ECHO PARAKEETS - Jason Malham

l'express.mu here with a profile of Jason Malham, coordinator of the Echo parakeet - the Grosse cateau verte- recovery programme on the island of Mauritius.

Jason was brought up on a diet of sports and nature. New Zealand is a land of mountains and valleys, an outdoor paradise, where one can practise hiking, climbing… So the young boy would accompany his father on hunting and fishing parties (not endangered species) and developed a strong link with nature.
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Then his destiny met that of the Kakapo, a flightless nocturnal parrot, which could have known the dodo’s fate without a preservation programme. It was a huge job to get the Kakapo out of the red. Like the Echo Parakeet here, each member of a family is carefully (and sometimes comically!) identified.
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[Now], coordinator of the Echo parakeet - the Grosse cateau verte- recovery programme in the island, Jason Malham came here four years ago. “I actually work on a seasonal basis for eight months, obviously during this bird’s breeding season.” The recovery programme, which started in1988, when the birds’ population had fallen to 12 and threatened to disappear completely, has proved one of the world’s most successful : there are about 270 now.

Full Profile here