Spix's Macaw

by Tony Juniper

  The second informal gathering of the temporary committee took place in October 1989. The idea was to build the vital but still missing bridges between the Brazilian Government, international conservation bodies and the owners of the Spix’s Macaws. A meeting was convened in the Swiss city of Lausanne. Located on the shores of Lac Léman, Lausanne is a neat and affluent French-speaking city. Built on the steep bluffs that fringe the long glacial lake, there are views over the deep cold body of water to the opposite shore and France. In the distance is the western end of the arc of the high Alps. It was in this opulent setting that the world’s governments had gathered to debate and decide on one of the most controversial issues in CITES history. This was not, however, the future of Spix’s Macaw, but whether African Elephants (Loxodonta africana), mainly because of intensive poaching for their tusks, should be subject to a total trade ban.

  Unnoticed by the droves of media who had turned out to cover the fate of the elephants, a select, and in some respects more vital, private gathering had been arranged in a quiet room in the wings of the CITES conference. It had been convened to discuss the future of an even more endangered species. Representatives of the Brazilian Government, senior CITES officials and leading scientists were present. All of the known foreign owners of Spix’s Macaws had been invited too. Wolfgang Kiessling and his new curator at Loro Parque, the American aviculturalist Tony Silva, had turned up. Silva had made several attempts to get bird breeders to rally behind the cause of the Spix’s Macaw, not least to improve the reputation of aviculture. Among the ranks of wildlife campaigners milling round the conference centre, he in particular looked a little nervous.

  Unknown to the others at the meeting, Silva had that month banked cheques received in payment for Hyacinth Macaws he’d smuggled into the USA from South America (see chapter 4, p. 85). Despite these hidden activities, he sat around the table negotiating the recovery of one of the world’s rarest birds; itself a victim of smuggling and the high prices paid for rare parrots, especially blue macaws. Silva’s co-conspirator, Antonio de Dios, who supplied Red-vented Cockatoos to US buyers, was there as well.

  It was a very important moment. In this quiet meeting, a deal was struck that would later be the basis of the whole recovery effort. Kiessling, owner of the Tenerife collection, remembered the key to the new agreement: ‘they promised us that the Brazilian Government would be giving an amnesty if we would collaborate with no movement of birds, no selling, no nothing. We would be allowed to keep our birds and to breed our birds.’

  Kiessling and de Dios agreed. A deal had been done between the Brazilian Government and some of the key foreign owners of Spix’s Macaws. A plan to save one of the world’s most beautiful birds could now get into full swing.

  On 12 and 13 July 1990 in Brasília, just a few days after the ICBP team had found the last wild bird, the inaugural meeting of the Permanent Committee for the Recovery of Spix’s Macaw took place. Owners, government officials, scientists and conservation bodies were at last, and for the first time, around the table together41 and in a position to thrash out a plan to save the world’s rarest bird from impending extinction. But there was a big problem. Although there had earlier been an indication that some twenty-four birds might be available in the global captive population, this first meeting could muster only fifteen. Others had died or simply not materialised.

  Of the fifteen, six were inside Brazil. One was in São Paulo with the private breeder Nelson Kawall (he had previously owned two but one had died). Another was in Recife in the north east, in the aviaries of Mauricio dos Santos. Four more were in São Paulo Zoo. The rest were scattered around outside: two were in Tenerife, six in the Philippines and one in Germany.42

  With this desperately small number of macaws, the participants resolved to breed the parrots with the ultimate aim of releasing the species back into the wild. A recovery plan would be produced and a studbook established. There was to be research to find out the best way of breeding Spix’s Macaws in captivity and details gathered on the best health and nutritional care. Criteria were to be agreed for the movement of birds between breeders and the sex of those still not known was to be determined as soon as possible.

  The recovery programme received a boost in February 1991 when the Brazilians publicly declared an unprecedented amnesty for owners who had so far not come forward. The announcement was basically an official repeat of what Kiessling and de Dios had been told in the Lausanne meeting more than a year before. The deal was that in return for cooperation with the recovery programme, owners would be allowed to retain their birds without fear that Brazil would insist on official confiscation. (The amnesty was open for a limited period and expired in 1996.) Like owners who were already members of the Committee, any new participants would need to sign the agreement that set out basic ground rules, including the commitment not to sell birds and to cooperate with a new rescue effort. The amnesty encouraged a potentially crucial new contact from Switzerland.

  Dr Joseph Hämmerli, a medical doctor who lived in the town of Affeltrangen in the east of the country, had been in negotiation with Swiss CITES officials for some months so that he could carefully come into the open confident that he had made all the necessary arrangements to ensure that he could keep possession of his parrots. He claimed to have first obtained Spix’s Macaws in 1978 from another Swiss bird collector called Leumann, who had in turn obtained them from the wild the year before. But this was not the whole story.

