FEATURE


breeders, among them Michel van der Plas for example, who manage to produce offspring regularly. In Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal, Denmark and Sweden Lesser Vasas are present, but except for Loro Parque Tenerife, there haven’t been recent breeding results yet, as far as I know. In the UK I know one breeder who managed to breed with one pair. In the United States San Diego Zoo booked some breeding results as well as a small number of private breeders. But the Americans are not concerned with the pure-breeding of the subspecies. In general, they are happy if they breed at all, so breeding pure-bred subspecies has no priority under the motto: “If you hardly see any difference, who cares?”


I have a different vision and will concentrate fully on breeding the even rarer subspecies C.n. libs, which is being bred sporadically. Meanwhile I even have been breeding second generation. The problem with this subspecies is the limited gene pool. Almost all offspring comes from my collection. Almost all captive bred birds I have in my collection now are related. Because of the import ban on parrots and the small amount of birds in aviculture currently threatens the species from disappearing if unrelated offspring doesn’t become available soon. When we remember that these birds


in the wild are also endangered by deforestation and trapping, the future for Lesser Vasa Parrots does not look good. Should it come that far in the future that


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