Thousands of green parrots naturally make landfall in the UK

In the mid-20th century, England had a strange phenomenon: a series of blue parakeets (burgeoning parakeet) with the number of thousands of birds suddenly appeared in this country. The problem is that they are native to Australia, Africa and Latin American countries.

Green macaws.

How did they get to Europe? Over the years, many stories and theories have been woven. Among them, the most famous hypothesis is that these are parrots in the movie The African Queen, played by actor Humphrey Bogart. This film was filmed in Ealing (London, UK) in 1951.

Another theory is that these were parrots freed by guitarist Jimi Hendrix on their way to tour at Carnaby (London) in the 1960s. In 1987, a certain cargo ship broke down, causing hundreds of parrots to escape into the wild.

Many hypotheses have been put forward about the appearance of macaws in the UK.

So what does the truth look like? Experts from Queen Mary University, University College London and Goldsmiths recently found the answer, and it has nothing to do with the hypotheses.

Specifically, according to the study published in Zoology , these thousands of parrots are actually parrots raised from people, released from the wild by release or because of a cage accident . Based on the analysis, the experts found that the birds did not come from a single location such as Carnaby Street or the studio at Ealing, which meant eliminating the two most popular hypotheses above.

In addition, historical documents show that the green parrots appearing in London actually date back to the Victorian period (19th century), so the theory of the Great Storm was even less.

Also according to the study, there were 2 spikes in the number of parrots: 1929 - 1931 and 1952. The cause is thought to be due to psittacosis caused by psittacosis infection which caused many deaths. This segment is strongly propagated, leading to more parrots returning to nature.

Jimi Hendrix - "suspected" responsible for parrots in London.

"It is easy to imagine some headlines of 1952, such as" Stop importing dangerous parrots and lead to more parrots " - quote Sarah Elizabeth Cox from Goldsmiths University.

"If you knew that it would be dangerous to be near a parrot, it would be easier to release it than it would be to kill it yourself."

It is known that the technology in research was originally developed to investigate murder cases, in order to track the location of the crime and the location of the suspect. However, when applied to the research model, it turned out that it was also able to determine the origin of the alien species - in this case, the macaws.

This species has successfully invaded 34 countries on 5 continents.

"This parrot has successfully invaded 34 countries on 5 continents," said study author Steven Le Comber. "Still, interesting theories about their origin will still be there - like from the movies, no matter how accurate the study."

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