Pinola is a private aviary containing many species of birds located near Shreveport, Louisiana.
We are a private aviary in Louisiana. Nearly three hundred species of many families of birds from all over the earth find a home here, from the critically endangered to the common. We produce birds for zoos and other private aviaries. Another goal of The Pinola Conservancy is to provide an educational resource that this web site offers. It contains thousands of photographs, live web cams and developing educational tools for the use of anyone who is as fascinated by birds as we are. It also provides just a fun online visit. We hope that you will find beauty and value here and visit often.
The facility includes enclosed free-flight community aviaries, open ponds and lawns, and focused facilities aimed at the needs of certain species.
Primarily producing waterfowl, we encourage each bird to reproduce and distribute our surplus to other qualified private, public and institutional aviaries and zoological parks. The aviaries contain lush natural vegetation, flowing water and ponds. A wide range of foods, nesting structures and careful species compositions assure a good quality of life for the birds that we keep. Some incubate and rear their young and we also collect eggs for care in our specialized incubation and rearing facilities, producing roughly 1000 young birds each year. Our purpose is the captive preservation and propagation of birds, not display thus the facility is closed to the public.
Pinola Conservancy hopes to educate individuals about aviculture and conservation.
People have kept birds in captivity since before recorded history.
Aviculture is term that you may not be familiar with. It literally means growing birds under human care.
People have kept birds in captivity since before recorded history. We like to eat eggs. Birds, both wild and tame, captivate the attention of mankind, appealing to our unique enjoyment of the aesthetic. We like to eat birds. We have always hunted them for food and still do. The chicken, pigeon, goose and duck were brought into our food base and altered to our needs in step with the development of agricultural societies. Birds have been molded to some of our most specific needs, to hunt food for us, to prey on things that would harm us, to alert us to impending danger and to carry messages between us. Though food animals now, archeological evidence indicates that man first kept wild Red Jungle-fowl for sport before the chicken became a ubiquitous livestock. Our language is woven with bird use references as diverse as “canary in the coal mine”, “Honey-guide”, “cocky” and “stool-pigeon”. Birds have been kept for millennia for their beauty and to satisfy the fascination that we have with birds. We desire to bring them closer to us, so that we can know them. We form them into a friend-like facade, as we do with Parrots and Mynah’s or embellish our most intimate spaces with their color and song as we do with the Canary, the Shama and other thrushes and finches throughout the world. Birds as ornaments, such as peafowl, pheasants, swans, ducks, ostrich and a spectrum of other colorful species grace the palace gardens of government and aristocracy today as they did for the past Royals of Europe, Pharaohs of Egypt and Emperors of Asia. Still today captive birds sing in humble huts and digital homes in every corner of our world. Aviculture is as integral to human culture as any other art form and as integral to our survival as any other branch of farming. We humans keep birds, and we call that aviculture.
Anyone can participate in aviculture. The easiest way to begin keeping birds is to keep one very simple domestic bird, a canary or budgie in a small wire cage or a chicken or domestic duck in a backyard coop. The distance between that starting point and an elaborate bird garden or aviary, is a measure in effort, creativity, and education. It is a road that has been travelled many times by many people. Making the avicultural journey takes some learning, some risk and some resources. How much of each depends on how far you go, as is the case with any other endeavor. But getting started should not be intimidating. You just see to the needs of that one chicken or budgie. You feed it and assure that it always has water and a clean enclosure with room to move about. You give it shelter from rain, sun, cold, and excessive heat. In return it gives you joy from its eggs or song or antics. Just as easy as that you are an aviculturist! The Pinola Conservancy Aviary is the product an aviculturist at the other end of this scale.
One who began with a small, backyard pen of Bobwhite Quail and progressed through decades to keep and produce thousands of birds of hundreds of species, including some of the most critically endangered. The journey was neither easy nor inexpensive. Every moment was not joyful. There was much to learn from books and senior fellows and from observation, trial and experience. The journey required the help of many others disciplined in a multitude of other crafts. The journey was literal as well, requiring years of visits worldwide to other aviaries and to the wildest places on earth that inspired and taught. The Pinola Conservancy Aviary is a complex and condensed blend of over five decades of learning about birds from people and from nature. We preserve and produce birds and distribute them to zoos and other aviaries worldwide for all to enjoy. I am glad that you have found us and I hope that it helps you find joy in birds.