Yes the first blog of the year is one fully of sorry:
First of all I personally wish to say a big sorry to the real Animal Rights, we have been viciously attacked over the past 3 years now by what we thought was an animal rights group only to recently be informed by one of the largest in the world after looking at our history that this isn’t the work of any regulated or bona fide animal rights group. On looking at the series of events they recognise the actions and methods of this fraction but say this is a personal attack on me and nothing to do with animal welfare. This all came about due to us having the Special Branch police involved who have been monitoring the situation both from letters and emails sent around public bodies, a number of names were logged and it became apparent that this was a little different to normal activity, so i contacted a large animal rights group through a member of our staff who also happens to be a member of an Animal Rights group, that last sentence says enough; we cant be that bad if they will even work for us!!!
Also sorry to you lot that used to read these blogs with interest about the total lack of blogs, we have just been so busy building here, new parrot houses, new education room, new path extensions and new visitor welcome centre and i know there’s been a couple of disgruntled people who have asked why we are building a new place for people when we have all these animals to cater for; Simple, we have over 30,000 supporters and many visit us on a regular basis, for the past 9 years we have, as any ordinary animal centre, been making steady improvements as funds allow, we have now got to a point that major improvements for both people and animals are needed and so major investments are required, in this day and age of financial uncertainty we can not depend on donations alone as most charities have had a drop in assistance over the past couple of years so we are building with no cost to both the charity or the animal fund, whether we like it or not, we need to offer visitors a pleasant experience as well as animals.
This brings me on to the animals, they are all doing fine and the weather at present isnt having an effect on them, although we have always provided acilities for heating indoor enclosures, our new buildings are moving with the times and they have all the mod cons making sure that the temperature never gets below whatever we set it at. This in mind though the birds that have access to these facilities already, still choose not to use it 
, we have students here from all over the world working in different fileds of study with the parrots, they are amazed that as intelligent creatures, parrots choose where they roost and most of the time thats outside under cover rather than inside where the heat is I suppose as long as they have the choice, thats all that matters.
Saying that, I have always said that parrots dont need the heat, even though we have always had the facility to offer it them should they need it and I know many many breeders and none of them have heated quarters and never have done for 30-35 years so they must know what they are doing as their livelihoods depend on it, one of them lives within a few miles of us and they have nearly as many parrots all living outside. Then again all we have to do is look at last years severe winter and it had no marked difference on our mortalities here, although increased for the overall year it was easy to see within the veterinary and post-mortem records that the dates were well before the winter struck, so although we would naturally expect a natural increase with the severe weather (we only have to look at the increase in human deaths in these times) there wasn’t nothing to be alarmed about.
This then brings me on to all of the issues above, the group of good intentioned but misguided people are intent on continuing to waste public money by continually sending public authorities and the RSPCA here to inspect different areas around the zoo in order to cause as much inconvenience as possible and this hasnt slowed down any, although things are slightly different now. Over the past couple of years one of our biggest visitors was the RSPCA acting on behalf of the group, and not once did we recieve any letters or forms of concern from the RSPCA, the sad part about it was they would also never send any confirmation of that but thats about to come to and end.
In January this year (3 weeks ago) in the middle of the winter the vehicles started pulling into the car park, it then came over the radio that there were people in uniforms seen on the security cameras outside the offices, I walked out to find another uninformed improtu visit by the senior inspectorate from the RSPCA only this time accompanied by Avian Zoo vet Matt Brash, now as our group of ‘Steve Nichols’ haters have always portrayed, Mr Brash has no love for this place and has never worked with us albeit he did do a zoo inspection here a number of years ago which produced no problems hence the fact he gave us our continuation of license.
So he was the one that the group had recommended be paid by the RSPCA to do this uninvited inspection with the inspectorate and this they did, they went through a full interview followed by a very long inspection of every single enclosure inside and out, the quarantine, the food room, the diet sheets, the hospital, they even went in my house? when i say everything, i mean everything. After many hours of interrogation they left, it is only now, 3 weeks later I have had the results and WOW, they finally not only accepted that not only are we good at what we do but IMPECCIBLE is a word I do not see or use a lot, but are also willing to produce it in writing. The full report will be plastered all over the home page of the website and probably the the front page of the 50% of the bird press that always believed us (theres only 2 bird mags ). I will get it everywhere and even put it on boards around the zoo for anyone thats a little uncertain.
Now, we are not going to gloat over it, we feel that all members of the public have the right to show concern if they have any worries about animals being housed at any animal unit, however how that is carried out is what needs to be altered and seriously questioned. This harrassment has been very personal and hurtful to my family and is caused by one individual that arrived at the zoo a few years ago, he paid to get in, got highly embarrassed when speaking to me, he showed his true colours of total lack of experience in these spectacular creatures and therefore decided to write his own report on the place, as we had no intentions of bowing down to an unqualified, uneducated and down right liar he took it upon himself to make it personal.
He is very good with the pen and the emails and excellent at repeating experienced and qualified people, not unlike a parrot really, the problem is he then lowered his standards to work with breeders and other rescues that for whatever reasons do not like me (beware people, he will then turn on you that have helped him), these are all groups he has openly admitted he wants abolished as he does not believe in breeding parrots, now he has stopped breeding?
The trouble then began, I am not saying that it has stopped now, I know it will not just yet, not that quick, even though all the major authorities including the RSPCA, DEFRA, THE COUNCIL and THE ZOO VET MATT BRASH and the ZOO LICENSING AUTHORITIES have all agreed we are conforming to all relevant regulations and more. I have seen the fabricated videos that have been circulating around the internet to the sad Michael Jackson song, Im both amazed at the content of the videos as i have no idea where they have got some of the pictures from but they are certainly not here, one of the shots of dead greys is an old photograph we used to use in anti-importing weekends (one of the reasons you will see some breeders do not like me, as thats now cut off their cheap supply of birds). Then I find out that they have been made from people who havent even been here as i said earlier he works on peoples empathy to gain more leverage in his campaign. The letters from the RSPCA and the Authorities will be on public display to show any of the doubters, fortunatley these things do have a way of bringing out the best in people also, we have never received as much support or donations from the caring people that know, just remember theres still 100s of people that visit their birds annually, and have done for many years, do you think they would still be coming if we were anything but acceptable?
So now I have got that off my chest and I do not expect every person to believe every word but when its put up in writing, it will be hard not to!!
I must get out and sort the arriving staff and allocate them their work for the day, I wonder if this blog travels around as fast as those false videos? Probably not
the hospital is still empty but we are moving the soft bills, (touracos and toucans) in there for a few days while we get their winter room ready.