Ashwika Kapur of Kolkata won the prestigious Panda Award, as part of the annual Wildscreen Film Festival held at Bristol, U.K. She is the first Indian woman to win the coveted wildlife photography award for her film on a Kakapo parrot.
Ms. Kapur’s film “Sirocco — how a dud became a stud” is based on Sirocco, a Kakapo parrot, which is perhaps the only bird to have bagged a government job.
The male bird was appointed as the Official Spokesbird for Conservation in New Zealand and it helps in conservation advocacy on social media.
The Kakapo parrot, a nocturnal and flightless species of the parrot, is classified as a critically endangered species since 2012 on the IUCN Red List.
The bird, found in New Zealand, is known to be one of the longest-living birds and its known population is 125. Over 14,000 people from 162 countries voted the Kakapo the world’s favourite species in 2013.
Source Hindu
