COTINGA 5 Priorities for parrot conservation in the New World Nigel J. Collar Targeting threatened species Two mainly lowland amazons, Yellow-headed In terms of numbers of species at risk, parrots Amazona oratrixE and Green-cheeked A. represent the most challenging family of birds viridigenalisE, have particularly suffered the dou­ on earth. A recent review3 identified 11% of the ble impact of habitat loss and persecution for global avifauna as threatened and 9% as near- trade. The Yellow-head has much the larger threatened, but analysis of the parrots alone14 range, on both seaboards of Mexico through Gua­ shows th at 24% (85) of the planet’s 356-odd spe­ temala into Belize (the Green-cheek is confined cies are at risk of extinction, with a further 10% to the Atlantic lowlands and foothills from Nuevo (36) near-threatened. León to Veracruz), but The situation gets has suffered much the worse when the New severer decline (90% in World component is iso­ the past 20 years), being lated: Collar et a l.3 renowned in trade circles identified 39 parrots as the best of all (28% of the Neotropical “talkers”. These species complement of around urgently need well- 140) at risk, rising to 44 defended reserves, sym­ (31%) when new infor­ pathetic management on mation and new criteria non-reserve land, and were brought to bear in intensive efforts to elimi­ Collar et al.4. This is a nate trade at both local situation whose gravity, and international levels. in terms of proportion of The two Rhyncho- species threatened, is p sitta species, which only approached by one are in fact highly other Neotropical fam­ modified macaws, occ­ ily, the cracids6, and in upy montane pine forest both cases it results Spix’s Macaw Cyanopsitta spixii, the rarest bird in the world (L C. in the Sierra Madre from the enhancement Marigo / BirdLife) Occidental (Thick-billed of the effects of habitat Parrot R. pachyrhynchaE) destruction by direct human exploitation5. Here and Oriental (Maroon-fronted Parrot R. terrisiV). I outline the key species to target for immediate Their dependence on pine cones, which fructify action, based on the above sources. Superscript in different quantities from year to year, makes letters C, E and V refer respectively to the new them especially susceptible to the effects of habi­ IUCN categories of Critically Endangered, En­ tat loss, because the food resource, already dangered and Vulnerable, as applied by Collar patchy in both time and space, then becomes et al.4. even patchier and more energetically expensive to locate. Thick-bills’ dependence on holes in Middle America dead snags makes their plight all the worse; Mexico is the key country in this region, hosting Maroon-fronts’ use of cliffs allows them greater six threatened species, four of which are wholly breeding security in the short term but perhaps endemic. less overall flexibility, so that they may suffer The Socorro Parakeet Aratinga brevipesV, con­ even more if the forests in which they feed when fined to forest above 500 m on Isla Socorro in breeding are all cleared. The primary need for the Pacific, may number only 400–500 individu­ both is to control and rationalise pinewood ex­ als, but should benefit from increasing national traction and to preserve any remaining tracts of and international interest in the conservation mature forest. of biological diversity in the Revillagigedos Penetrating the Thick-bills’ habitat from be­ group. low is the Military Macaw Ara militarisV, which 26 COTINGA 5 Priorities for parrot conservation (as considered here) includes A. ambigua (Great al.11, Evans7, Butler2 and Rojas-Suárez10 has pro­ Green Macaw) and which extends patchily vided major insights into the way small island through Central America (Honduras, Nicaragua, ranges compound the effects of direct and indi­ Costa Rica and Panama) into South America rect man-made threats to parrots, and outline (parts of Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Peru the appropriate management responses. The and Bolivia). Populations of this bird are all now result is that the species on the smallest islands, extremely localised and small, often subject to or the species with the smallest populations, are substantial, albeit barely recognised, annual perhaps now of less immediate concern than movements; habitat loss (in particular the recent some of the wider-ranging birds on the larger exploitation of the extra-hard Dipteryx trees islands: a general ornithological survey of which the species uses both for food and breed­ Hispaniola, and in particular the Dominican Re­ ing) and the poaching of nestlings are major public, is long overdue, and parrot-specific status threats. work on Cuba and Jamaica, although under way, deserves augmentation from every visiting Caribbean birdwatcher with time to spare. The identifica­ The islands of the Caribbean have been and re­ tion of conservable areas (some perhaps already main a disaster area for parrots. Wiley13 inside parks and reserves) is an urgent priority enumerated a minimum 28 species