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A review by Leo Joseph (published in the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences) of patterns of geographical variation in Neotropical parakeets has recognised three endemic parakeets from north-western South America and nearby Panama as distinctive species. All three have recently been considered subspecies of the Painted Parakeet Pyrrhura picta, but Joseph shows that they bear little resemblance to that species. Read on…
An event in honour of the endemic and critically endangered Blue-throated Macaw (Ara glaucogularis) was held in November 2000 in Beni, northern Bolivia. Among those attending were the Bolivian Government’s Biodiversity Director, the President of the Cattle Ranchers Federation, the Wildlife Chief of Beni, and a local government representative. Read on…
By Abrar Ahmed
More than a million birds are released each year in India by people who have deep religious beliefs or who simply want to show kindness. But these “humane” individuals do not realize that, far from helping the cause of wildlife, they are supporting a cruel and often deadly trade in birds. Read on…
Molecular and other evidence supports both Orange-fronted (Cyanoramphus malherbi) and Forbes’ (C. forbesi) Parakeet as being regarded as distinct species. Read on…
The Environmental Magazine, by Lillian M. Roberts
Making the Macaw Banditos An Offer They Can’t Refuse
In Bolivia’s Llanos de Moxos region, a former wildlife trapper named Pocho shows off the delicate snare he devised to nab blue-throated macaws for the illegal pet trade. He points out the seven notches on its stem, one for each macaw caught with this snare. Today, however, the birds are banded and released. Their numbers barely exceed 100 in the wild, and Pocho works as the only guide who can show tourists where they live. “I wouldn’t ever catch them again,” he says. “I used to catch them and sell them, and they would be taken away forever. Here in the wild, they can be `sold’ over and over again.” Read on…
In March this year, Harry Sissen was sentenced to two and a half years in prison and ordered to pay costs of around US$8,000 after being found guilty of smuggling Lear’s Macaws (Anodorhynchus leari) and other parrots into the United Kingdom. The UK’s Custom and Excise division brought the case and Dr Nigel Collar from the BirdLife Secretariat in Cambridge was called upon to give expert evidence about Lear’s Macaws, a Critically Endangered species which is found exclusively in north-eastern Brazil where only tiny populations exist. Also called upon as an expert witness was Carlos Yamashita, who has studied Lear’s Macaws in Brazil for many years. It is hoped that the tough UK stance on this issue will be followed throughout the rest of world so that the illegal trade in threatened species can be drastically reduced.
World Birdwatch 22(2)
After two years of negotiations, an agreement has been signed to protect the most important nesting area for the Thick-billed Parrot Rhynchopsitta pachyrhyncha, a species classified as Endangered that is endemic to the Sierra Madre Occidental of Mexico and parts of south-west USA. Read on…
Find Articles by Richard Hartley
Protecting the last of Brazil’s Lear’s macaws involves a difficult moral dilemma
WITH AN AIR of proprietary pride, Jose Cardoso de Macedo, 60, looks out over the nesting site of one of the world’s rarest birds. The land before him–a green canyon nestled between spectacular red cliffs–has been in his family since the turn of the century. So if there is such a thing as a guardian of the species, it is Senhor Zequinha, as Cardoso is known. Read on…
SENIOR officials of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces are believed to be involved in the illegal trafficking of parrots from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The smuggled parrots are believed to have been exported to Libya via Manyame military airbase outside Harare, The Standard has learnt. Read on…
Imagine seeing poachers stalking a rare bird in the wild and being unable to do anything about it.
That’s the situation confronting Brazilian biologists working with a conservation group that owns one of two known roosting sites of the extremely endangered Lear’s macaw, also known as the indigo macaw. Read on…
