are associated with correct and natural fledging. More recently, EB has begun to document the problems stemming from removal of parrot chicks from their secure parental nestbox environment before eyes are significantly open and feathers are grown. A science writer by training, he was for years a regular contributor for AFA’s Watchbird Magazine and the Companion Parrot Quarterly. EB currently writes a monthly column entitled “The Complete Psittacine” in PARROTS Magazine out of England; and another, “The Hookbill Hobbyist” down under in the well-regarded Australian Birdkeeper. His monthly series of articles “Birdkeeping Naturally,” is sent out to bird clubs and individuals around the U.S., and is now finishing up its tenth year of publication.

“If we truly believe our captive-raised hookbills are important to world parrot conservation, we must work ceaselessly to ensure that these same psittacines retain as much of their wild instinctual behavior as is possible,” says EB. “”As devastating pressures continue upon avian species in the wilds, it is critical that those keeping birds in their homes do so with responsibility and foresight.”

Wherever B lectures, he is noted both for the visual splendor of his photographs and for making himself  available to the public for questions on both pet parrot problems and breeder situations. He particularly enjoys consultations with novice birdkeepers and first-time pet parrot owners.