Parrots Get A Second Chance

We're featured in the November/December issue of the Humane Society's All Animals magazine:

Down the Pacific coast almost to the Costa Rica border, a non- profit called Paso Pacifico, using money from the Loro Parque Foundation and Parrots International, pays landowners to protect parrot nests from poachers, who are usually unemployed trespassers well-known in local communities for breaking the law. Lezama, the ornithologist, has recruited two former poachers to locate nests. Participants get $10 per nest protected and $40 for each fledgling who is hatched—about the same amount a baby yellow- naped parrot would bring in the wildlife trade. It’s important income for rural residents: One woman used it to pay off her tab at the local store and set up an emergency medical fund for a daughter who has epilepsy. Across the six sites where the program is being tried out, poaching rates have dropped to 30 percent from around 90 percent

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