2020 PARROT LOVERS CRUISE
has been canceled
Our Speaker, David Woolcock will be
Joining us for our next cruise
PLC's good friend, David Woolcock, is back.
PLC's Good Friend David Woolcock is Back As Our Speaker This Year
David, from the beautiful county of Cornwall in the United Kingdom is both a Founding Trustee of
the World Parrot Trust and the Curator of Paradise Park, Hayle, the home of the World Parrot
Trust. www.parrots.org
His work has taken him to many parts of the world where parrots are found in the wild. From
St.Lucia and St.Vincent where David led the team that created the highly successful conservation
education buses that toured the islands; to his most recent journey to Indonesia where he has
been busy working with local partners towards the repatriation to Bali of Mitchel Lorikeets, a sub
species now considered to be extinct in the wild.
The connection between The World Parrot Trust and Paradise Park has been a truly symbiotic
one, not only with the crossing over of skill sets between the staff of both organisations but also
with the captive breeding and avian management skills of the park providing birds for release
programs to the World Parrot Trust. www.paradisepark.org.uk
David is a professional member of the International Association of Avian Trainers and Educators
and has set up a team of first-class trainers at Paradise Park that free fly many of the birds at the
Park on a daily basis. Not only do these free-flying birds provide an amazing spectacle and
educational opportunity to the park's visitors but they also provide a platform upon which many
thousands of pounds have been raised to support the work of the World Parrot Trust and many
other conservation causes around the world. The enrichment program at the park is
phenomenal in its range and diversity and the parks staff aim to give every creature in their care
the best possible environment in which to enjoy life to the full.
During the summer of 2017 David was instrumental in the creation of the WPT Kiwa Centre and
the subsequent relocation of nearly 200 rescued birds to the centre in the autumn of that year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2tf6FxWqzI
Although Parrots are a BIG part of David's life, both personally and professionally, he is passionate
about all species and their conservation. If you travel to the Island of Jersey you will discover a
population of a species once extinct on the island. That species is the Red-billed Chough, a
beautiful and charismatic member of the crow family. A breeding population of thirty-eight birds
now exists on the island - the majority of them either bred at Paradise Park or wild bred offspring
from those birds. In collaboration with partners such as the Durrell Wildlife Trust, the States of
Jersey and others, this species has now been returned to the wild in a truly collaborative and
groundbreaking program. Real conservation in action. So successful has this programme
been that now two other Chough reintroduction programmes are in the pipeline, one in Kent and
the other in Hampshire in the UK; both of which are hoping to use birds bred at Paradise Park.
David firmly believes that we all have a role to play in the conservation of species and the
preservation of our planet.
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