Spix's Macaw

by Tony Juniper

  From a founding population of thirteen animals plucked from the wild at the start of the twentieth century, zoos and private collections built up by 1977 a population of some 300. In that year the Foundation Reserves for the Przewalski Horse was founded in The Netherlands with the sole aim of returning the species to the wild. But the steppe habitat once favoured by the horses was severely degraded by grazing and cultivation and, like the caatinga, was in a very poor condition. Researchers did however find a small area of steppe in a more natural state at Hustain Nuruu in Mongolia. The area was designated as a national park and herdsmen were gradually encouraged to use alternative areas.

  During the 1990s, several shipments of the horses were made back to Mongolia. The public greeted the return of their long-lost animals with the kind of celebration normally reserved for a football team coming home with the World Cup. The animals were transported to acclimatisation pens at the release area where they could learn to cope with the harsh climate and form the new social units they would need to survive in the wild. Following a blessing from a Buddhist monk and ceremonial offerings from herdsmen, the gates were opened. The first unfettered steps, after more than sixty years of a wholly captive existence, were taken. Following thirteen generations in captivity, none of the horses had experienced anything resembling a wild existence. None of them had even been to Asia before. What would be their reaction to an attack by wolves?

  Rangers following the released animals were amazed when on being approached by a small pack of the calculating predators the horses adopted a collective behaviour pattern not seen in their species for decades. The mares formed a tight circle inside which the pregnant animals, yearlings and foals gathered. The stallion went out to approach the wolves as if to attack them. The wolves, themselves recognising an ancient defensive manoeuvre, withdrew. The horses’ natural instincts had survived intact.

  They bred in the wild and their numbers increased. And as was the case with the rare birds on Mauritius, the victory was not only for the charismatic rare animals that had been reared in captivity. The new national park protected a rare fragment of ancient steppe that was home to other plants and animals whose fortunes were lifted by the return of the horses.

  Not only do cases like that of the wild Asian horse give grounds for optimism for Spix’s Macaw, the research work carried out during the late 1990s with the last wild bird and his maracana mate showed how there might be other effective approaches to getting birds back into the wild. Future recovery work could involve the release of eggs or baby Spix’s Macaws via wild maracana nests. Perhaps better than this would be the release of juvenile birds directly back into the wild, as was in the end successfully achieved with the radio-tagged maracanas set free during 1999 in the Melância Creek. This might be more difficult in terms of getting birds used to a wild diet and so on, but would avoid the danger that their unique Spix’s Macaw identity would be lost through being reared by the ‘wrong’ parents.

  Assuming the captive-breeding and release challenges are not insurmountable, what about the problems of inbreeding? Several experts say that even in the face of this very real danger there is room for hope. The world’s leading authority on endangered birds is one of them.

  Nigel Collar points out that, even though the number in captivity is not large and that all of the existing Spix’s Macaws could all be members of one family, ‘there is still a good chance that it can be pulled through.’ He fully recognises the threat posed by inbreeding, but he qualifies it. ‘Then again, all the golden hamsters in the world come from one single family. Every single golden hamster that you can lay your hands on has ultimately come from three siblings taken from a wild nest; two brothers and a sister.’

  The Golden Hamster (Mesocricetus auratus) has multiplied from the tiny original nucleus taken from the wild in Syria in 1930 to build a world population today of many millions. It demonstrates how some species can become highly inbred and remain totally healthy. For some animals it seems that low genetic diversity does not matter. ‘Spix’s Macaw might be one such species, or it might not. But there is nothing to be gained by assuming the worst.’ Instead, as Collar argues, what is urgently needed is a detailed genetic analysis of every captive bird in order to determine the best possible combinations to minimise unnecessary inbreeding. That job was seen as a priority for the studbook keeper back in 1994.

  If the inbreeding proves not to be fatal and successful releases can be achieved, it will be vital that the local people who live in the area where the Spix’s Macaw once lived continue to support attempts to save the species. Westerners sometimes gain the mistaken impression that people in poor countries don’t care about the environment. They often do, and if their support can be gained, then the prospects of endangered species recovery plans can be quite transformed.

  One man who knows all about that is Paul Butler. He arrived on St Lucia in the Windward Islands in 1978. He had read that the spectacular Amazon parrot that lived there was doomed and had gone there to help save it. He soon gained first-hand experience of just how serious the bird’s plight had become. He conducted a survey and found that there were only about 100 left. Much of the parrot’s habitat had been cleared away and the birds were being shot for food. On top of that a few were being taken into captivity.

  He discovered that, apart from seeing it as a source of food, almost no one on the island knew anything about the parrot, and certainly not that it was unique to their country. His idea was to engage people and inspire them to support the protection of the island’s special endangered bird. He used music, religion, puppet shows and other popular cultural events. He also linked saving the parrot to people’s daily lives. He showed them that protecting the forest was of benefit to them as well as the parrot.

