Macaw Compendium
Pittman, Tony
+Visiting the Spix's Macaw in the Wild
Bedford
Magazine of the Parrot Society
29.1995,6 S. 190-192
Summary:
Tony Pittman and Thomas Arndt visited Brazil in the Easter period of 1995.
They met Marcus DA-Re, a brazilian biologist who is overseeing the Spix'
Macaw Project.
The area where the bird lives are along the banks of a small creek which can
supply enough humidity for the trees Caraibeira trees (Tabebuia caraiba) which
grow to 20m heigh and provide food, roosting and nesting opportunities for
the Spix'. Marcus Da-Re points out that the bird also feeds from "Faveleira"
(Cnidoscolus pphyllacanthusodoscolus), "Pinhao" (Jatropha molissima), "Barauna"
(Schinopsis brasiliensis) and Cordia sp.
The sex of this bird is from DNA analysis of discarded feathers.
"...The Spix's Macaw Recovery Committee made up of those aviculturists
worldwide owning Spix's Macaws and representatives of the Brazilian
authorities, agreed to reintroduce a wild-caught female, supplied by a
Brazilian aviculturist, with the objective of eventually achieving
successful breeding of the species in the wild."
For that purpose a large aviary has been constructed in male's area. Aside
a smaller aviary at one end contained the female to acclimate. After that
the female was brought to the larger part for about eight month to get
accustomed to the natural diet. Finally she was released in Mid-March 1995.
The female has been visited by the wild male whilst she was in the aviary,
but after being released, they retired to different places in the area.
"... The male appears to fly from north to south along the creek and back
again - a distance of some 35 km, whilst the female appears to be flying
some 15 km back and forth along an east-west axis in the south of the area."
Another male is held in a small aviary near the project building. This male
from the same aviculturist is very tame and may be from the offspring.
Eventually another female will be joined into the project for a controlled
breeding with this male in the larger aviary.
The breeding season will start in September and Marcus Da-Re hopes for a
successful pairing.
Update:
In the July Issue of the Magazine of the Parrot Society Tony Pittman gives
a short note from the Project coordinator that both birds finally made
contact on May 16th. Since that they remained together and the female never
again returned to the project base. "She can thus be regarded as being
fully returned to the wild."
The other male now has been moved to the larger aviary.
Created for the Macaw's homepage Feb. 1996
pfeffer@club.tu-clausthal.de