Wang Bo drove to the ranch, Peterson handed him a telescope and said, "Look directly ahead, there is a flock of birds there, that is Kea."

"It's obviously called the Pecking Parrot, why do you call it Kea?"

"Because that's what they call, and it's easier for us to call them."

Looking out from the telescope, Wang Bo first saw a flock of Romney sheep.

The fur of these Romney sheep is white and looks very clean. It is very different from the dirty sheep raised on other pastures, and it looks pleasing to the eye.

However, some sheep were in a bad condition. Their backs were covered in blood and their white appearance was dyed red. The sheep were walking around anxiously, and the injured were still making painful bleating sounds.

Wang Bo moved his telescope and a big bird suddenly rushed out from behind a sheep. It suddenly appeared in his sight, which scared him.

The bird is half a meter long and is a big bird. Its feathers are olive green with black piping; the feathers on the top of the head and neck are yellow-green with dark radial stripes.

Its and abdomen are light brown-green, the lower back is orange-red, the mouth is slender and curved, the eyes are dark brown, and the appearance is very domineering.

After appearing, the bird flapped its wings and landed on the back of Romney's sheep. Its claws were grabbed onto the back of the sheep like an iron hook, and it turned red!

This is the pecking parrot, and its movements also explain its name.

"See it? This is the annoying kea. They often attack the flock, jump on the backs of sheep, tear the sheep's skin, and peck at the meat, and always make the docile sheep panic and irritable." Peterson said.

After the pecking parrot attacked Romney sheep, it opened its thick and long beak and screamed a few times, but Wang Bo couldn't hear it clearly from a distance, and he didn't know if it was really syllables like 'kea'.

A few more sheep pecking parrots appeared behind them. These parrots were chasing the flock. They were not flying and chasing, but jumping with their feet. Their movements looked funny, jumping and chasing behind like clowns.

The movements are funny, but the temperament is not funny. These guys catch up with the sheep, either slap them up or grab them with their claws. They are very strong and can tear the sheep's skin in a few seconds.

Romney sheep have a gentle temperament. They don’t know how to resist when they are bullied, and just keep hiding.

There are no tigers and monkeys in the mountains, and the sheep and parrots probably think they are very powerful. Four-legged beasts that are dozens of times larger than them are chasing them and running around. They are so arrogant.

Seeing his precious flock of sheep being bullied like this, Lao Wang's nose was so angry that he smoked.

But cute means justice. Although this bird is domineering, it is indeed beautiful in appearance. Green feathers are relatively rare among other birds.

So, Lao Wang hesitated a little and said, "What should we do with these birds? Kill them? Drive them away?"

Peterson said: "It's not easy to deal with. First of all, we can't drive them away. There's a shortage of food in winter. We have so many sheep here, and they're certainly happy to stay."

"It's not good if you want to kill them, they are a vulnerable species. New Zealand has foundations that protect them, and people like Kea, and many New Zealanders will grow their favorite plants at home to attract them to their gardens."

The pecking parrots are good for their persecution of the flock, which was once considered a harmful bird, and were severely culled. Especially farmers and ranchers, who made great efforts in the process of culling the parrots.

Peterson told Wang Bo that humans eliminated at least 150,000 sheep pecking parrots. Later, wildlife experts gradually realized that doing so could damage the ecological balance of the region.

By 1986, New Zealand introduced laws to protect sheep pecking parrots, and by then there were only 3,000 of these birds in the country.

This law does not stipulate that killing a sheep pecking parrot is illegal. It does not allow commercial hunting and leisure hunting. If a sheep pecking parrot damages the life of a sheep, it can also be killed at this time.

In Wang Bo's case, it is not illegal to kill a sheep pecking parrot.

However, it was very painful. This time, the one who came to the Sunset Ranch was a large group of sheep pecking parrots. Peterson took Lao Wang to the ranch and saw at least hundreds of parrots of all sizes arrogantly.

Hunting hundreds of sheep pecking parrots, not to mention whether Wang Bo and the others could feel miserable, just saying that this situation was exposed, the troubles from the Sheep Pecking Parrot Protection Association was enough to annoy him.

This kind of parrot does not only hunt sheep. In fact, they are not that fierce and can kill sheep, but they will peck at the flesh and fat on the sheep and harm them.

In more cases, sheep and parrots feed on leaves, fruits, berries, grassroots, vegetation, nectar, insects, worms, animal corpses, garbage in the camp, and various foods given by humans.

Every spring, they dig various types of plants on the mountains and search for new orders or insects that can fill their stomachs around the snow piles and in the cracks between the rocks.

In summer, they look for fruits or berries, seeds and flowers among the dwarf trees or bushes on the mountain.

As autumn comes, most of them stay in beech forests and feed on some orders, leaves and nuts.

However, in the most severe winter, their food has dropped sharply. Except for some parrots living in tourist areas that have tourists to feed, most of them will look for the remains of dead animals and dig out the internal organs and fat to eat.

It is in winter that they like to attack sheep the most. They have something to eat in spring, summer and autumn. They rarely do this. After all, the behavior of attacking sheep is the only behavior they can find to obtain food in this season.

Peterson is an old cowboy. He has rich experience in breeding. He also has good ideas on how to deal with these parrots:

"Boss, do you know that these parrots are not invincible. They have natural enemies, and to drive them away, they have to rely on their natural enemies."

"We have many possums on our ranch, which is one of the enemies of sheep pecking parrots. They cannot harm adult birds, but they can harm young birds. Even possums like to steal parrot's eggs and eat them."

"Kea is a very smart bird. When they find their descendants in danger, they will take the initiative to leave here."

Wang Bo looked at him and said, "So what we have to do is to cultivate possums? Don't you think there are too many possums on our ranch?"

"No, we should cultivate ferrets, which are the ones that love hunting young kea birds the most."

Wang Bo thought about it and shook his head and said, "No, I have a better idea."

(To be continued.)
Chapter completed!