  It worked. The St Lucia Parrot was adopted as the national bird. New legislation to protect the birds followed. Hunting was outlawed, land was protected and the maximum penalty for taking one of the parrots raised from a fine of 48 East Caribbean Dollars (about US$15) to one year of hard labour. A forest trail later opened in the new park set aside for the parrot raised more than a million dollars (US) from tourists in less than four years. Saving the parrot made sense; more importantly the people could see that it did. The combination of national pride and self-interest did the trick. Numbers recovered, and by 2000 there were more than 500 of the birds in the forest. Flocks of up to twenty were regularly seen, an unthinkable sight twenty years before.

  In 1988, Butler went to St Vincent to help the rare parrot that lived there. His public awareness campaign quickly paid off; it led to new protected areas and legislation. Butler then island-hopped once more, this time to Dominica where the two rare parrots there were rapidly disappearing. Among other remarkable feats, Butler got 80 per cent of Dominica’s schoolchildren to sign a petition calling for the birds to be saved. Many of them also gave the small token sum of 10 cents to aid the bird. In a very poor country even this tiny amount was important. People literally bought into saving their very own special rare parrots. And the people who had bought in were very important people – they were the next generation who twenty and thirty years hence would be farmers, government ministers and hotel operators. If they cared, then the bird would live.

  Again it worked. The parrots on St Vincent and Dominica bottomed out after hundreds of years of decline and began to recover. Today their numbers continue to rise as they head out of immediate danger. For these little island nations, the great gorgeous parrots of the rainforests are among their most precious national treasures. And anyone interfering with them can expect to feel the full force of the law.

  Training local people in conservation skills was a crucial component of both Butler’s work and the campaign to save the Echo Parakeet. Getting local people to the point where they can do the work themselves is a key long-term investment. Certainly this should be an important part of any future plan to bring the Spix’s Macaw back to the creeks. And if the macaws can come back, then the prospects for other
disappearing species in the caatinga will brighten too. So will the lives of the poor and marginalised people who live there. Indeed, if their lot doesn’t improve, then the long-term diagnosis for the macaw will not either.

  In some respects, though, the practical challenges posed by the remoteness of the Spix’s Macaw’s natural habitat and that it is extinct in the wild is the least problematic set of issues. Conserving the bird’s unique gallery forest, overcoming the fact that there are none left to tutor captive birds back into the wild and the genetic dangers are nothing compared to the lethal cocktail of egos, jealousy, lawbreaking, suspicion, politicking and greed that has all but wiped them out.

  While no one person is properly entrusted to direct a scientifically sound recovery effort, and while political difficulties dominate the survival strategy, the chances for the bird’s return are slim indeed. The law has proved insufficient to regain effective control of foreign-held Spix’s Macaws. In this situation the only other means is persuasion.

  Nigel Collar is among several who have tried that approach.

  In 1988 I stood up at the international parrot meeting in Brazil and said that if the holders of the Spix’s Macaws do not cooperate in order to save the species then they will go down in history as the people who brought about its extinction. What I said then still applies. If this fabulous bird becomes extinct, their names will be written forever in conservation’s book of shame.

  If you have something as beautiful as a Spix’s Macaw, the thing itself deserves to be conserved and to be looked after. It’s the same as taking a van Gogh and burning it – however many van Goghs you have left, everyone would be outraged at the very idea. They would see that act as part of a diminution of the world’s riches.

  But whether moral concerns about extinctions or pleas for selfless cooperation will be sufficient incentive for the owners of the world’s rarest bird to collaborate is an open question.

  Collar has devoted his working life to stemming the tide that is sweeping hundreds of endangered bird species towards the final abyss of extinction. He says that the main lesson to be learned from the desperate straits now faced by the Spix’s Macaw is that in future critically endangered birds should never be allowed to get into this situation in the first place. ‘There should have been zero tolerance shown to those trapping and trading the birds and every effort made to protect the last remnant population in the wild.’

  Leading conservationists almost speak as one on what now needs to be done. The best way forward would be to establish a top-quality breeding station in Brazil; preferably in the Spix’s Macaw’s natural range in the north east. From such a centre attempts could be made to reintroduce birds back into the wild using the same ‘soft release’ techniques that have been used elsewhere. Such a programme should be under Brazilian control but with the support of the best experts, no matter where they come from. Arrangements should be made to train Brazilians so that the whole effort might ultimately be handed back to the country. The rescue attempt would of course need to be supplied with birds passed back to Brazil from the present owners. With the correct approach, Spix’s Macaw can still be saved. The fact that several other endangered parrot species have come back from the brink proves it.

  Even now, even after the extinction of Spix’s Macaw in the wild, it could still work. It would need the best scientists who have succeeded elsewhere. It would need the best parrot breeders the world has to offer. It would need some money, courage and above all someone to lead the effort who can inspire trust from the many interests involved and who is able to chart a course through the politics and bureaucracy that go with most conservation projects. Such people do exist and would be willing to go to the caatinga to help save this most charismatic of endangered species.

  It will also depend on the people who are obsessed with owning blue macaws. The men who have so consistently and ruthlessly sought to cage and control these creatures have between them ultimately destroyed the object of their desires. Although it appears this was not their intention, it has nonetheless been the result.