  In September 1986, Hämmerli had taken possession of a couple of baby Spix’s Macaws exported illegally from Paraguay. Like those intercepted the following year by Juan Villalba-Macias in Asunción, the birds had been caught in Brazil and taken to the trafficker Koopmann’s house. It seems that these two were also taken from the last nest in the Melância Creek and shipped to Koopmann’s daughter ready for export to Europe. The same cover had been adopted: it was falsely claimed on the export papers that the birds had been bred in captivity in Asunción Zoo. The papers stated that the parrots were destined for Hämmerli’s ‘zoo’, in reality his own private aviaries. By the time Hämmerli declared his ownership of Spix’s Macaws after the amnesty offer, he had three of them.

  Even though at least some of his birds had been procured illegally, the presence of the additional captive macaws was good; the news of the single Spix’s Macaw still found to be living in the wild was a bombshell.

  Many of the efforts undertaken since early 1988 had assumed that the species was extinct in the wild. The discovery of the lone bird in the Melância Creek overturned the notion that it had completely disappeared and provided exciting new information about its habitat. Until this point it had been assumed that the Spix’s Macaw had a vast range in the interior of Brazil embracing several different habitat types including buriti palm swamps, cerrado and dry caatinga. But the evidence collected in the Melância Creek strongly suggested the Spix’s Macaw was a specialist inhabitant of the dying gallery woodlands. Any serious reintroduction effort would therefore necessitate actions to save its habitat as well. There was every reason to carry out conservation activities in the gallery forests of the caatinga as well as through the various bird collections.

  But what should be done with the last wild Spix? Should it be captured, as suggested by Tony Silva, so that his precious genes might be represented in the captive population, or should the lone bird be left outside to act as a tutor for birds that would be released? On the one hand, trappers might take it, a hawk might finally catch the macaw out, or one of the wild cats in the creek might make a meal of it, as might one of the ranch hands. If any of those things happened, the entire species would be placed closer to final extinction: lost completely in the wild and further reduced in numbers. On the other, if the wild bird was removed, then what would be the argument for saving the last remnants of its rare woodland habitat? Moreover, what would be the effect on local support for the recovery plan? And what would be the prospects for novice captive-bred birds let out into an alien world w
here there would be none of their kind to learn from? Captive breeding could take years before there were birds available for release. How long could the last Spix be expected to last?

  Experience with other species had already showed how releasing captive-bred mammals and birds was not a straightforward matter. For species like parrots which learn a lot of their behaviour and gain crucial knowledge from their parents and other flock members, the situation would be especially difficult. The last wild Spix knew where to find water in the dry season, it knew which seeds and fruits were good to eat and knew where to get them. The macaw knew where the cats and owls hid and from where the hawks were most likely to attack. That last parrot was a vital cultural lifeline, a link between the captive birds and realising the dream that one day there might be a successful release of macaws to repopulate regenerated and protected gallery woodlands.

  This argument finally won the day. In late 1992, more than two years after the discovery of the wild bird, the Recovery Committee decided that it would be best to leave the last macaw out there. In addition it was agreed to select a bird from the tiny captive population to be released to be his partner. If a wild pair bred successfully, then released captive-reared macaws learning from a small wild flock, would have a much better chance of contributing to the successful recovery of the Spix’s Macaw in its native woodlands. But before one of the irreplaceable captive birds was released, it was absolutely vital to determine for certain the sex of the wild bird.

  Female and male Spix’s Macaws are identical, but the expedition members who located the lonely blue parrot in the Melância Creek were convinced that it was a male, not least because of the way it had been observed attempting to mate with the maracana. But if they were mistaken and the wild bird somehow turned out to be female and another female was released, that would be a disaster. Female macaws of breeding age were precious and rare; risking one of those in a premature and failed pairing attempt with the wild bird would be a catastrophe.

  It was decided that one of the captive birds would only be made available if the wild Spix’s Macaw was confidently sexed. Any attempt to catch it for a surgical examination was ruled out because of the high risk of injury or death. Instead, it was decided that DNA would be extracted from a fallen feather. In October 1993, moulted plumes were collected by the fieldworkers now permanently stationed in the caatinga from beneath one of the bird’s favourite perches in the Melância Creek. The samples were rushed off to the Zoology Department at Oxford University in England where two molecular biologists had agreed to analyse DNA fragments to determine the bird’s sex.

  Since the samples were not freshly plucked from a living bird like those sent to Memphis from São Paulo Zoo a few years earlier, a new technique had to be developed. The ground-breaking preparatory work behind the new test took the researchers eight months to complete. The procedure was based on a method called polymerase chain reaction. This works by multiplying DNA fragments and was thought to be the only viable approach considering the tiny quantities of genetic material that would be available from a moulted feather. The researchers used genetic data from Hyacinth Macaws that had already been compiled by scientists in Cambridge, England, in order to identify likely genetic markers that would work for the Spix’s.

  A control test was run using feathers from captive birds of known sex. Once this had established that the test worked and was reliable, the moulted feathers from the wild bird were examined. Three feathers were available at first, but none of them yielded enough DNA for the scientists to arrive at a confident verdict. The initial results in fact suggested that the bird was female. More feathers were requested so that the test could be repeated. This time the scientists reached a conclusive verdict: the last Spix was indeed male.