from the re­ for these species. gion at the time of Columbus’s arrival, of which This is not, of course, to invite complacency only 12 are still extant. Of these no fewer than over the Puerto Rican and Lesser Antillean ama­ eight are now at risk of extinction, four in the zons. These birds can only survive in the long Greater Antilles (Cuban Parakeet A ratinga term through the continuing commitment of peo­ euopsV on Cuba, Hispaniolan Parakeet A. ple and funds to current programmes of active chloropteraV in the Dominican Republic and management. Haiti, Black-billed Amazon Amazona agilisV on Jamaica, and Puerto Rican Amazon A. vittataC Andes on Puerto Rico) and four, all amazons, in the Upland South America makes for the most het­ Lesser (St Lucia A. versicolorV, St Vincent A. erogeneous grouping of threatened parrots, g u ild in g iiV and Dominica’s Red-necked A. involving seven genera. Colombia is particularly arausiacaV and Im p erial A. imperialisV). important, with four species entirely within its Moreover, three of the remaining four are near-threatened, and there is a thirteenth threatened species, the much-trapped Yellow­ shouldered Amazon A. barbadensisV, occupying the Dutch island of Bonaire and Venezue­ la’s Margarita and La Blanquilla, but also found in low numbers in remote arid wood­ lands on the adjacent m ainland. Some of these birds have, however, been well studied, and in­ deed our knowledge of parrot conservation techniques at the global level is dominated by Caribbean experience. Work by (e.g.) Snyder et Rusty-faced Parrot Hapalopsittaca amazonina (Jon Fjeldså) 27 COTINGA 5 Priorities for parrot conservation borders — Santa Marta Parakeet P yrrhura north-west Ecuador; the Golden-plumed Para­ viridicataV (only in the Sierra Nevada, whose for­ k eet Leptosittaca branickiiV, an apparent ests have been massively compromised by a specialist on Podocarpus cones and therefore fac­ drugs war), Flame-winged Parakeet P. callipteraV ing the same danger of space/time patchiness of (a tree-limit/páramo species whose few remain­ food th at threatens Mexico’s Rhynchopsitta par­ ing populations face decline as trees are cleared), rots, extends through the upland forest zones of Rufous-fronted Parakeet Bolborhynchus fer- Ecuador into northern Peru, as does (very patch­ rugineifronsE (another treeline/páramo species ily) the Spot-winged Parrotlet Touit stictopteraV losing out to habitat loss including grass burn­ which, although probably under-recorded, occu­ ing and overgrazing) and Fuertes’s Parrot pies the upper tropical and lower subtropical Hapalopsittaca fuertesiC (always very rare and forest zone, much coveted by man for its climate now known from a single small reserve). These and agricultural potential. four parrots will best be conserved by the full In addition, Ecuador hosts two endemic implementation of protection for four reserves, threatened upland parrots and one shared (only respectively: Santa Marta National Park, just) with Peru. These are, respectively, the El Chingaza National Park and adjacent private Oro Parakeet Pyrrhura orcesiV (a denizen of up­ reserves, Los Nevados National Park and the per tropical forest on the already largely denuded Alto Quindío Reserve. lower Pacific slopes), White-necked Parakeet P. Colombia shares four more threatened up­ albipectusV (a very local creature, known from land species with its neighbours. The extremely three general areas up to around 2000 m) and local Rusty-faced Parrot Hapalopsittaca amaz- Red-faced Parrot Hapalopsittaca pyrrhopsE (an oninaE extends from the north-east of the country upper-edge cloud-forest species confined to a few into Venezuela, while the recently unfindable areas in the south-west of the country). Peru pos­ Yellow-eared Parrot Ognorhynchus icterotisC, sesses just one additional species, the which is believed to specialise on Colombia’s Yellow-faced Parrotlet Forpus xanthopsV, confined national tree, the wax palm Ceroxylon to dry woodland in the upper Marañón valley quindiuense, itself on the verge of extinction, goes and the only species in the entire Andean com­ (or once went) in the opposite direction into plement to be seriously affected by trade (all Red-fronted Macaw Ara rubrogenys (Jon Fjeldså) 28 COTINGA 5 Priorities for parrot conservation apparently to supply national demand). Bolivia wards (not fully attributable to habitat loss) from possesses another: the Red-fronted Macaw Ara Argentina, Paraguay and southern Brazil, its rubrogenysE of the arid intermontane valleys of main strongholds and key areas for protection Santa Cruz, Cochabamba and Chuquisaca has now being the Serra Negra in Pernambuco and certainly suffered in the recent past from trade, the Serra do Cachimbo in Pará. but now faces threats from habitat loss and lo­ Further yet into the interior of eastern Bra­ cal disturbance within its restricted range. zil and the focus switches to perhaps the most (Bolivia of course possesses a second endemic dramatically beautiful of all parrots: the blue macaw, dealt with below.) macaws.