I'm here with Michael Lubbock, the founder of the Sylvan Heights Bird Park here in Scotland Neck.

Mike, thank you so much for hosting us.

Tell us, how did all of this get started?

- Well we've been doing it longest time keeping birds.

But the park we've had now 17 years.

And it came about that just breeding birds and moving them around, and selling them at the time, wasn't enough, so a friend of mine who is a Bronx Zoo director said, "You should get a place to open to the public and then you'll help save all your birds."

'Cause we had the largest collection of waterfowl anywhere in North America and some of them very rare and endangered.

So that's why we opened the park.

- [Deborah] Wow, the largest collection.

That's very impressive.

So what's the mission here?

- [Mike] Well, the mission to start with, was the endangered species, trying to save them.

And then as the park grew, education became very important.

I mean the next generation's got to take this on.

So that's one of our missions.

- [Deborah] And why are we losing so many birds?

- [Mike] Well, the habitat basically, all over the world and if we can't get the habitat right, we can breed the birds but we can't put them back with no habitat.

So it makes it very difficult and so that's what we have to work on.

- [Deborah] Mike, tell me a recent success story.

- A recent one is Brazilian mergansers in Brazil.

This is a fish eating duck that lives on the rivers, the clear rivers, 'cause they've gotta see the fish.

And the problem is they went down to very few and the Brazilian government, took 10 years for them to give permission to get some eggs and bring them in from the wild.

Since then, I think we've reared damn near 60 again and we're now looking at other rivers that we can protect and put them back into the wild.

So, we're working hard, but as I said, habitat is a problem.

- And what can people do to help this effort?

- Well, I mean, probably stop cutting trees down and all kinds of stuff like that, which will never happen.

- [Deborah] So deforestation would be helpful.

- [Mikes] Is a bad one, yeah.

Humans are the ones that are making these birds rare.

- This is my very first time to Sylvan Heights Bird Park.

And probably a lot of people haven't been here.

So when they come what should they do?

What's the whole experience all about?

- I mean, the pen behind us is the first one you see when you come in, all the flamingos.

So they're already committed and you are inside the pen, you forget about the netting above you.

Then you see the ducks and things, then you start to walk around and by the time they leave, they will have seen more birds than ever seen before.

- [Deborah] What do you think it is about that bird human connection that makes a visit to Sylvan Heights so special?

- The problem is that people see birds on television and lots of wonderful nature programs, but you're not sort of close to those birds.

You see what the camera sees.

When you're here, you see what you see and you have that sort of better feeling, but it's difficult to explain, but that's what happens.

- Well, I can't wait to see more of it.

Thank you so much.

- Not at all.

- Sylvan Heights Bird Park is at 500 Sylvan Heights Parkway in Scotland Neck and they're open every day except Monday from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM.

For more information, give them a call at 252-826-3186 or go online to shwpark.com.