She is a very successful breeder of Hyacinthine Macaws and enjoys great empathy with the great blue macaw

I met Kashmir Csaky again at the AFA Convention in Los Angeles. We last met in January 1996 at the IAS Convention in Fort Myers. She is a very successful breeder of Hyacinthine Macaws and enjoys great empathy with the great blue macaw. She wrote an excellent informative article recently for afa Watchbird on her success last year (1999) in producing two parent-reared young Hyacinthine Macaws. There is little written on breeding the Hyacinthine Macaw in aviculture, partly because they can be difficult to breed in captivity, but also because most successful breeders are reluctant to release details of their achievements.

I have also put on the website an interesting article on managing papilloma-positive breeding birds by Margaret Wissman, a veterinarian practising in Florida, which was published in the July/August 2000 issue of afa Watchbird. If confirmed by further veterinarian research this will be really important for managing illegally traded and confiscated rare species, which are unfortunately exposed to this disease en route or at the premises of the collector, who finally acquired them. It means that although they cannot be re-released into the wild, they can still make a valuable contribution to a properly managed captive breeding project in or near the distribution area of the species.