1002 987. Parrot Called King (3/5)

Chapter 1002 987. The parrot called the king (35)

Wang Bo drove to the ranch. Peterson handed him a binoculars and said, "Look straight ahead, there is a flock of birds, that's KEA."

"It's called Kea, why do you call it KEA?"

"Because that's what they're called, and it's easier for us to call them that."

Looking out through the telescope, Wang Bo first saw a small Romney flock.

The wool color of these Romney sheep is white and looks clean, which is very different from the dirty sheep raised on other pastures. It looks pleasing to the eye.

However, the condition of a few sheep was very bad. Their backs were dripping with blood, and their white appearance was dyed red. These sheep were walking around anxiously, and the injured ones kept bleating in pain. .

Wang Bo moved the binoculars, and a big bird suddenly jumped out from behind a sheep. It appeared so abruptly in his field of vision, which startled him.

The bird was half a meter long, a large bird with olive-green plumage with black piping, and yellow-green head and neck feathers with dark radial stripes.

Its breasts and abdomen are light brown-green, the lower part of the back is orange-red, the mouth is slender and curved in gray-brown, the eyes are dark brown, and its appearance is very domineering.

After it appeared, the bird flapped its wings and landed on the back of the Romney sheep. Its two claws were like iron hooks, and it grabbed the sheep's back at once, and it became red immediately!

This is the kea, and its movements explain its name.

"See? These are the nasty KEAs. They often attack the sheep, jump on the sheep's back, tear the sheep's skin, and eat the sheep's meat. They always make the docile sheep panic and irritable." Peterson said.

After the kea attacked the Romney sheep, it opened its thick and long beak and screamed a few times, but Wang Bo couldn't hear it clearly from a distance. syllable.

A few more keas appeared behind them. These parrots were chasing the flock of sheep. Instead of flying and chasing, they jumped with their feet.

The movements are funny, but the temperament is not funny. When these guys catch up with the sheep, they just go up and bite or grab them with their claws. They are very powerful and can tear the sheep's skin in a few strokes.

Romney sheep have a very submissive temperament, and they don't know how to resist when they are bullied to the head, they just dodge blindly.

There are no tigers and monkeys in the mountains called kings, and the kea probably thinks that they are very powerful, and the four-legged beasts that are dozens of times larger than themselves run around chasing them, they are called arrogant.

Seeing his precious flock being bullied like this, Lao Wang's nose smoked in anger.

But cuteness is justice. Although this kind of bird is very domineering, its appearance is really beautiful. The turquoise feathers are relatively rare among other birds.

Therefore, Lao Wang hesitated a bit, and said, "How do you usually deal with these birds? Kill them? Drive them away?"

Peterson said: "It's hard to deal with. First of all, we can't drive them away. There is a lack of food in winter. We have so many sheep here. They must be happy to stay."

"If you want to kill them, it's not good, they are a vulnerable species. New Zealand has a foundation dedicated to protecting them, and people love KEA. Many New Zealanders will grow their favorite plants in their homes to attract people. They visit their gardens."

Kea parrots have a good life, because of their persecution of flocks, they were once considered to be pests, and they were severely culled, especially farmers and ranchers, who made great efforts in the process of culling parrots.

Peterson told Wang Bo that humans have wiped out at least 150,000 kea parrots. Later, wildlife experts gradually realized that doing so might disrupt the ecological balance of the area.

By 1986, New Zealand introduced laws to protect the kea, and at that time there were only 3,000 of this bird in the country.

This law does not stipulate that culling keas is an offense. It does not allow commercial hunting and recreational hunting. If the kea damages the life of the sheep, it can also be killed at this time.

In Wang Bo's case, it is not illegal to kill a kea.

However, it was very painful. This time it was a large flock of kea parrots that came to the Sunset Ranch. Peterson took Lao Wang to wander around the ranch and saw at least a hundred parrots of all sizes.

Hunting and killing hundreds of keas, not to mention whether Wang Bo and the others can feel good about it, just say that this situation has been exposed, and the troubles from the kea protection association alone are enough to annoy him.

This kind of parrot does not only hunt sheep. In fact, they are not so tough that they can kill sheep, but they will peck at the meat and fat of sheep and hurt them.

In more cases, keas feed on leaves, fruits, berries, grass roots, vegetation, nectar, insects, worms, dead animals, garbage in camps, and various foods given by humans.

Every spring, they dig various plants on the high mountains, and search for new plant shoots or small insects around the snowdrifts and in the crevices of the rocks.

In summer, they look for fruits or berries, seeds and flowers among the dwarf trees or bushes on the mountain.

In autumn, they mostly stay in beech forest areas, foraging for shoots, leaves and nuts.

But in the harshest season of winter, their food supply drops sharply. Except for some parrots living in tourist areas that are fed by tourists, most of them will go to find the remains of dead animals and dig out the internal organs and fat to eat.

It is in winter that they like to attack sheep most. There are food to eat in spring, summer and autumn, and they seldom do so. After all, the behavior of attacking sheep is the only behavior they can find to get food in this season.

Peterson is an old cowboy, he has rich experience in the breeding industry, and he also has good ideas on how to deal with these parrots:

"Boss, do you know that these parrots are not invincible, they have natural enemies, and if you want to drive them away, you have to rely on their natural enemies."

"We have a lot of possums in our ranch. This is one of the enemies of keas. They can't harm adult birds, but they can harm young birds. Even possums like to steal parrot eggs to eat."

"KEA is a very smart bird. When they find their offspring are in a dangerous situation, they will take the initiative to leave here."

Wang Bo looked at him and said, "So what we have to do is to cultivate possums? Don't you think there are too many possums in our pasture?"

"No, we should cultivate ferrets. This kind of animal is the one that likes to hunt young KEA birds the most."

Wang Bo thought for a while, then shook his head and said, "No, I have a better idea."