ABOUT THE OWNER, Gail J. Worth

Sorry, we no longer breed birds.

Gail J. Worth bred over 100 species of exotic birds from 1973 to 1917. She married Roger Kent Brechner in April 2017 and moved to the southern Pacific area of Costa Rica in October 2017. After graduating with a B.S. in Biology, she relocated to the Los Angeles, California area where AVES INTERNATIONAL was founded in 1977. For five years she operated an import quarantine station and imported mostly soft-billed species of birds and concurrently maintained a small breeding operation. The import facility supplied many birds for U.S. Zoological Parks including hummingbirds, tanagers, cranes, thrushes, motmots, woodpeckers, and many other species. She was a commercial member of the AAZPA (American Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums) for several years. After selling the import facility, she concentrated on domestic breeding. The collection numbered over 350 pairs of mainly larger psittacines at one time. The larger bird farm was closed in 2010, and she mainly breed cockatiels and from a few pairs of parrots and sometimes hand-fed for other local highly reputable breeders until the business was closed in the summer of 2017.

photo above- Gail with first large parrot, a Hispanolian Amazon named Traveler, and a cockatiel, circa 1973; photo below: Gail with a few hand-raised baby parrots in 1986

photo above- Gail with first cockatoo, a Moluccan Cockatoo named Puff, circa 1973; photo below: Gail with a Toco Toucan in 1977, the year Aves International was founded (was I skinny or what?).

Since 1986, Gail produced the Baby Bird Calendar featuring her photographs of adorable baby birds. In 2002 production of the calendar ceased due to family illness. She contributed to a monthly column for Bird Talk Magazine called "Ask The Experts" for a decade (1990-2000) and has written a number of articles for national and international bird periodicals. Birds raised at Aves International have been featured in the movie "Paulie, A Parrot's Story" and on the television program, "Wild Things" on the UPN Network. One of our baby Blue & Gold Macaws appeared on Survivor Amazon on CBS in 2003. Gail has been a speaker at many national and international avian conferences including those of the American Federation of Aviculture, International Aviculturists Society, Canadian Parrot Symposium, the Midwest Avian Research Expo, Avicultural Society of America, the AVES Conference in Grafton, Australia, and the World Parrot Congress at Loro Parque, Tenerife, Spain. Gail was awarded The Avicultural Lifetime of Excellence Award on 3/28/2009 by The Avicultural Society of America. Her photographs have appeared in many national and international publications and in the Baby Bird Calendar for eighteen years. Some of these publications include Bird Talk Magazine (now defunct), American Cage-Bird Magazine (now defunct), Parrots Magazine (United Kingdom), Avicultural Society of America Bulletin, Wirtschafts Woche (German), Scientific American, CNN.com/money, and USA Today. Her images have also been featured in educational materials for children and in advertisements for avian products. Stock images are available for commercial purposes; please enquire if interested. Gail is a long-term member of a number of several conservation groups that protect natural habitats of animals and plants such as The Nature Conservancy & the World Wildlife Fund. She has also supported Greenpeace and The Cousteau Society in its campaigns to protect oceans (whales) and other natural habitats. She contributes to many wildlife habitat protection entities, both private and public ones. Gail's beloved mentors in aviculture, botany, and ornithology, Stephen G. and Lelia J.Worth & Pauline Longest of Fayetteville, North Carolina, Don Bleitz of Hollywood, California, and Ken McConnell of Red Bluff, California have all passed from this earthly plane. They are all sorely missed. They were all wonderfully knowledgeable, kind, and sharing and a great debt is owed to them all! If not for the support of Lelia Worth, Gail's mother, Aves International might not have existed.   Gail and her late husband, Dave Venanzi in their Nirvana, Mother Ocean.

(Tari Gap, Papua New Guinea highlands, 5/95) photo by David A. Venanzi
"Darnit, every time a party gets going I have to go home to hand-feed!"

tribute page to David A. Venanzi

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