Wild Pets and Laboratory Animals: Birds: Page 3 Endangered Species Handbook

Trade

Wild Pets and Laboratory Animals: Birds: Page 3

In the early 1980s, Bolivia was the largest exporter of parrots from South America, illegally transshipping the protected birds of neighboring countries, and depleting its own parrot populations. The Red-fronted Macaw (Ara rubrogenys) and the Blue-throated Macaw (Ara glaucogularis), for example, are endemic to Bolivia, and trade nearly extinguished their already small populations. These birds are now on Appendix I but are at risk of extinction. In 1984, the Government of Bolivia publicly admitted that its wildlife export trade was out of control, its bird exporters funneling protected birds from neighboring countries, and its own CITES personnel had forged export permits. A temporary export ban was enacted, and this later became permanent--to the great credit of this country, which harbors a wealth of bird life and extensive tropical forest. The Red-fronted Macaw, imported into the United States in the hundreds during the 1980s, is now Endangered in the 2000 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Its population has declined to as few as 1,000 birds, with continued illegal capture for wealthy bird collectors (BI 2000). The Blue-throated Macaw, native to northern Bolivian rainforests, is in Critically Endangered status, according to IUCN and BirdLife International with fewer than 249 birds left in the wild; it, too, continues to be illegally captured for trade (BI 2000). A 1984 study by two South American biologists, Manuel Nores and Dario Yzurieta (1984), found that eight of the 11 macaw species in Bolivia were endangered, rare or declining as a direct result of the wild bird trade. Bolivia's forests are largely intact, and the enormous trade in wild parrots during the 1980s is the sole explanation for the depletion of all the large parrots and many of the small ones in that country.

Numerous other Latin American parrots, once common, were so heavily traded in the 1980s that they, too, became threatened with extinction and were listed on CITES Appendix I. Among these is the beautiful Scarlet Macaw, symbol of tropical forests, which was listed in 1985, along with the Military Macaw (Ara militaris) and the similar Great Green or Illiger's Macaw (Ara ambigua), all being overexploited for the pet trade (BI 2000). The Scarlet Macaw has disappeared from areas close to villages and towns throughout its large range, which extends from southern Mexico to Amazonian South America. In Mexico and Central America, it has been protected from trade since the early 1980s, but illegal capture and smuggling continue to decimate wild populations. With passage of the Wild Bird Conservation Act, this species is now more secure, making illegal sales in U.S. pet stores much more conspicuous. By the end of the 1980s, 10 of the 17 macaw species had been listed on Appendix I of CITES, and others were experiencing steep declines.

Further west in Peru's massive Manu National Park, biologist Charles Munn has been studying macaws and parrots since 1984, climbing 100-foot trees to observe them closely, locating wild nests and researching their productivity. He found that in spite of the undisturbed extensive rainforest habitat in the park, large macaws raise very few young; 100 pairs of large macaws might fledge as few as 15 to 25 young per year (Munn 1988). He concluded, "Such a low reproductive rate indicates that macaws cannot be harvested from the wild without depleting their populations." This explains how species of macaws and parrots that had flown in huge flocks of hundreds of birds became reduced to scattered numbers within a few years after the onslaught of the parrot traders. Another factor in the vulnerability of parrots is their refusal to leave trapped flock-mates. Trappers would continue capturing birds that flew to the aid of their fellows until entire flocks were caught. North America's only native parrot, the Carolina Parakeet, had this trait as well and was trapped to extinction.

Trapping breaks bonds between lifelong mates and leaves females with chicks that often starve when the male is caught. This cruel trade causes the premature deaths of thousands of parrots from disease, improper care and stress. Methods of capture are particularly inhumane. Some trappers set nooses on tree limbs that flip the bird upside down when its foot becomes trapped. Birds can remain caught in this manner for hours or days, screaming and flapping their wings, while fellow parrots gather around squawking helplessly, unable to free them. Other parrots and many types of small finches are caught by bird lime, an adhesive that is smeared on tree branches. Birds' wings or feet become stuck to the branches, and they struggle in vain to free themselves, often resulting in injury or death. Decoy birds are also used to attract flocks to baited nets which are sprung by a trapper hidden in the bushes. So efficient are these methods that trappers nearly caused the extinction of South American Military Macaws that congregated annually when the fruit of a certain type of tree in northwestern Argentina ripened. The flock members returned annually to this ancestral feeding area, and trappers set nooses on and near these trees, using decoy birds to attract them. Only CITES Appendix I listing saved the remnant population of these magnificent birds from extinction. The taking of nestling parrots from tree holes, often cutting down entire nest trees in the process, is another method of capture that had extremely serious consequences for the once abundant Blue-fronted Amazon (Amazona aestiva) of Argentina (Bucher and Martella 1986), so depleted that only the threat of a CITES Appendix I listing forced the Argentinean government to enact an export ban, which remains in force.

