Spix's Macaw

by Tony Juniper

  Some of the locals were also employed by the recovery project. One was a local cattle rancher called Jorge de Sousa. Then in his forties, he remembered as a boy seeing flocks of ten or more of the blue parrots. He recalled the bird traffickers coming to catch them but had no idea how rare or valuable they were. When it was explained to him, like many other local people, he wanted to help.

  No amount of local goodwill could, however, guarantee success. And when things started to wrong, they did so spectacularly. First of all the male began to show more interest in his little green partner. Worse still, the female Spix’s Macaw increasingly detached herself from them; and then she disappeared.

  A search party of thirty people including the scientists and many locals scoured the bush but could find no trace. Her fate was a complete mystery. One theory was that despite her fitness and guile she had been taken by a hawk. Her tail had been slightly shortened by painlessly clipping its tip before release so that she could be easily distinguished from her partner. Some thought that this might have affected her manoeuvrability. It was also possible that she had made some seasonal movement and would come back. But she didn’t. Only years later did her true fate come to light.

  A cowboy came forward in 1999 with a story that in June 1995 he had found the dead body of the female macaw beneath some nearby electricity transmission lines. The pylons had been driven through the region quite recently to bring electricity from the huge hydropower works on the river to the poor rural communities. The new lines had been fitted with bright-coloured balls to alert flying birds of danger, but there were none in the section where she fell. It was a spot where dead birds were regularly found.

  The cowboy decided to keep quiet about what he had witnessed. The attempt to save the Spix’s Macaw in the wild had been a symbol of hope and a source of outside interest in one of the world’s remotest, poorest and harshest places. He feared that if he broke the news about the dead bird it would mean the end of the project and yet another blow for the hard-pressed people around Curaçá.

  The death of the female not only dented local hopes that outside interest in their forgotten land would continue, but it killed dreams of the establishment of a family of the macaws in the Melância Creek. This was the third adult female lost in a year. There would be no more releases until numbers had been significantly built up in captivity. The male Spix would find himself alone once more, except for his little green maracana companion.

  The unlikely pair of parrots, the little green one and the bigger blue one, continued their liaison. The female half of this partnership still dwelt with her own kind for some of the time, and would be dropped off by her partner at the place where the local maracana flock roosted before he himself retired to spend the night alone on top of a prickly cactus. He would pick her up again at dawn and they would fly together during the day to forage for fruits and seeds. This behaviour demonstrated how divided the maracana was in her loyalties.

  This was not new. As far back as November 1990, it had been noticed that the last bird was left alone when his maracana mate returned to flock with her own kind for the breeding season. At that time the lone Spix’s Macaw was seen defending its old nest hole in the large caraiba tree that had been a traditional breeding site for the blue parrots for decades. The maracanas tried to breed there but the Spix’s blocked the entrance with its body and cried loudly. Poignantly, the bird defended the nest site even though he had no prospect of breeding. His urge to defend the traditional Spix’s Macaw nest site in the old tree had overridden any sense of futility.

  But in December 1996, the two birds’ relationship took a new turn. The researchers had noted the parrots’ greater activity around the old Spix’s Macaw nest hole and when the female stayed in they suspected eggs had been laid. They found three. With the backing of the Recovery Committee, the field team took the decision to remove the clutch and to replace the eggs with those removed from a nearby maracana’s nest.

  It was assumed that the eggs removed from the hybrid nest would be sterile. But amazingly a close examination by scientists in São Paulo revealed that one had indeed developed an embryo. This was the first time that there had ever been a recorded hybridisation between these two species, either in captivity or the wild.

  The embryo was 24 millimetres long; a third of which was accounted for by its head. The beak was clearly visible and the wings were well developed with the main dorsal feather tracks present. It was estimated to have been ten or eleven days old. The embryo was later confirmed to contain DNA from a Spix’s Macaw – it was indeed a hybrid. But it was a dead hybrid. Perhaps killed off by some fatal genetic defect resulting from the biologically unique union of its parents, it stopped growing in the artificial incubator where it had been placed by the researchers.

  This embryo, carrying the genetic inheritance of the Spix’s Macaw, was another desperate but doomed attempt at survival. Perhaps comparable to a last human seeking to perpetuate Homo sapiens by breeding with a gorilla or chimp, the last wild bird had been forced into a liaison that nature would normally guard against. The stimuli that would lead him to breed with his own kind had now gone – but his will to leave offspring carrying his genes was undiminished. Nature never gave up: no matter what the odds, surrender was not in her vocabulary.

  This remarkable turn of events at least demonstrated one thing: that the birds had successfully mated. Even if these eggs had hatched and the babies matured to adults, it would be unlikely that these hybrid birds would reproduce. Most offspring from inter-species breeding like this are sterile. More important still in the short term was the possibility that hybrid young, if they did hatch and live, would divert the male’s attention even more from his own kind. In spite of the dangers, the hybrid nest was still a new opportunity. The recovery effort for the Spix’s Macaw really was now in uncharted territory.

