Priorities for parrot conservation in the New World

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COT'NGA 5. Priorities for parrot conservation in the New World. Nigel J. Collar. Tar8eting threaiened species. In tcrms of numbers of species at risk, parrots.
COT'NGA 5

Priorities for parrot conservation in the New World Nigel J. Collar Two mainly lowlaad amazons, Yellow-headed Amazons oratrixE al.d Green-cheeked A. virid.igenalisE, have particularly eufrered the double impact of habitat loss and persecution for trade. The Yellow-headhas much ihe larger range, on both seaboards of Mexico through Guatemala into Belize (the Greeu-cheekis confided to the Atlantic lowlands and footldlle from Nuevo Le6n to Veracruz), but has suffered much the eeverer decline (90% in the past 20 yeare), being renowned in trade circleg as the best of all "talkers'. Theee species urgently need welldefended reserves, synpathetic management on non-reaerve land, and ht€nsive efforts to eliminate trade at both local and international levels. The two Rhynehopsitt@ speci€s, which are in fact highly modified macawa, occupy montane pine forest in the Sierra Madre nr.5t bird anth! vrorld(1.C. Occidental (Thick-billed P anot R. pochyrhync haE) and Oriental (Maroon-fronted Parrot i. lerrisiv). Their dependenceon pine cones,which fructify in dilTerent quantities from year to year, makes them especiallysusceptibleto the efects of habitat loss, because the food resource, already patchy in both time and space, then becomes even patrchier and more energetically erpeneive to locate. Thick-bills' depeadence on holee in Middlg Amcrica dead snags makes their plight all the wor8e; Maroon-fronts' use of clifs allows them great€r Merico.ie the key courtry in this region, hosting six thrgatened species, four of which are wholly breeding security ir the short term but perhapE endemic. less overall lleribility, so that they may suffer The Socorro Parakeet Amtinga breuipesv,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 both is to control and rationslise oinewood exttre Pacific, may number only 400-500 individuals, but should benefit from increasing national traction and to preserve any remaining tracts of and interuational interest in the conservation mature forest. of biological diversity in the Revillagigedos Penetrating the Thick-bills' habitat from begroup. low is the Military Macaw 4ro militarisv, which Tar8eting threaiened species In tcrms of numbers of species at risk, parrots represent the most challeuging family of birds on earth. A recent revied identified 11% of the global avifauna as threatened and 9% as nearthreatened, but analysis of the parrots aloner' ehows that 24lk (851 of the planet's 356-odd sp€cies are at risk of ertinction, with a further 10% (36) near-threatened. The eituation gets worse when the New World component is isolated: Collar et ol.3 identified 39 parrots (28% of tbe Neotropical complement of around 140) at risk, risilg to 44 (31%) when new infornation and oew criteria were brought to bear ia Collar et ol.'. This is a situatiou whose gravity, in tcrms of proportion of species threateued, is only approached by one other Neotropical family, the cracids6,and in both cases it results Spix, MacawCtonopsttto rpir,,i,th! from the enhancernent MariSo/BirdLif€) of the effects of habitat deetruction by direct human exploitations.Here I outline the key species to target for imrnediate action, based on the above sources.Superscript letters C, E and V refer respectively to the new IUCN categoriesof Critically Endangered, Endangered and Vulnerable, as applied by Collar et al-'.

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COT'NGA 5 (as coneideredhere) includesA. ambigua (Grcat Green Macaw) and which extends patchily through Central America (Honduras,Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama) into South America (parts of Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Peru and Bolivia). Populationsof this bird are all now extremely localised and small, olten subject to substantial, albeit barely recognised, annual movements;habitat loss (in particular the recent exploitation of the extra-hard Dipteryt fiees which the speciesuses both for food and breeding) and the poaching of nestlings are major threats.

Priorities for parrot conservation o1.11, Evans?,Butler'zand Rojas-Su6rez'0 has provided major insights into the way small island ranges compoundthe effects of direct and indirect man-made threats to parrots, and outline the appropriate management responses.The result is that the specieson the smallest islands, or the specieswith the smallest populations,are perhaps now of less immediate concern than some of the wider-ranging birds on the larger islands: a general ornithological survey of Hispaniola, and in particular the Dominican Republic, is long overdue,and parrot-specificstatus work on Cuba and Jamaica,although under way, deserves augmentation from every visiting birdwatcher with time to spare. The identification of conservableareas (someperhaps already inside parks and reserves) is an urgent priority for these species. This is not, of course,to invite complacency over the Puerto Rican and Lesser Artillean amazons. These birds can only survive in the long term through the continuing commitment of people and funde to current programmes of active management.