The world's largest parrot, the beautiful Hyacinth Macaw (Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus), is another casualty of the cage bird trade. These magnificent cobalt blue parrots, more than 3 feet long, are native to open, palm-studded grassland and gallery forests of west-central Brazil, with small populations in neighboring Bolivia and possibly Paraguay. They are endangered by a totally illegal bird trade. From an original population estimated in the hundreds of thousands, the species has been reduced to between 3,000 and 5,000 birds. The United States imported a minimum of 2,130 Hyacinth Macaws between 1977 and 1988, and thousands more were imported by European countries. These birds were imported under "legal" papers from Bolivia and Argentina during the early 1980s, having been illegally captured in Brazil, which bans export of all its native birds. Bolivia has a very small population of fewer than 100 Hyacinth Macaws, yet thousands were exported from that country, listed as native on CITES documents. Transshipment of this type has nearly decimated many species of wild birds. They were sold in U.S. pet stores for $10,000 or more per bird, and shown on television shows, which whetted the public's appetite to possess these beautiful birds. Bolivia's 1984 export ban and the listing of the Hyacinth Macaw on Appendix I of CITES in 1987 stopped the disastrous "legal" trade, but unfortunately, many continue to be smuggled. Their status is now Endangered, and declining, with fewer than 10,000 birds remaining in the wild (BI 2000).

Of three other blue macaws native to South America, one is extinct, and the other two verge on extinction. The Glaucous Macaw (Anodorhynchus glaucus) has not been seen this century. It was the smallest of South America's three blue macaws and, in the 18th and 19th centuries, was considered numerous along major rivers in southeastern Brazil, adjacent Paraguay, northern Argentina and perhaps Uruguay (Forshaw 1989). Captured for the cage bird trade and zoos in the 19th century, trade may have caused its extinction, since its habitat remains intact (Forshaw 1989). There are continued rumors of sightings, and BirdLife International includes it in Threatened Birds of the World (BI 2000) as Critically Endangered.

Lear's Macaw (Anodorhynchus leari), which inhabits an arid, rugged terrain in northeastern Bahia, Brazil, numbers fewer than 150 birds (BI 2000). Although a few specimens had been captured in the mid-19th century, the bird was not seen in the wild by ornithologists until 1978 when Dr. Helmut Sick, a Brazilian ornithologist, finally located a small population of about 60 birds; two more tiny populations of 14 and three birds were discovered in the early 1990s a few hundred kilometers away (Collar et al. 1994). The main population numbered about 117 birds in 1995, but illegal trapping took as many as 25 birds in the late 1990s. In May 1999, three of these macaws were seized in a raid in North Yorkshire after being smuggled into England (TRAFFIC Bulletin 1999). This species faces extinction in the near future from destruction of its licuri palm trees, which provide its major palm fruit diet, hunting by local people and illegal capture for aviculture collections (BI 2000, Collar et al. 1994). Only a portion of the Lear's Macaw's habitat is protected by a reserve (BI 2000).

The fourth blue macaw, Spix's Macaw (Anodorhynchus spixii), is the most endangered bird in the world. Endemic to a very small area of northern Bahia, an arid region of northeast Brazil, hundreds of these macaws were smuggled out of Brazil in spite of being officially protected from capture, trade and export since 1967; it was listed both on the U.S. Endangered Species Act and CITES Appendix I by 1975, but this did not discourage unscrupulous aviculturists and zoos who offered prices as high as $40,000 per bird. By 1986, only three birds were known to remain in the wild (da Re 1995), and these were illegally captured by 1988. In 1990 a single male bird was discovered, the very last wild bird of his species. With no females of his species left in the wild, he began courting another species of macaw, a female Blue-winged Macaw (Ara maracana). A captive female Spix's Macaw was released to the wild in 1995 in the hope that they would breed, but although the two birds stayed together for a short period, they then separated and the male returned to the Blue-winged Macaw (da Re 1995). The female Spix's Macaw disappeared altogether, and is thought to have collided with a power-line (BI 2000). While kept in a zoo, this female macaw had been paired with a male, who remains in captivity (da Re 1995). Eggs laid by captive Spix's Macaws were to be placed in their nest in 2001 to be raised by this pair (BI 2000). However, this last wild Spix's Macaw, a repository for the knowledge and skills of survival for his species and crucial to the success of future releases, was illegally captured in the Fall of 2000, rendering the species extinct in the wild. Some people hope that others of his species remain undetected, since the original habitat is extensive.