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Carolina Parakeet

KEDM Public Radio | By Kelby Ouchley

Published January 9, 2017 at 9:00 AM EST

They were thought of as noisy mobs of rogues hell-bent on destruction. They swarmed the grain fields and orchards of European settlers consuming the fruits of hard labor. If they possessed redeeming qualities it was only after they were dead and skinned, either for decoration on women's hats or fried in lard for the table. Linnaeus named them Carolina parakeets in 1758, and within that group there was a subspecies with slightly different colored plumage called the Louisiana parakeet.

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Kelby Ouchley

Kelby was a biologist and manager of National Wildlife Refuges for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for more than 30 years. He has worked with alligators in gulf coast marshes and Canada geese on Hudson Bay tundra. His most recent project was working with his brother Keith of the Louisiana Nature Conservancy on the largest floodplain restoration project in the Mississippi River Basin at the Mollicy Unit of the Upper Ouachita National Wildlife Refuge, reconnecting twenty-five square miles of former floodplain forest back to the Ouachita River.

See stories by Kelby Ouchley