The Parrot of Gold

Abstract

The Parrot of Gold-that was the title of an article written by AFA president Nancy Speed, and published in the Winter 2002 edition of the Companion Parrot .f:2!!:arterly. While a casual reader would correctly conclude the article was about a golden-colored parrot-a Golden Conure- tracking the history of the bird, also known as the ~een of Bavaria, leads one to conclude that like gold, this parrot is a rare beauty on many levels.

The Golden Conure, wrote Speed, "is native to a very small area in Brazil. Its range extends to the bank of the Madeira Rio, and is as far east as the Gurupi." The bird was reportedly named ~een of Bavaria in 1788 by Johann Friedrich Gmelin, MD, a naturalist and physician who also published Linnaeus' Systema Naturae between 1788 and 1793.

Blogger Karen McGovern of Parrotphenalia wrote in 2006 that the Golden Conure was given this name because it was a gift for the ~een of Bavaria. That queen was Marie Wilhelmine August of Hess en Darmstadt who was married to Maximilian I, who became king in 1785.

Who presented the conure to Marie Wilhelmine August, and when, has either been lost to history, or is buried in a Portuguese language reference. Brazil became a Portuguese colony in the 1530s, with independence being granted in 1822. W. T. Greene, author of Parrots in Captivity (written between 1884- 1887), noted that a Golden Conure had "survived since 1871 in the Parrot House of the Zoological Gardens in Regent's Park" in London.

Greene added, "The Golden Parrot is not of very common occurrence in its native country." However, Greene cited two other zoos at the time, those at Berlin and Antwerp, as housing Golden Conures. And Greene wrote that Prince Ferdinand of Saxe Coburg Gotha also owned one of these unusual birds.

The Golden Conure, like other parrots discovered in the New World, was captured and brought to other places. Greene noted:

"Considering the scarcity of these birds in their native country, the infrequence of their importation into Europe, and their consequent high price, it is not surprising that no attempt at breeding them has been made, much less that no successful rearing

of a brood of Gold Parrots has been recorded ... "Green mused that encouraging such a "hardy and docile" parrot to reproduce shouldn't be difficult.

But apparently breeding ~een of Bavaria conures, while potentially lucrative, was not that easy, judging by a 1954 story which ran in the New York Times.

Margarine and Oleo were two Golden Conures once owned by the 30th Governor of Pennsylvania, George Howard Earle III.

 

Earle served as governor from 1935 to 1937 and then took positions in the Franklin Roosevelt Administration. How and where he acquired the conures is another story lost to history. Earle's son, Ambassador Ralph Earle II, serves as the Deputy Director for the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. An email was sent to Ambassador Earle through the State Department Press Office asking ifhe remembered anything about his father's conures. So far, no response.

Governor Earle eventually sold Margarine and Oleo to Mr. and Mrs. Harry Zelenko of 450 East Sixty-third Street in NYC. By August of 1954, Margarine and Oleo were reportedly living happily together in a "nail barrel" in the Zelenko apartment, along with other "rare birds and monkeys." The Zelenkos "insisted that Oleo and Margarine were [sic] the only compatible pair of conures in captivity. Plans were therefore afoot to mate them next spring in what would have been the first known instance of conures breeding in captivity."

So one might ask, if a couple owned such a rare pair of conures, why would they house them in a nail barrel, leave them alone for a weekend with the rest of the menagerie, and with an apartment window cracked open? Margarine, also called Margie, clearly saw that opening as an opportunity to explore NYC and out the window she apparently escaped.

"Margie disappeared at 7 A.M. Sunday while her husband, Oleo, either was asleep or too drowsy to raise a ruckus. As far as it can be determined, Margie squeezed out through the slightly open living-room window of the apartment of her owners ... "

The Zelenkos started searching for Margie on Sunday night after returning from their weekend away. Margie apparently "fluttered down from the seventh-floor apartment" and "was last seen parading up and down the sidewalk in front of the building. Then she vanished."

Margie was clipped, Mr. Zelenko told the reporter; therefore, he also concluded Margie must have been stolen. Zelenko was a commercial artist and immediately generated "handbills describing Margie and offering a substantial award." Mr. Zelenko first estimated the value of Margie at $500 (about $4,200 in 2013 dollars) and then $600 (a little over $5,100 in 2013).

That initial New York Times story also carried a "final word of advice" for those who might go looking for the missing parrot/ parakeet. "Do not speak to her in English. She knows only Portuguese, except for a rather objectionable Anglo-Saxon expression."

The day after the first story of Margie's escape appeared in the newspaper, someone reported seeing Margie "taking the air on Sixty-third Street and walking toward the Children's Garden on York Avenue." The Zelenkos immediately took Oleo to the area in order to pass out handbills and to see if Oleo "sang his scratchy love song" Margie would appear. No such luck. Oleo went back to the "lonely nail keg."

Readers, trying to assist in finding Margie, actually made the search more difficult due to inaccurate sightings and a misunderstanding of terms.

"Calling a parrot a parakeet in news stories and advertisements about the missing bird has caused a great deal of confusion in the minds of people who have been trying to help ... While the bird is technically a parakeet because of its long, slender tail, it is larger than the type of parakeet generally seen around here and is more readily identified by the broader term of parrot, Mrs. Zelenko explained ... the Zelenkos have received hundreds of calls from people who have spotted parakeets of the smaller variety."

The story of Margarine and Oleo has a happy ending. On August 9, 1954 the headline read: Errant Parakeet Is Brought Home To Her Mate, and All Is Forgiven. Margie, however, did not return home before a two state search! Mr. Zelenko "hired a detective and they went to Danbury, Conn., on what they considered a reliable tip that a man had been seen taking the bird there by train. The trail ended in Danbury."

The news stories never indicated if Margie was ever really on

a train to Connecticut. Actually, the story might lead readers to believe she never wandered far from the building housing the nail keg in the 7th floor apartment.

 

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