Caribbean The islands of the Caribbean have been and remain a disaster area for parrots. Wileyl3 enumerateda minimum 28 speciesfrom the region at the time of Columbus'sarrival, of which only 12 are still extant. Of these no fewer than eight are now at risk of extinction, four in the Greater Antilles (Cuban Parakeet Aratings euopsv on Cuba, Hispaniolan Parakeet A. chloropteravin the Dominican Republic and Haiti, Black-billed AmazonAmazona agilisv on Jamaica, and Puerto Rican Aroazor,A. uittatac Andes on Puerto Rico) and four, all amazons, in the Upland South Anerica makes for the most hetLesser (St Lrcia A, versicolorv, St Vincent .4. erogeneousgrouping of threatened parrots, guild.ingiiv and Dominica's Red-necked A. involving sevengenera. Colombia is particularly arausiacav and Irnperial A. imperialis!). important, with four speciesentirely within its Moreover, three of the remaiuing four are near-threatened, and there is a thirteenth threatened species,the much-trapped Yellowshouldered Amazon A. barbad,ensis\, occupytng the Dutch island of Bonaire and Venezuela's Margarita and La Blanquilla, but also found in low numbers in remote arid woodlands on the adjacent rnainland, Some of these birds have, however, been well studied, and indeed our knowledge of parrot conservation techniquesat the global level is dominated by Caribbean experience. Rlirry-hced Parrot Hopolops,ndcdomozonhd (Jon FFldst) Work by (e.g.)Snyder €t

Priorities for parrot conservation

CO7'NGA 5 borders - Saota Marta Parakeet Pyrrhura oiri.dicatav (oriy in the Sierra Nevada, whose forests have been massively compromisedby a drugs war), Flame-wingedParakeetP calliptera\ (a tree-limiUp6rarno specieswhose few remaining populationsfacedecline as trees are cleared), Rufous-fronted Parakeet Bolborhynchus ferrugineifronsE(another treeline/pdramospecies losing out to habitat loss including grass burning and overgrazing) and Fuertes's Parrot Hapalopsittaca fuertesic (always very rare and now kaown from a single small reserve).These four parrots will best be conservedby the full implementation of protection for four reserves, respectively: Santa Marta National Park, Chingaza National Park and adjacent private reserves, Los Nevados National Park and the Alto Quindio Reserve. Colombia shares four more threatened upland species with its neighbours. The extremely local Rusty-faced Parrot Hapalopsittaca atnazoninoE exteuds fiom the north-east ofthe country into Venezuela, while the recently unfrndable Yellow-eared Patot Ognorhynchus icterotisc, which is believed to specialiseon Colombia's national tree, the wax palm Cerorylon quindiuense, itself on the verge of extinction, goes (or once went) in the opposite direction into

Red-frontedMacawAfo rubrog.'F 0o. Fjeldsl)

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north-west Ecuador; the Golden-plumed Parakeet Leptosittaca branichiir, an apparent specialiston Podocorpusconesand therefore facing the same danger of spacdtime patchinessof food that threatens Mexi,co'sRhynchopsitta parrots, extends through the upland forest zonesof Ecuador into northern Peru, as does(very patchily) the Spot-wingedParrotlet Touit stictopterav which, although probably under-recorded,occupies the upper tropical and lower subtropical forest zone, much covetedby man for its climate and agricultural potential. In addition, Ecuador hosts two endemic threatened upland parrots and one shared (only just) with Peru. These are, respectively,the EI Oro Parakeet PyrrAura orcesiv(a denizen of upper tropical forest on the already largely denuded lower Pacifrc slopes),White-necked Parakeet P albipectusv (a very local creature, known frorn three general area6 up to around 2,000 m) and Red-facedPafiot Hapalopsittaca pyrrhopsE (an upper-edge cloud-forest species confined to a few areas in the south-weetofthe country). Peru possesses just one additional species, the Yellow-faced Panotlet Forpus ranthopsv, confined to dry woodland in the upper Marai6n valley and the only speciesin the entire Ardean complement to be seriously affected by trade (all

