Copyright 2000, Environmental News Network
October 16, 2000
By Robin Eveleigh

Only one lone Spix’s macaw (Cyanopsitta spixii) remains in the wildlands of Brazil. Others are part of captive breeding programs.

Streaking above the arid scrubland of northeastern Brazil, the wild bird can hardly be aware of the hope and responsibility invested in it by conservationists as far away as the Philippines.

It is the last Spix's macaw (Cyanopsitta spixii) to survive in the wild, and at 19 — a ripe old age for a wild bird in this part of Brazil — this lone survivor has a lot of work ahead.

A decade of research seems ready to bear fruit, but success depends on this macaw and its willingness to raise captive-bred chicks as its own, teaching them the tricks of survival in Brazil's inhospitable "caatinga," a region characterized by harsh droughts and sparse, thorny vegetation.

The discovery that there is one remaining wild Spix's came as a pleasant surprise to conservationists in 1990. Before then, they thought the species was extinct, save for a few captive-bred animals owned by collectors.

The realization that a lone survivor had withstood the assault on its habitat by ravenous herds of goats sparked a desperate scramble to save the species and bring the Spix's macaw back to Brazil.

Linking up with the Loro Park Foundation in Spain, Brazilian conservationists founded the Little Blue Macaw Project, named after the Spix's common moniker.

Ten years later, they've won the most important battle: gaining the help and respect of the local community in Curaçá, a small town in Bahia state. Goat-herders have been persuaded to fence in their animals, and the town is so proud of their Spix's macaw that the project's phones ring hot with news of new sightings.

While locals used to participate in illegal animal trade — another reason for the Spix's demise — they're now quick to sound the alarm if an unbidden stranger wanders into town.

Caatinga habitat in Brazil, where a healthy Spix's macaw population would live, suffers from overgrazing.

"The people have been wonderful," said biologist and project leader Yara de Melo Barros. "They're terrified that a poacher might take away their macaw, and they let us know if they see anyone suspicious. In return, we built a community school for the town. It works both ways."

She refuses to put a black-market value on the Spix's macaw for the simple reason that it's not for sale. "You can't put a price on him, because there's no market as far as we're concerned," she said. "Buying him would be illegal."

Within the next year or so, the phones for the macaw project should be ringing still hotter with sightings of captive-bred Spix's fledglings taking their first flight in the wild.

The Spix's has been mated with a smaller, green Illiger's macaw for more than 10 years. Although he also enjoyed a brief dalliance with a female Spix's confiscated from a private collector and re-released into the wild in 1995, she disappeared within weeks, apparently the victim of overhead power cables.

The Spix's macaw and his partner — macaws usually mate for life — build a nest every year, which has sometimes contained clutches of apparently infertile eggs. To test the couple's parenting skills, biologists introduced nine captive-bred Illiger chicks to the nest in 1998. Seven survived and now live happily in the wild.Now the process is to be repeated, this time with five Spix's chicks donated by a breeder in the Philippines.

"It will be an extremely delicate procedure," said Barros. "The chicks will go through a period of adaptation, learning to accept food from the wild, for example, before they go in the nest.

"Then we're counting on the Spix's to teach them everything he knows — where to find the best food during droughts, where to sleep at night, what predator birds they need to avoid. We're not saying he's our last hope, but what he knows can help us, and the species, enormously." Error: Unable to read footer file.