  If this unique pair of birds could not produce viable or fertile offspring or in the judgement of the scientists be allowed to risk rearing hybrid young, perhaps they could still act as foster parents for pure Spix’s Macaw eggs taken from a captive pair. It might even be that they could rear captive-hatched babies placed in their nest. There was little else that could now be done to reintroduce more birds back into the creekside woods. Using the hybrid pair as foster parents really was a completely untried approach, but the scientists believed it was worth a go.

  Marcos Da-Ré had now been replaced at the field station by another Brazilian biologist, Yara de Melo Barros. She would now work closely with the Recovery Committee to try some daring last-chance tactics with the hybrid pair. Having already replaced the hybrid clutch with maracana eggs, Barros’s first job was to determine whether the two parrots could actually hatch fertile pure-bred eggs and then raise infant parrots. Spix’s Macaws’ eggs were considered too valuable to risk in the experiment. But if they could hatch other eggs and rear the babies, it would show that they were capable of rearing young Spix’s.

  It was now getting on for six years since the last bird had been located and almost nine that he had been alone. Every day that passed was closer to the inevitable moment when he would die and leave the species extinct in the wild. It was vital that this bird bequeath his local knowledge to future generations of the blue parrots. It was seen as essential that he leave some cultural lifeline behind him so that young macaws released later could integrate to a wild existence. The experiment would show if successive generations of the last wild Spix could be reared in the hybrid couple’s nest.

  The birds did take to the replacement maracana eggs and successfully hatched them out. But once again disaster struck when the young were eaten by predators. The creeks were home to all kinds of hungry animals to whom a couple of succulent young parrots would make a nutritious meal: snakes, hawks and various predatory mammals were among them. The researchers believed the most likely culprits were either opossums (Didelphys albiventris) or little marmoset monkeys (Callithrix jacchus). These clever omnivorous creatures inquisitively search ev
ery nook and cranny in search of food and make no distinction between the nest of the rarest bird in the world and that of the most common. With the young parrots eaten up by predators, it was all over for that breeding season. The researchers had to wait another year before they could renew their attempts.

  The months crept by until it was possible to make a further cross-fostering attempt with pure maracana eggs in the 1997–8 breeding season. Again this met with failure when the eggs were once more eaten, either by mammalian predators or by a snake. Whether either member of the hybrid pair would be alive to try again by the next breeding season was anybody’s guess. It was difficult to imagine a more precarious lifeline than that which tethered the Spix’s Macaw to existence in the Melância Creek.

  They did survive, and in the next breeding season the birds made two nesting attempts. The first failed yet again, in December 1998. However, the unique pair of parrots laid another clutch of eggs and a fourth effort was started to get the birds to rear young. The researchers were determined to do all they could to assist. The nesting tree was made predator-proof by fitting a smooth metal collar at the base of the trunk. This would stop the troublesome monkeys and opossums climbing up to the birds’ nest hole. Traps were set so that any prospective thieves would be caught even before they got to the tree. And when the hybrid pair’s eggs were laid, an additional safeguard was applied. Instead of replacing them as before with maracana eggs, they were exchanged for artificial wooden ones. Wooden ‘eggs’ couldn’t be eaten but would still stimulate the birds to demonstrate their breeding behaviour and maintain their urge to incubate and to be biologically prepared to feed babies at the right time.

  In January 1999, after observing a 23-day ‘incubation’ period, the researchers removed the wooden eggs and replaced them with two tiny, newly hatched maracana chicks. The pair fed and nurtured the fragile young macaws, and turned out to be great parents. They foraged for food in the creek and ground it into paste for the young birds to eat. They provided water and warmed the chicks in the chill before dawn. They were clearly capable of bringing up young together. In March a family emerged from the nest and the foster parents proudly flew in the creek with the two youngsters in tow. The babies had strongly imprinted on their father and called with a typical Spix’s Macaw voice. This was a good sign, in that it demonstrated how his influence might affect young Spix’s placed in a nest mothered by a maracana. Plans were now made for the ultimate test, the replacement of hybrid eggs with young Spix’s Macaws. But that would have to wait. The next breeding season was a whole year away.

  In the meantime, Barros and her colleagues were holding their breath to see if another daring experiment had worked.

  In early 1997, the Loro Parque Foundation donated twenty young maracanas to the Spix’s Macaw recovery programme. This band of young parrots had been reared at the breeding centre on Tenerife. The plan put forward by Wolfgang Kiessling and David Waugh, the new Scientific Director of the Loro Parque Foundation, was to release the birds bred in aviaries into the wild at the Melância Creek. It was to be a dry run for the future release of captive-reared Spix’s Macaws. The assumption was that the challenges would be quite similar in the release of both species but that this bold move should be tried with the less endangered species first.

  But unlike the release of the female Spix’s in 1995, the maracanas had never known life in the wild. Some of the twenty birds had not even been reared by their own parents, but instead by human hand. The hand-reared maracanas had been quite deliberately selected for release, and the results of such an experiment would be indispensable in planning the coming phases of the recovery plan for the Spix’s Macaw, which would inevitably involve hand-reared – and very probably only hand-reared – Spix’s Macaws too.