wards (not fully attributable to habitat loss)from Argentina, Paraguay and southern Brazil, its main strongholds and key areas for protection now being the Serra Negra in Pernambuco and the Serra do Cachimbo in Par6. Further yet into the interior of eastern Brazil and the focus switches to perhaps the most dramatically beautiful of all parrots: the blue macaws.The nost celebrated,list€d iu the Gzinnessbak of record.s.1996as tlte rarest bird in the world, is the highly distinctive Spix's Macaw Lowlend South Amerlca Clanopsitta spiriic, of which a single individual ln theory lowland areas of South America ought survived in its only known haunts, caraiba woodnot to hold large numbers of tlueatened parrots, land along seasonal creeks in arid northern since unlike in the Andes or the Caribbean there Bahia, until in 1995 a wild-caught captive bird strong-flyfew features to confine are relatively was releaeedin the hope of breeding with it. A ing, wide-ranging frugivoree to areas small committee of Brazilian authorities and captive enough to render them obviously susceptibleto ownem now presides over the future of tltis speextinction. ln practice, however, there is the Atlantic Forest, reduced over live centuries of cies, but the total failure of attempts to introduce captive-bred Thick-billed Parrots into Arizona settlement to tiny (yet still declining) fragmentg (captive-bredbirds are incapable of recognising of its fonner glory and there is tr8de, whittling food or predators and die withil hours of release) a$,ay at populatious of species even while the (in places) inhas demonstrated the unconditional necessity of remains ost€nsibly habitat a few returning all csptive-held wild-caught Spix's tact, The focus in both caseeis Brazil. Macaws to their native habitat as soon as hu' The Atlantic Forest once ran fiom the northmanly possible if there is to be any genuine hope eastern seaboard of Brazil in Alagoas and for the species'Eultimate recovery Pemambuco south through Bahia, Minas G€rais, Almoet adjacent to the site where the Spix's Espirito Santo and Rio de Janeiro into Sdo Paulo saga is unfolding, the next-most threatened Braand Paran6, where a subtle 8hift to what i8 sonezilian parrot, Lear's Macaw Anodorhynchus times called Paranaense forest occurs, this ,earic, struggles for survival against the impact extending into Rio Grande do Sul and through adjacent eastern Paraguay and the province of of food-plant (licuri palrn) clearance in a handful of small, highly vulnerable clifr colonies,one Misiones iu Argentina. Four species - Brownof them only discovered in 1995 (see lVeolropicol and Golden-tailed backed,Touit melanonotaE Parrotlets T. surdaE, Blue-chested Parakeet Neus, this issue). Vigilance against trappers and Pyrrhura cruentata! and Red-browed Amazon long-tern management of farmland over a wide area around nest-sitesare essential investEents Amazona rhodocorythaE - are confrned to the northern half of this belt. Two species - the Red- in this bird's future. Its closerelative, the Glautailed, A. brasiliensisE and the Red-spectacled cous Macaw A. glavcus, has already been lost, almost certainly in part owing to the elimiuaLmaznneA. pretreiE - only occur in the southern tion over much of it8 range of yatay palms. This half, the former replacing its close relative rhodocorytha in coastal 56o Paulo and Parand, bird once penetrated the Atlantic Forest region the latter being virtually endemicto Rio Grande as far as the coast of Santa Catarina, and bred in cliffs at Caqapavado Sul, Rio Grande do Sul do Sul. Two species- the VinaceousAmazon A. uinaceaEar'd the very curious Blue-bellied Par- (a sit€ now of critical importance for Red-spectacled Anazon). but was recordedover a wide area rol Tliclaria malschitaceaE - extend much more (from former also embracing north-we8t Uruguay, southern Parawidely Bahia to Misiones, the guay and northern Argentina. into eastern Paraguay), but are everywhere in The Hyacinth Macaw A. hyacinthinus\ oigidoubtfully viable numbers. Atlantic nally occupied much of the region that separat€s western fringes of the In the drier Forest and associatedoutliers, the beautiful the ranges of Lear's and Glaucous, 8nd doubtless these three were mutually exclusive. The Golden-cappedParakeel Aratinga auricapillav Hyacinth, largest parrot in the world and a purer hangB on in the face of persist€nt attrition of itg blue than any other, has sulTered from maseive habitat. In similar wise the Blue-winged Macaw exploitation for trade in the past 20 years, such Ara maracanav has b€en in steady retreat north-

