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Hello,

The American Federation of Aviculture has published a new article by
Marcus Pollard about the Save the Gouldian Fund in Issue XXXIV 4 of
the Watchbird magazine. For those of you who are not members of the
AFA, I have posted the article at http://www.ladygouldianfinches.org

I would still encourage you to contact the AFA to buy the issue (or
better yet, join the AFA), as the color photography by Mike Fidler
and Dr. Sarah Pryke that accompanies the article is fantastic, and
includes close up shots of Gouldians at their nest hollows in
the wild.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

"To illustrate this point, I once visited the Mornington Wildlife
Sanctuary in the Kimberley District of northwest Australia, and
immediately noticed the large number of finches and even rarer Purple-
crowned Fairy-wren (Malurus coronatus) scattered about in the
Pandanus Palms which dotted the banks of a nearby stream. When I
asked the resident scientist why the birds were in such numbers here
as opposed to many other areas throughout the region he simply smiled
and asked me whether I'd ever seen a waterhole/soak that had been
visited by cattle. To illustrate he waved his hand at the thick
Pandanus palms which fringed the water source and was literally
ringing with wren calls and replied that these would all be flattened
to the ground and trampled to dust after a very few visits if it were
open to cattle. He painted a very vivid picture indeed!" (Marcus
Pollard, 2008)

It is my hopes that you will be inspired by this article and join the
effort through becoming involved with the Save the Gouldian Fund, now
recognized by the World Wildlife Fund through a joint partnership in
the restoration of the wild Gouldian.

Thank you,

Bill Van Patten
U.S. Communications Officer
Save the Gouldian Fund
Cooranbong, NSW, Australia
http://www.SavetheGouldian.org