  The proposed release of the maracanas was initially resisted by the Brazilian researchers, who didn’t see this work as a priority. But by early 1997 they had been persuaded and the parrots were shipped with the necessary CITES permits and other permissions to the aviaries of Mauricio dos Santos in Recife, where he had built a new quarantine block for this purpose. The Loro Parque team and the Recovery Committee believed that dos Santos’s centre was a suitable quarantine facility. It appeared to be a well-run private collection and employed a veterinarian. It was also believed that the dry warm climate there with daylight hours the same as in the caatinga would help to more quickly acclimatise the birds than if they were sent to the south of Brazil, to São Paulo for example.

  The maracanas arrived and were placed in small wire cages so that the initial veterinary checks could be undertaken prior to a planned transfer after thirty days to a larger aviary where the birds could fly and socialise. But things went wrong. Although it had been arranged that a large flight enclosure would be built to house the new arrivals, it was not ready. In the cramped conditions, one of the birds died. Quarantine dragged on for months, during which time the birds’ condition deteriorated.

  Loro Parque heard what was happening and Kiessling dispatched his vet to investigate. Eight of the birds were found to be in terrible shape. Confined in small cages without stimulation they had plucked themselves and were suffering from terrible self-inflicted wounds. They were still in the same original wire cages and had been there for months. It was decided to bring the eight birds in worst shape back to Loro Parque for rehabilitation. That these birds had been allowed to deteriorate to this condition was tragic, but at least they weren’t Spix’s Macaws.

  Of the original twenty captive-bred maracanas that had arrived in Brazil, one had died and eight had been evacuated; this left eleven. In November 1997 these remaining birds were recuperating in the large adaptation aviary in the Mêlancia Creek, originally built for the female Spix’s Macaw released back in 1995. When the birds eventually arrived in the creek, the project scientists were aghast at the severity of the feather plucking and self-mutilation the birds had inflicted on themselves.

  Work began on the parrots’ recovery from the trauma they had suffered in Recife. The birds gradually settled down and began to adapt to their new circumstances. A release would go ahead as soon as possible. In order to maximise the information that could be gathered from the birds to be set free, they were to be fitted with radio-collars so that their daily movements could be followed and their behaviour more closely studied.

  The intention had been to test the radio-collars on the birds prior to release. A particular design was selected following a review of other studies, but the electronic transmitters were shipped to Brazil without having been subject to trials with live parrots, as had been agreed. In June, the birds in the release aviary were fitted with the new tracking collars. It was a complete disaster. The maracanas’ behaviour became pathological. Some of the pairs broke up, dominances in the group changed, two of the birds were killed in fights, one by its own partner, and a couple of homosexual pairs formed. On top of it all, they destroyed the expensive collars. It was a failure in every respect.

  More delays followed this demoralising experience while different arrangements were made. A dummy run with alternative tracking equipment in the form of lighter undertail transmitters was carried out in Loro Parque in September 1998. Students working at Kiessling’s breeding centre tagged six captive birds and found almost no impact on their behaviour. The tagged parrots were monitored constantly and found not even to be looking at the new unnatural baggage fitted on their tail plumes. Even though the tail transmitters would very likely only last a maximum of six months compared to the two years of a collar, it was decided to use the lighter, less obtrusive devices. The field researchers would get less information but it would be more meaningful.

  The Loro Parque Foundation bought a supply of the new transmitters and flew them to Brazil. At the release aviary the researchers fitted them to the nine maracanas that were left. Once the birds had settled down after being handled, one was set free. A second was released the next day and three more two days after that. It was the first week of December 1998.
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  The other four were kept in the aviary. Although they had the transmitters mounted, they were to stay there for another month. The idea was to release only one partner from each of the firm pairs that had formed, so that the birds already at liberty would stay in the local area. Food, water and nest boxes had been placed outside to ease the hardships of a wild existence on the newly released birds. The macaws were closely monitored by Barros and her team and, as hoped, they stayed around the aviary. The strategy worked and the other half of the pairs were released in January.

  Four weeks later one disappeared. The researchers had no idea where it had gone. A second bird was then lost. This one was found dead, probably killed by a hawk. The transmitter took the field team to where its body lay. Despite these early deaths, the other seven lived.

  Yves de Soye, a young German conservationist, had by now replaced David Waugh at Loro Parque. He worked closely with the Brazilian team on the release and follow-up research, and monitored closely how the birds responded to their new lives. Despite some difficulties in weaning the birds on to a diet of wild food, they eventually adapted to their new lives. De Soye remembered how each month the birds moved further and further away from the release aviary and started to stay away at night from the release point. So successful was the experiment that immediately after release they made a breeding attempt. In Loro Parque the birds would breed from February or March until July. At Curaçá it was around December to January – the normal nesting season. This demonstrated how they had adapted to local conditions.

  Despite being reared in the Canary Islands, some by hand, the captive-bred maracanas adapted completely to life in the wild in their native Brazil. The seven survivors lived, thrived and went native. A successful reintroduction had taken place. This was a breakthrough for the field team. The results from the release and the fostering experiments could now be used to support several possible recovery strategies involving the release of juvenile Spix’s Macaws through the hybrid nest or from the aviary.