apparently to supply national demand). Bolivia posseaaeaanother: the Red-fronted Macaw Aro rubrogenysE of the arid intermontane valleys of Santa Cruz, Cochabarnbaand Chuquissca has certainly sufrered in the recent past from trade, but now faces threats from habitat loss and local disturbance within itg restricted range. tBolivia of courge possessesa second endemic macaw,dealt with below.)

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Priorities for parrot conservation

that as few as 3,000 individuals may now survive throughout its vast range from the wetlands finging Paraguay and Bolivia north to Piaui and west into the more open parts of the Amazonian rainforest in Par6. Status surveys in these poorly explored north-western areas (including Amap6) are required; but several independent studies have recently begun to shed light on the species's ecology and management needs in the Pantanal, At the north-westernmost edges of the Hyacinth's range there occurs the species Helmut Sick wanted to see becomethe national bird of Brazil owing to its yellow and green plumage: the GoldenParakeet GuarubaguarouboEof terra frrrne rainforeet in Maranhao, Pari and (from a remarkable recent record) Ronddnia. This wonderful animal eulTersfrom both habitat loss and high trapping pressure (for domestic consumption), and is diffrcult to conserve owing to an apparently nomadic habit, which confounds attempts to identifu key areas for its suwival. The problem of nomadism also afllicts the Yellowfaced Amazon Amazona ranthops\, a cerrado endenic which penetrates into eastern Bolivia and northern Paraguay and whose habitat has endured a Etaggering60-7070conversion to agriculture in the past 20 years. Outside Brazil there are only tbree threatened parrots in lowland South America. TVo, the Military Macaw and Yellow-shouldered Amazon, have already been mentioned. The third is the Blue-throated Macaw Aro glaueogularisE, a very few of which were recently located in a foreat-savannamosaic in northern Bolivia, and which face permanent danger from trapping intereBts,

in question is very substantial, or unless habitat management over large adjacent areas is simultaneously implemented. This then raises the much larger problem ofthe zonation of natural habitat utilisation and all the other interestg that legitimately bear on such processes;but it is a nettle that one day will have to be grasped. Aaother such nettle is the problem of trade. It remains entirely unresolved whether its continuing legality simply stimulates the growth of covert systems of exploitation, or whether its total outlawing would make the monitoring of that exploitation all the harder while at the same time depriving developing countries of a source of income and of the stimulus to manage their wildlife sustainably. However, a reduction in trade levels generally in the Americas, and for speciessuch as Red-maskedParakeel Arotingo erythrogenys and Grey-cheeked Parakeet Brotogeris pyrrhopterus in particular (seer), is highly desirable. The kind of campaign needed to bring this about can be mounted at local, national and international levels, and will integrate well with education and awareness initiatives aiming at the creation of appropriate conditions for site and,/orspecies management programmes. In-depth ecological study of any parrot is likely to produce insights into the biology of rarer congeners,but clearly the more the truly problematic speciesare targeted for such work the better. Birdwatchers can always help by making their records available or even by undertaking their own (self-paid)status surveys, so long as these conform with the laws and protocols of the host nations. The important thing always to bear in mind is that all such freldwork needs to be done in ways that can easily be replicated, because the longevity of parrots, and their between-year differences in resource exploitation, mean that long-term monitoring and data-collection are essential to the confidence with which their conservation can be prescribed.

Next steps There is no shortage of parrots in need of support in the Americas. With 44 formally listed as threatened, another 12 near-tlreatened (App€ndix 1), and 17 subspeciesof otherwise low risk species also classifrable as threatened or nearthreatened (Appendir 2), there is a great deal to accomplish. References The primary objectivemust be the preserva- 1. Best, B. J., Krabbe, N., Clarke, C. T & Best, tion of key sites for the threatened species, and A. L. (1995) Red-maskedParakeetAroliago a fully rationalised blueprint for this already erythrogenys and Grey-cheeked Parakeet exists in Wege & Longr2.The value of this book Brotogeruspyfthoprer&s: two threatened parin providing the basis for bird speciesconservarots from Tumbesian Ecuador and Peru? tion in the Neotropicscamot be overemphasised. Bird, Conserv.Internatn. 5: 233-250. Nevertheless,parrots represeDt a particular 2. Butler, P J. (1992) Parrots, pressures, peochalleuge owing to their often wide-ranging forple, and pride. Pp.25-46in S. R. Beissinger aging behaviour, which means that site & N. F. R. Snyder, eds.New World panots in protection may be insufficient unless the "site" crisis: solutions from conseruation biology.

