BABY BOOMER

I was born near Joplin Missouri in 1943, my father was an officer in the military and my mom worked building airplanes, as a young child I grew up in the care of my Grandma Suzie.  I grew up having to wear a harness to keep me out of the trees, where I would climb to hide and then of course would refuse to come down.  It also kept me from playing with the Water Moccasin snakes.

My parents divorced early on, so in 1949 I moved to The Tri-cities in eastern Washington with my mom and new dad.  I grew up through the seventh grade in Richland and in 1961 graduated from Kennewick Senior High School. During the summers of 60 and 61 I worked for the US Forest Service fighting forest fires out of Walla Walla Washington

In November of 1961, I decided it was time to join the Marines, so it was off to MCRD in San Diego.  I spent the next four years with MACS4 as it was known, a Marine Air Control Squadron.  This gave me the first opportunity to be out of the United States and visit some of the rest of the world, with a year spent between Japan and Taiwan.

It was after leaving the Marines and moving to Seattle that I went to school and work for Boeing in their mock up division, here I was able to help build the first 747 a  prototype. After some time at Boeing, I was off to Portland and after a few other jobs went to work for the Freightliner for several years.  It was while I was at Freightliner that I decided I needed a new career, and so it was off to real estate school and what turned out to be a successful 30 years in real estate. In 1980 when the real estate market in Portland slowed down I decided it was time to open my own business. I opened Devine Homes in 1980, specializing in the sale and appraisal of floating homes (houseboats). It was from this and a very strong stock market that I was able to obtain enough money to create the Macaw Landing Foundation.

It was in the late 80’s that I was given my first macaw; a Hahns called Roscoe, the smallest species of macaws.  He only had one wing, he had lost his right wing when he tangled with a ceiling fan. It was several years latter that I ran into Scarlet in a pet store in downtown Portland. It was difficult to convince my wife that we really should have this beautiful red bird in our home. I did get the bird and my wife ended up with a housekeeper out of the deal. I paid for Scarlet and her cage, loaded it all into the car, and off to the houseboat we went.  Scarlet and I hit it off immediately in the pet store, when we got home; she decided that it would be OK if I held her.

It took several days to sink in but I realized I knew absolutely nothing about the proper care of this magnificent creature with her huge and powerful beak.  To find out what I had gotten myself into I was off to the bookstore for some research, now what did they eat in the wild?  I started reading every book about macaws that I could get my hands on, from macaws kept in captivity to information about their lives in the wild. Her need for a large cage was one of the first things I discovered.  Thank goodness, she had come with an Environmental cage, which was one of the larger cages available at the time and fortunately, the cage could be disassembled so it fit through normal sized doorways. 

Then one day in October 1992, on the Oregon Public Broadcasting TV station, there was a story about macaws in the wild and this incredible human that was working to learn everything about them in the wild before they all became extinct. 

Prior to Dr. Charles Munn’s (http://www.state.gov/g/oes/rls/25872.htm) research almost nothing was known about these magnificent parrots in the wild. Most everything we knew about them was coming from macaws held in captivity. The next day after viewing the Manu video, I got on the phone and contacted Charlie. 

One of the first things he told me was that I needed to be in the rainforest of Peru that new year’s eve if I wanted to see macaws in their nest.  Then on to see the ones being raised by the volunteers at Tambopata.  He gave me the name of his travel agent and I gave her a call. The conversation went something like this,   “there are no seats available but I will see what I can do, it is not unusual for some people to cancel their trip.” We flew into Porto Maldonado, a rainforest town, located about an hour’s flight from Cusco in the Andes, (home of the Inca’s empire). From there we boarded the motorized canoe for what was to be a day and a half ride up the Tambopata river to the edge of the Tambopata-Candamo reserved zone, in Peru. That is where the macaw research facility is located.

There is an article in the National Geographic Magazine, (volume 185 January 1994), Winged Rainbows MACAWS, is about the tower where I spent New Years Eve 1993/94.  The tower was built for National Geographic and BBC for observing macaws. You can purchase the January National Geographic Magazine http://www.epwbooks.com/search.php?field=serial&q=790293 for $6.95.

($3.95 here http://www.biblio.com/details.php?dcx=10399989&aid=frg)

Information about the tower is available on the last page of the magazine titled ON ASSIGMENT. I quote, National Geographic photographer Frans Lanting, “I never thought I would ever do something this frightening to get a picture”.

The tower was 80 feet tall in a palm swamp. It put us at eye level with five Blue and Gold nest, four of which were in use (page 137).

It was from this moment on that I was addicted to helping save these magnificent parrots from becoming extinct. I remember thinking to myself; it was time to retire so I could spend all my time helping save these birds.

The rest of the story, as they say, is history. The reason I founded the Macaw Landing Foundation was to give everyone that loves these magnificent parrots a way to help save them. Charlie and I have spent hundreds of thousands of our own dollars on this mission, but we still NEED your tax-deductible donations. The more funding we have the more we can help make a difference. The amount of your donation is not what is important, $1.00 or $10,000.00. It’s your caring enough to help us save the macaws and their home in the rainforest that is important. Every time I look at our page counter, I think, IF ONLY each of the folks who visit our website had just taken a few minutes to send us just a dollar, how many more macaws we would be able to help. Get your free DVD about MLF, http://www.macawlanding.org/dvd.html

To contribute, http://www.macawlanding.org/contribute.html

In closing I want to thank my parents for bringing me up to have a caring and compassionate heart with a true love of all the wonderful creatures we share this planet with.

THANK YOU (from a BABY BOOMER) 11/19/07

Jack Devine