History of the ICA

On August 8, 1997 the International Conure Association (ICA) was formed by co-founders Brent Andrus and Sandi Brennan and those conure lovers who were able to attend the AFA convention in San Antonio, Texas. At that meeting the By-Laws were ratified and the first officers were elected. Those officers were:

President - Sandi Brennan of Edgewood, NM
Vice President - Jerry McCawley of Phoenix, AZ
Recording Secretary - Brent Watson of San Antonio, TX
Corresponding Secretary - Teri Bilbe of Corpus Christi, TX
Treasurer - Brent Andrus of Las Vegas, NV

Conures have in recent years, become more popular among parrot lovers. However, our conure friends are still often either ignored or put down by the owners of larger, more showy and less vocal birds. The International Conure Association has been formed by a group of people interested in sharing our knowledge and love of that wonderful group of birds called Conures.

ICA sends members a quarterly publication just about conures, set up so that you can easily keep it in a standard 3 ring notebook. The articles feature different species of conures as well as diet, health, behavior and care for these birds. The ICA provides good information to help pet owners and breeders alike. All members are encouraged to provide articles, stories and pictures for the newsletter and web site.

ICA recognizes that there is also a concern that some of our beloved conures may be lost to aviculture in the near future. As you may know we can no longer take birds from the wild and import them into the U.S. and that it is difficult to transport them from one country to another even if they are captive bred. For that reason we need to manage the breeder birds that we have very carefully so that future generations can enjoy them as much as we do. We hope to find out which species are in the most need of help. The plan is to start stud books on those conures whose numbers are so small that they are in danger of being in-bred. By tracing bloodlines and keeping records, ICA can help people find unrelated birds when they want to set up pairs for breeding.

The ICA also supports conservation efforts and is specifically involved with the Yellow-Eared Conure Project. This is a relatively new conservation project for a bird that many feared to be extinct in 1998. Since that time two colonies of the conure have been located and are being carefully studied in hopes of saving the species.