Imperial Amazon.
Neither have I
It just beat the Tahiti blue lory: as they say, a good big 'un always beats a good little 'un.
Been doing a little research- we aren't likely to see one either, unless we go to Dominica.
There is just one captive pair in the World- in an aviary in a Botanic Garden run by the Forestry Department there. They were both rescued as juveniles(male in 1996- he has a deformed beak, the female in 2000) and are a bonded pair (a previous female having died from egg-binding in 1998). They started to lay eggs in 2006. Initially infertile but in 2010 they hatched a chick and reared it to 2 weeks then abandoned it in the nest. It was rescued virtually on point of death, dehydrated and starving. They managed to stabilise it and it was later flown to Florida to complete the handraising.
I am not sure if it has since been returned to Dominica, or whether the parent birds have bred again since either. The young bird is a male and must remain captive too, being completely tame having been handraised, and it has 'health issues' also. But if another bird comes into captivity one day, he may get a partner, otherwise he will have to stay as he is presumably.
Apparently the wild birds are very shy and secretive at the nest. Little is known about their breeding and the development of this chick provided a lot of knowledge. The wild population has recovered somewhat since the 1979 Hurricane David decimated the population and is now estimated at 250-350 birds.
There is video of both the adult pair, and the rearing of the chick, on YouTube.
Does anyone know which, if any, Zoos have exhibited this species in the past?