  To blame all of the ills of Spix’s Macaw on the few people who happen to own the last ones would, however, be too easy. Returning Spix’s Macaws to the wild will depend on the wild still being there. It is now quite clear that if there is to be a long-term resolution between the needs of endangered species and the world’s fast-growing human population, then the rest of us must appreciate our own contribution to the final ravaging of this planet’s natural riches that is now taking place. Cheap petrol, meat, metals, paper, wood, sugar, coffee and the rest of the seemingly endless flow of commodities that those of us lucky enough to live in developed countries use and waste with such abandon come at an ecological cost rarely reflected in the prices we pay. Footing the bill for our growing demands are the earth’s last remote ecosystems and most beautiful species. There can be a different way, but we are very far from embarking on it.

  Looking several decades ahead, many possible futures for this spectacular bird can be foreseen. In one there’s a thriving creek with young trees regenerating in the shade of the majestic old caraibas; a growing wild population of Spix’s Macaws flies among them. The local people are enthusiastic collaborators in bringing the birds back to the creeks, they are helping the conservationists in regenerating the woodlands and making sure trappers do not return. Another future shows a single ageing bird, sitting alone in a cage in the collection of a rich bird collector, many thousands of miles from the creeks – the last of his kind; like Incas, the last Carolina Parakeet, soon to die of grief.

  On 7 July 2001, the pair of macaws in the nest box at Loro Parque laid an egg. Another followed on the tenth. It was a triumph for the dedicated staff in the breeding facility whose patience and persistent husbandry had finally paid off, but was also a bitter disappointment. It transpired that the male bird, one of the youngsters seized in Paraguay in 1987, was infertile and the eggs contained no embryos.

  Even this blow does not, however, mark the end of the story. That remains to be written. Whether this exquisite blue bird will yet rise as a phoenix of inspiration in the wider struggle to save the world’s beautiful and endangered species and ecosystems, or will disappear as another tragic casualty of human indifference and greed, remains to be seen. The means to save Spix’s blue macaw are still available. Whether they will be deployed in time to avert the imminent extinction of this superb blue parrot will, like the extinction of the Dodo, be an important and historic landmark in people’s relationship with the living world around us.

  Spix and Martius did not know that their trek through the hot caatinga in 1819 would produce the dried blue corpse that would for decades be the world’s only clue that this beautiful blue creature existed. Today we are on the verge of returning to a time when the only physical evidence that the fabulous blue caatinga parrots ever lived will once more be dried blue corpses. The fate of the blue parrots still hangs in the balance, as does the future of other countless species whose survival depends on human cooperation, foresight and generosity.

  Epilogue

  In September 2002 I was in the luxurious surroundings of a casino in Tenerife to present the story of Spix’s Macaw to an audience of 850 parrot specialists and enthusiasts from all over the world. There were parrot owners and collectors, leading avian vets, field scientists and suppliers of parrot merchandise, ranging from paintings to seed and from books to incubators. It was like a trade fair for parrots. This curious cross-section of global society had gathered at the casino for the 5th International Parrot Convention organised by Loro Parque.

  The participants had come to hear expert speakers, to learn of each other’s parrot experiences and to generally share their passion for these most wonderful and sought-after birds.

  On the morning of my speech, coffee was being served on the lush green lawns that lay around the casino. The great high peak of El Teide, the island’s volcano, was beautifully bathed in late summer sunshine and the vast blue Atlantic Ocean spa
rkled peacefully. Spix and Martius had passed by Tenerife en route to Brazil. I wondered if from this vantage point it would have been possible to spot their two ships; I idly imagined what the early nineteenth-century explorers would have made of the Convention.

  The participants wandered inside for the meeting to reconvene. My contribution to the Convention was essentially a summary of the story you have just read, and the occasion marked the official launch of Spix’s Macaw. On taking the podium, and before beginning my 45-minute canter through the saga of this rarest of rare parrots, I warned the participants that at the end of my presentation I would ask them a question. I would ask them to vote on a simple proposition: that is, should the 60 to 70 Spix’s Macaws now scattered across the globe in various private collections be returned to the custody of the Government of Brazil?

  There would be three voting options: yes, no or abstain. I had hatched the idea of the vote only a few moments before delivering my speech. My thinking was that it would be a very helpful barometer of opinion about the future fate of Spix’s Macaw from a key constituency of people – helpful, that is, if it went the right way. I was far from certain as to what the outcome of this poll might be, but the casino seemed an ideal place for such a gamble.

  Natasha Schischakin was there, so was Wolfgang Kiessling and his Loro Parque colleagues, Yves de Soye and David Waugh, the latter having just moved there from Scotland where he was the Director of Edinburgh Zoo. Harry Sissen had turned up, so had Tony Pittman. Nigel Collar was present, so was Rosemary Low. Also there was Iolita Bampi, the Brazilian official who had for years coordinated the Brazilian-led Committee on behalf of IBAMA. She had arrived not only to join the Convention but to take personal charge of the unpaired female Spix’s Macaw that was at Loro Parque. This bird would finally be going home with Iolita to be paired with a lone male at the facilities of Mauricio dos Santos in the north-east of Brazil. The cast of characters was most fitting for the occasion.