KARACHI, May 15: A green-winged macaw recently shifted to a very small cage in the zoo along with its mate died from the severe injuries it received when it attempted to fly but ran into the cage’s iron grille, sources told Dawn on Wednesday.
They added that the large parrot with predominant red feathers remained confined to the small cage along with its mate for almost a week and was found dead on Sunday evening.
The pair along with blue-and-yellow macaws had been shifted from their spacious cages to the one meant for small birds in order to accommodate three pairs of ring-tailed lemurs there, the sources said. The lemurs were brought to the zoo on May 6 after they had been confiscated by the customs authorities at the airport.
The macaw, the sources said, had been living in the zoo for more than two decades. Currently, the market rate for a pair of macaws is between Rs200,000 and Rs300,000.A visit to the zoo showed that the cages for macaws and a large Moluccan Cockatoo did not have the basic necessary features required for their survival. For instance, their small size restricted birds’ movement.
“A macaw cage must accommodate a very large parrot. Provide the largest bird cage possible. A macaw must be able to fully extend its wings without touching the sides of the cage. Macaws must also be able to move freely between two perches or muscular dystrophy can occur which will render it unable to fly,” says the World Parrot Trust website.
The website suggests that a macaw cage should be at least 49 feet long. However, the zoo cages where the large parrots are currently being kept are hardly six to eight feet long. Their previous cages (around 25 to 30 feet long), too, were not up to the international standard.
The green-winged parrot (Ara chloropterus), also known as the gentle giant, according to the website, is second in size only to the largest flying parrot species (Hyacinth macaw). It’s native to South and Central America with an average length up to 90cm and wingspans averaging approximately 102-122.5cm. It can live up to 60 years or longer.
“The green-winged macaw currently is not classified as endangered. However, they have disappeared from part of their former range in Panama and are extinct in some parts of its range, including Argentina. Five other species of macaws are listed by theInternational Union for Conservation of Nature as either endangered or vulnerable,” it says.
It is noteworthy that at the time of lemurs’ arrival and their subsequent shifting to the macaw cages, zoo officials had stated that the macaws had been displaced because of an ‘emergency situation’. They said the large parrots would soon be shifted to spacious cages, but that did not happen.
“Yes, the bird died of the injuries when it attempted to fly. We don’t have larger cages for birds right now but we will build some in the coming weeks,” said zoo director Syed Aqeel Tazeem Naqvi, a former Jamshed Town administrator.
The director said a bird of the same species would soon be brought to the zoo as a mate for the lone macaw. However, he said, that bird, too, would be kept in the same small cage until a larger facility was developed.
Explaining the rationale behind bringing another large parrot when the zoo did not have bird-friendly cages and a death had already been caused because of space constraints, he said the zoo intended to bring a macaw raised in a smaller space. “The person who is bringing the bird has assured us that small space will not affect the bird health. He will also be responsible for their upkeep,” the director said, adding that the bird was being brought by a ‘bird lover’ free of cost.
About the lemurs, he said, they were currently occupying three cages in the zoo and could not be housed in one or two cages because the primates would fight with each other.