PARROT OWNERS SCARED

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 935, 31 March 1930, Page 18

PARROT OWNERS SCARED

OFFERS TO LONDON ZOO REFUSED HORROR OF PSITTACOSIS Scared by the recent cases of psittacosis, owners of parrots are offering them to the London Zoo in such numbers that most of the offers have to j i be refused. j i Only the rarer kinds of birds, which . j have long been in captivity and are ; ; in good condition, are accepted, j A number of these rejected pets, • freshly arrived at the Zoo, were j ranged up on the keepers’ meal table, ! j when a “Daily Chronicle” correspond- : 1 ent paid a visit. Among them was j a Festive Amazon, which has been the pet of a woman for over twenty years. She was 10-th to part with it, but as the servants were nervous about catching the mysterious malady, she presented it to the menagerie, where it is now amusing itself by giving imitations of crowing cock and clucking hens. Curator’s Caution “I am being rung up all day by timid owners of parrots,” said Mr. Seth-Smith (curator of mammals and birds), “and I tell them all the same thing—‘if you have had your parrot a long time, keep it. There is no need to worry about psittacosis.’ “The only warning that is necessary j is -to refrain from purchasing newly- j imported Amazons. “It seems that South American par- i rots are the only ones among which ; the disease has been traced.”