Acquiring Birds Of Paradise ??

F

FWC

Well-Known Member
What the title says.

I'de love to own my own BoP's ,more specifically Kings ,Superbs and Reggianas.

Does anyone have any insite as how to set things rolling ,so to speak ??

I know that there are a fair number of institutes raising these species ,along with some private collectors ,as far as I know. I know that Al Wabra has had decent breeding success with their BoP's.

I do have experiance with them ,worked with 'em at the honolulu zoo. I claim to be no expert ,but I do have decent knowledge on the care of softbills and further more insite onto the specific care of BoP's.

I dont want to have some lovely fanciful sanctuary with birds flying all over. I'm thinking along the lines of 4-10 birds for my own private collection.
 
I would think that it would be very hard to obtain any BoP species. They are still somewhat rare in public collections too (besides Lesser BoP). I could be wrong though.
 
I dont think that there are any in Canada, let alone in public hands. They are still quite rare in public collections, I personally have only seen them in two, Chester and Jurong.
 
Its a near impossible task ,but you never know. People in Europe keep 'em privately ,so one day ,perhaps ,people in canada will to...
 
Oh I can see it happening in the future, but at this point in time, with such a small captive population, i think that it would be advantageous to just leave them where they are until the breeding and husbandry has been perfected.

I think it would be amazing to have a BoP in anyones private collection, I just cant see it happening in the near future.
 
well not sure how well it would work since it's my idea for away of aquiring a portiong of the bird's i hope to have.
in the usa, we have the spca, fish and wildlife and of i know most people know zoo's but what most ignore is that alot of exotic wildlife either get abandoned by people that did't think about the future of if they passed away what will happen to the animal's but there are too many instints where een if they do manage to make it to like the spca or other organizations, they simple have no where to go, demand for a home and finding a home for them are nothing close to being in equil portions.
if you looked into these place and i know there are rules between government's the organizations just might have an idea on how to help even if there are none available of the one's you love, but some you might still like to have, and if taken on they would be consider a good faith start.
besides even if they have nothing they will keep your number and you never know.

i got a first had eperiance when i was 9 and found a drenched box that was taped up by the dumpster of a mall. there was a parrot hawk inside. wow. the color's were a mazing and yes the poor guy was so wet. took him to the vet down the street. and found out that there had been doozens of exotic bird's and some small mammal's that had been found around the city in same situation. basicly trashed for whatever reason, got to be to much for who every had them or past away, who know's.
and yes, the parrot hawk found a home with that exact vet.

anyway there are also some zoo's back in cali, small road side, along with nature reserve that either find a box, cage, bucket, or on a more happy note they breed and don't have space (happy only cause so it's a recovery for the black list) or resource's to care for them.

but it can still be a lot stress and let down's but don't give up hope. we know they need help.

and as a thought.... away that you could help pay for things you might need, i relise that it would equal some stress for the little guys... but offer local college's an opertunity to have a sitting where an art class can draw some. BUT i think putting the restriction on only drawing pincel and paper cause of the harmful fume's from paints like oil and acrylic with cleaning suplies can be harmful. but some of those student's might be willing to go to you and pay a small fee to do it.
alot of those artist will understand what you are doing. just keep in mind alot of those artist cannot aford much but i bet it's an idea. not just that there probably some that would like to learn more about them.

much of luck
 
Breeding success of birds of paradise in captivity has been limited. Many species have been bred (red, lesser, greater, Raggiana, superb, twelve-wired, king, magnificent, Stephanie's astrapia, etc) but in almost all it has only been at levels below those needed to sustain the captive population.

All birds of paradise are listed on CITES appendix II. As a private person you would need a VERY good reason to be allowed to import any. I would be very surprised if there are any held privately in USA or Canada (unless some rich guy got them illegally and is keeping quiet about it). If there are any left in the hands of private people in Europe it must be extremely few. Like in USA, any recent imports to private keepers in Europe would have been illegal.
 
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condor said:
If there are any left in the hands of private people in Europe it must be extremely few. Like in USA, any recent imports to private keepers in Europe would have been illegal.
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Except if these have been captive bred animals (b.e. bought from Al-Wabra or Walsrode). In practice I think there are very very few BoP in private hands in Europe (if there are any at all).
 
Walsrode has hardly had any succes with their BoP's in the last 10 years? Perhaps they bred a few kings, but i think that's it... And I think Al Wabra only recently had succes, and considering how many are listed at ISIS i don't think they let many go to private keepers...

I'd also estimate them not letting BoP's go to private keepers, only to institutions like Loro Parque or Walsrode.
 
DDcorvus said:
Except if these have been captive bred animals (b.e. bought from Al-Wabra or Walsrode).
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True in theory, but not it reality. Al-Wabra do not sell high profile animals to private keepers (though they do transfer to privately owned fully licensed zoos) and the relatively few Walsrode managed to breed mostly stayed with them (a few were transferred to other zoos). The code for regular captive breeding of a few of the species has only been cracked quite recently (e.g. through work at Bronx with Paradisaea). Before that not even the Paradisaea species were bred with any level of regularity. The only other that have been bred with any level of regularity in the last two decades (not necessarily enough to maintain the captive population) are king, magnificent and superb. I don't see where captive bred birds of paradise that would be offered to private aviculture should come from.
 
I agree it's only true in theory. I do expect king BoP to become more common and to spread around in the European Zoo collections and now Walsrode has an expert on BoP breeding in house I hope they can increase their stock as well.
Unfortunately there are no real private specialists like there are with humming-birds, turaco's or toucans and hornbills, because that might have increased amount of birds in Europe drastically. Especially the humming-birds available in Europe are coming for 95% from private collections.
 
Are the paradisaea bred with any regularity now then? I thought only Bronx bred the Minor, which is only one species of the paradisaea and that feat hasn't even been copied by Chester, where they still all seem to die without breeding :(
 
The Minor are breeding quite regular and Al-Wabra has success with the Greater BoP. Chester only has red BoP, but still no results. Does someone know if they have 3-3 or 1-3 now? Because if the second is the case they again lost some males :(.
 
I see ,I see.

Well I'll send out some e-mails and make some phone calls anyway ,it never hurts to try. I'll post updates once I start to get the ball rolling.

Who knows ,it could end in a dead end search (most likely) ,or I could end up having my own BoP's !!! (I hope :P)
 
Earlier Bronx also had some success with Red BoP. Not sure why it stopped but it could be that they still didn't have enough reproduction to maintain the population or they wanted to focus on Lesser. At least some Red's from Bronx have been sent to other zoos including a female to Chester. There was another facility that had some success with Raggiana but I don't remember the details right now (I think somewhere in USA in the 1990's?) and I'm not sure it was enough for them to maintain their population. In the last two decades Walsrode have bred several species including Paradisea (perhaps most amazing in Walsrode was breeding Twelve-wired and worlds first Greater) but it was too slow for maintaining their populations. They had most success with king's but I believe they ended up running out of males. At least until recently they still had king backstage but I don't know if they ever got new males like they wanted.
 
DDcorvus said:
The Minor are breeding quite regular and Al-Wabra has success with the Greater BoP. Chester only has red BoP, but still no results. Does someone know if they have 3-3 or 1-3 now? Because if the second is the case they again lost some males :(.
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Chester have 1.3 birds of paradise at the moment. They are trying to breed from them.
 
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