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Waddesdon's Aviary and the Silent Forest campaign
Over the past two years, Waddesdon's Aviary team have been fundraising in order to raise awareness of the Indonesian songbird trade which threatens to silence the forests forever.
In September 2017, the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA) launched ‘Silent Forest: Asian Songbird Crisis’, a campaign to highlight the devastating effect of South-East Asian songbirds being taken from the wild for the pet trade and singing competitions.
As a committed member of EAZA, Waddesdon’s Aviary has been supporting the work of this campaign through its own conservation and breeding programmes, and has been helping to raise awareness.
Without this intervention Gavin Harrison, Waddesdon’s senior aviculturist, thinks that ‘many amazing species will be extinct within the next ten years or less. Mimi the Mynah, Waddesdon’s mascot, for which the Rothschild’s Mynah is the inspiration, is kept and successfully bred within the Aviary, and is one the species that has been brought to the edge of extinction because of the illegal capture and trade.’
2019 has been one of the most successful breeding seasons for the Rothschild’s mynah at Waddesdon, showcasing the positive changes that are taking place.
Read more about the Aviary’s record year for breeding the Rothschild’s mynah >
Now we are in the final month of the ‘Silent Forest campaign’, Waddesdon is celebrating achieving £10,000 of our target contribution towards the project, helped by the redesign of our Aviary gardens to showcase EAZA’s logo colours.
The money has been fundraised through donations made by visitors to the Aviary Grotto. Aviary volunteers have been hard at work collecting, cleaning and sorting the money donated into the fountain each week, and we are delighted that we have reached the target that was aimed for at the beginning of the campaign.
Find out more about the EAZA campaign >