Smart Parrots

Doing business in Panama was different than in the United States. It was all about whom you knew, not what you knew. Our contacts in the Darien, as well as Panama City, proved to be the key to our success.
We were working with a section of the Panamanian Department of Agriculture called RENARE (REcursos NAturales REnovables – Renewable Natural Resources) for our animal collection and shipment permits. Their offices were not in Panama City, but in a remote location about a half an hour outside of the city. It was a series of old block buildings that looked like old scattered homes, or an old elementary school, more than it did the hub of Panamanian forestry and agriculture. We had two contacts in RENARE, both in their twenties, and both liked to go out at night and have a good time. We took them to the local discos on several occasions and developed excellent working and social relationships. Although I had heard that you did business in Latin America based on greasing people’s palms, neither of our two RENARE contacts ever shook me down for money, and the only sums we paid were the legitimate costs of the permits and the duties for shipping the birds. 
We had made arrangements with a group of doctors led by Doctor Pedro Galindo, from Gorgas Memorial Hospital in the Canal Zone, the largest and most modern hospital in Central America, who were studying Newcastle disease in exotic birds in the wild, to test all of our birds. We did buy some birds from the Indians, and we caught some as well, enough to make a couple of successful shipments. During the time that we tested and shipped birds we never had a single positive test for Newcastle disease in the wild Panamanian birds. But we soon found out something else about trapping parrots:  
The parrots were much smarter than we were.
Wild parrots would come down into the corn fields to feed by the hundreds. We would set up large mist nets (thin, black monofilament nets, with each net about 12 feet high and 40 feet long) on bamboo poles along the perimeter of the corn field. We hid in a rancho, a small lean-to constructed from large sticks and palm fronds. The rancho was strategically located across from the net placements.  When a large number of birds were in the field feeding we would jump out and scare them into the nets. At least that was the theory behind our plan.
We would set the nets on the right side of the field, and the parrots would fly to the left. Because of this we would spend all of the next day moving the nets to the left side of the cornfield. After all, that's where they flew yesterday. Here come the birds back again. We would execute our plan and jump out and scare them, but this time they flew to the right. There would be literally hundreds of parrots feeding in the corn field, and the best day out we would only catch a few.
Then one day something happened that changed my point of view regarding taking animals out of the wild, as well as the live animal business as a whole. We were trapping parrots at a corn field about a half an hour from the house. We caught three parrots that day and had them in a cage beside the nets. Another parrot from the flock did not fly away with the rest. It sat on a branch near the caged parrots, calling out to them. One of the caged parrots kept calling back to the one in the tree. We packed up all our gear and finished up closing down the net site for the evening, and then headed back toward home with the three caged parrots. The other bird followed us, calling as we walked along the trail to what was probably its mate in the cage. The scene touched me deeply, and made me realize that these animals have feelings of attachment and loyalty; emotions just like humans have. I stopped on the trail and let the caged parrots go. I watched the birds fly off together until they disappeared in the distance. I never trapped another animal after that day. If I was going to stay in the Darien and live this lifestyle, then I would have to find a different way of supporting myself.
I must admit that the work of trapping birds was very interesting. One of the first things we did at any bird trapping site was to construct the rancho. It would be built at the highest point of the farm, on a hill overlooking the corn field. We would hide in it and observe the movements of the parrots. Hiding in the rancho and observing the surroundings was very reminiscent of my childhood days, hiding in the underbrush of the Angeles National Forest and awaiting my friends coming up the ravine.
Sometimes I was alone in the rancho and sometimes with another person, but we never spoke or moved. While the observers sat quietly in the rancho we would see many things in addition to the birds. So much was happening around you that it was like being involved in a live movie:
There were parrots bouncing around from corn stalk to corn stalk, feeding.
About 100 feet down the hill to the right was a small rodent-like animal foraging for food.
Coming across the small clearing into the corn field from the left side was a small animal that had a body that looked like a fox with a long bushy tail, but it was grey in color.
Hanging from one of the palm fronds on the top of our rancho, not three feet from where we are seated, you notice a large praying-mantis-like insect that you have never seen before. It is four inches long and all jet black with some slight orange coloration.
You think for a moment, “I wonder how far that bug can leap and how much it would hurt if it bit me?”