  The results from the new DNA test had produced a certain result but taken up yet more precious time. It was January 1995 when the final result was sent to Brazil. By then the male bird had been alone for about seven years; it was an astonishing survival story that he had lasted that long. Any day he could be killed, and with his departure would disappear possibly the best chance that remained to save the species. It was vital to release a female into the wild without delay. The right bird would of course need to be female, of the right age, in excellent health and ideally with the experience of living as an adult in the wild.

  Only one bird fitted the bill. It was the female held in Recife at the aviaries of Mauricio dos Santos. She had been captured in 1987 – she was the last wild male’s original partner.

  No one knew if it would be possible to reunite a separated pair of parrots in the wild. Would they recognise each other? Could the released bird count on the support and protection of the wild male again? Or would she be perceived as a threat? She would have to be prepared to live on her own and had to be given the chance to relearn and hone her survival skills.

  Life in the wild was very different from a caged existence. The released bird would need to fly dozens of kilometres each day in search of food and water. She would need to have the agility and speed to avoid predators and the skills necessary to identify and open wild food items. She had been there before, seven years earlier, but she would need careful preparation and conditioning. The leap in fitness she needed to achieve was equivalent to taking a human couch-potato and training her to swim the English Channel or run a marathon.

  The Recovery Committee, with funding from the Loro Parque Foundation, had already decided to develop release facilities, and buildings and aviaries had been built at the Melância Creek near to the Concordia farm. Scientists monitoring the last wild bird worked from this base and everything necessary to keep the rare birds on site had been provided for. Living conditions were difficult in this remote place; so were the logistics of keeping captive birds in good condition: veterinary supplies and food for the macaws had to be kept refrigerated on site, not an easy task in such a hot and remote spot.

  Despite these logistical difficulties, two Spix’s Macaws were transferred there from dos Santos’s aviaries in Recife. One was the female who was to be released; the other her male partner who had been sent to dos Santos’s facilities from São Paulo Zoo in June 1991. He was one of the young males picked up in Asunción and had been moved to pair up with the single female. No breeding had yet taken place, which may have been just as well from a long-term genetic point of view, because he was probably one of her babies, removed from the last nest site in February 1987. In August 1994, these two birds had arrived at the large new release aviary.

  Housed in the 20-metre-long concrete, steel and mesh enclosure fringed with razor wire, the two macaws could feel the heat and dryness of the caatinga. They could hear the sounds of the gallery forest, including the intermittent calls of the wild bird. Large wild fruit trees grew inside the aviary, and it was located so that its inmates could get a good view of the bush and the nearby trees. The captive male was kept in the aviary so that the female wouldn’t wander too far while she got used to the idea of being outside. Another potential value of having the male there was that if the wild bird had turned out to be a female then an acclimatised male would instantly have been available instead. The DNA test had clearly indicated, however, that he was to remain caged while his companion was released.

  The months leading up to the planned release had been spent in assessing the female’s readiness for liberty. The researchers who had been monitoring the bird had been delighted at how she had right away taken to wild food, expertly opening the seeds and fruits collected from local trees. After a time she showed a distinct preference for this food over her captive diet. They had also been impressed by her ability to recognise predatory birds that had flown over her enclosure. At the sight of a hawk’s silhouette, she would dive for cover. That was exactly the correct response. She had also interacted with the wild male. When the highly-strung wild bird had called from the nearby trees, she had replied. By February 1995, with final proof that the wild macaw was a male and the researchers satisfied that the female
was fit and ready for release, the last pair of Spix’s Macaws was ready to be reunited.

  About to take place was one of the most remarkable events in the history of human efforts to conserve the natural world. More than seven years after her capture and seven years of his total isolation, they were about to meet again. Against the odds, the diplomatic, political and legal intrigue and the scientific uncertainty, they were about to be back together.

  At 7.22 a.m. on 17 March 1995, the door of the release aviary at the Concordia farm was opened.

  The female bird took some time to emerge. She had been used to being fed and had come to associate the presence of humans with the provision of a high-quality and varied diet. Things would now be very different. After 25 minutes she made her first flight back to freedom. She flew a short distance and landed in a tall caraiba tree next to the Melância Creek. She spent some time there before flying back to join her caged companion. Although they had not bred, the two birds evidently had a close relationship and frequently called to one another.

  The released bird fed on the fruits of wild trees and soon adapted. The initial signs were good. But what about the wild bird, what would be his reaction? One factor that had haunted the researchers planning the release of the female bird was the possible indifference of the wild male.

  In the years since his partner was removed he had developed a relationship with a maracana, or possibly several maracanas from different flocks that he came across during his long flights over the caatinga. Pair bonds between parrots are very strong and it might be that he would now ignore a Spix’s Macaw in favour of his liaisons with the other species. With this in mind, there had been an agonising debate over whether it would be wise to capture, or even shoot, the maracana most closely paired to the male Spix’s Macaw lest their relationship unduly interfere with the attempted re-pairing with his old mate. In the end it was thought that if the maracana was removed by force, the experience might traumatise or disorient the wild Spix’s Macaw and delay or prevent him teaming up with his old partner. Instead, nature was allowed to take its course.