Miranda Theunissen first ‘met’ Morgan five years ago in the Dolphinarium at Harderwijk Zoo shortly after the whale was rescued in a shallow area off the Wadden Sea coast in Holland. From the first time Miranda, who is deaf and dumb with severe vision problems, saw Morgan she formed a special attachment to her and that was the beginning of a unique relationship. Altogether Miranda visited Morgan 88 times during her stay in the Dutch dolphinarium, spending many hours in Continue reading

For the first time a chinstrap penguin chick was born at Loro Parque, a species that owes its name to the thin black line that runs from ear to ear under the chin. This birth is considered a real success as it is a very delicate penguin and it is quite a challenge to breed this species in a zoo. Isidoro, named after Saint Isidoro, weighed 77 grams at birth after an incubation phase of 38 days. The diet the Continue reading

Just accepted for publication in Ibis, the international journal for avian scence, is the following article “Trade and habitat change virtually eliminate the Grey Parrot Psittacus erithacus from Ghana” by Nathaniel Annorbah, Nigel Collar and Stuart Marsden of Manchester Metropolitan University and BirdLife International. The research in Ghana which resulted in the article was financed by Loro Parque Fundación. It finds that Ghana has lost 90–99% of its Grey Parrots since 1992, a time when the population had presumably already Continue reading