Conserving the Endangered Parrots of the Lesser Antilles
with Peter Kleinhenz and Heather Levy
This is a hybrid event, in person and Zoom. If you’re coming in person, please join us at 6:30 PM for refreshments and socializing. Also, James Huffstodt will be selling and signing his book, The Man Who Loved Birds. Read more.
The Lesser Antilles, a series of islands in the Southern Caribbean, host four species of island-endemic parrots. The four species are widely considered to be some of the most beautiful parrot species on Earth, yet are also some of the most endangered. Peter Kleinhenz and Heather Levy, who searched for each species with local conservationists earlier this year, will explain what makes these birds so incredible, what threatens them with extinction, and the creative approaches being implemented to save them.
Read Peter’s article about this trip, published in Mongabay:
Parrots of the Caribbean: Birding tourism offers hope for threatened species
St. Vincent Parrot (Amazona guildingii) perches in a tree above Amazona Nest, an ecolodge. Photo by Peter Kleinhenz
Fabian Young, a caretaker for a captive breeding colony of St. Vincent parrots at the Nicholls Wildlife Complex, with one of the 31 birds under his care. Image by Peter Kleinhenz.
Peter Kleinhenz
When he's not involved with Audubon, Peter works as the Partnership Programs Coordinator for Tall Timbers after several years as an interpretive writer for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Although his background is in herpetology, he is a birding convert. His current U.S. bird species tally sits at 580, and he has birded internationally in ten other countries.
Heather Levy
Heather is an avid birder and an avian biologist at Tall Timbers Research Station working on endangered and endemic birds from the coasts of the panhandle to the upland pines of the Red Hills. She began her work with Apalachee Audubon during her undergraduate career at Florida State University. She received her masters from the University of Georgia in 2020, where her work focused on cavity-nesting birds in old-growth longleaf pine forests. When not working, you can find her photographing and chasing birds..