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COI'NGA 5 Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian InstitutioD Pregs. 3. Collar, N. J., Gonzaga,L. P., Krabbe, N., Madroio Nieto, A., Naranjo, L. G., Parker, T. A. & Stegp,D. C. (1992) Threatened.birds of thp Amzritas: thc ICBP / IUCN Red Dato Bool. Cambridge,U.K.: International Council for Bird Pregervation. 4. Collar, N. J., Crosby,M. J & Stattersfield, A. J. (1994)Eirds to uatch 2: the world list of threatened.bird.s.Cambridge,U.K.: Birdlife International (Birdlife Conservation Series 4). 5. Collar, N. J. & Juniper, A. T. (1992) Dimensions and causes of the parrot conservation crisis. Pp.1-24in S. R. Beissinger & N. F. R. Snyder.eds.Nero World parrots in crisis.'8olutions from conserudtiotr 6iology. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. 6. Collar, N. J., Wege,D. C. & Long A. J. ([submitted 19951)Patterns and causes of endangerment in the New World avifauna. Orn. Monogn 7. Evans, P. G. H. (1991) Status and conservation of Inperial and Red-necked Parrots Amazons imperialis and A. arausiacs on Doninica. Bird Cozseru.Internatn. !: 11-92. on the map: 8. ICBP (1992)Putting bi.odiDersity priority areas for global conseruation. Cambridge, U.K.: Int€rnatioDal Council for Bird Preservation. 9. Rojas-Su6rez,F. (1994) [Three papers on Amazona barbadensis on Margarita inl G. Morales, I. Novo, D. Bigio, A. Luy & E RojasSu6rez, eds. Biologio y conservaci6nde los psitdcidos de Venezuela.Caracas: no publisher. 10.Snyder, N. F. R., Wiley, J. W & Kepler, C. B. (198'I\ The parrots of Luquillo: the naturql history and.conseruationof the Puerto Rican Pa,'rot. Los Angeles: West€m Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology. 11.Wege,D. C. & Long,A. J. (1995)Key Areas for threatened birds in the Neotrcpics. Cambridge, U.K.: BirdLife International (Birdl,ife Conservation Series 5). 12.Wiley, J. W. (1991) Status and conservation of parrots and parakeets in the Great€r Antilles, Bahama Islands, and Cayman Islarde. Sird Consent.Internatn. 7: 187-214.

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13.Wirth, 8., Collar, N. J., Crosby, M. J. & Stattersfield, A. J. (1994) The conEervatioD of globally threatened parots. I!.108-132 in Proceedingsof III International Parrot Convention fParrots Toda/), Loro Parque, Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife, 14-17 Sept€Bber 1994. Nigel .I. Collar BirdLife International, V,lellbroohCour7, Girton Road, Cambridge CB? 0NA, U.K species of NeotroPical Appendlx l. Near-threatened parrot(takenfrom Collaret ol 1994). R.d-mask€d Par.keet Arotngo cr),throgcnF(Ecuador, Peru) Ros€-h..dcd Prrak..t Pf'hu.o d'odo(lpho,o (Ven€zuela) sl€nd€r-billcd Prrak .t E icognothusLptotnyrd'ls (chil€) Gr.y-chcck d hrrk .t &o.o$rt p),zhopt€rus(Ecu.dor, P.ru) Amaronian Prrrodet NdnnoDsitto.odod,ibo. (P.ru) R.dJrontld Prrrotlet fouit cortorrcnsit (Costi fuca, Panem.) Pilcltcd Pr.rot Pio&psi.to Dihdi, (Ary.ntin . Bl-rzil, Par{u.y) Cub.n Am:ron Amdzoro ktro