Ara ararauna

The Blue and Yellow macaw is found throughout tropical South America including Ecuador, eastern Peru, Bolivia, northern Paraguay, and Brazil.  This species is about the same size as the Scarlet macaw, and their dietary requirements are similar.  As with the Scarlet, they can become very tame and playful if hand-raised but require other birds, a lot of attention, or other distractions to keep from becoming bored and destructive.  They also require wood to chew on to maintain beak condition and to divert their attention from chewing on other things.  They can be housed in an outdoor aviary if an adequate shelter is provided.  We feed our birds a diet of a parrot mix which contains seeds of various plants, fruits, dog or monkey biscuits; and vegetable items.  We have 2 Blue & Golds- a male who was one of the first zoo residents, and Polly a more recent addition with an interesting vocabulary.

 Catalina Macaw

Max is our greeter at the zoo entrance.  He was born on July 15, 1988 and donated to the zoo in 2000.  He has an extensive vocabulary and knows how to use it properly.  He is gregarious by nature and needs a whole lot of people attention.  He has a tendency to chew on things and can make short work of anything made of wood.  Max’s favorite word is “cookie” and Nutter Butters used to be a daily treat for him.  He delighted those who would watch him open the cookie, lick off all the peanut butter, and sometimes dunk the rest in his water before finishing it.  His "cookie" has been replaced with nuts which are more nutritious but not as much fun to watch.