Fundación Jocotoco Guacamayo Project

The Great Green Macaw (Ara ambiguus), or Guacamayo as it is called locally, is a spectacular and regal bird who despite its wide range from Guatemala to southern Ecuador, has seen its population nosedive due primarily to habitat loss due to deforestation and trapping for the illegal pet trade. Under 4000 individuals are estimated to exist throughout its range while a mere 30 of the Ecuadorian subspecies (Ara ambiguus guayaquilensis) still roam wild in a few areas of forest in western Ecuador. However, there have been no sightings in the Ayampe/Machalilla National Park area for more than 50 years.

Thankfully the Jocotoco Foundation, and Ecuadorian conservation organization, is spearheading a reintroduction project. After seeing a flyer giving info about the project at the bus stop, Kaitlin touched base with Byron Delgado, the local point person for the project, and arranged a visit to see the birds slated for reintroduction.

After a slight miscommunication on the time of or meeting and a long, slow hike down the always birdy Sendero Colibrí, we finally met up with Byron, who escorted us the final few hundred meters to the enclosure where the birds live. We hung out in the large cage (20mL x 5mW x 6mH) for 20-30 minutes and practiced our slowly improving Spanish by peppering him with questions about the birds and the reintroduction program.

The program faces many challenges as reintroduction programs often do. The birds at the facility we visited were all rescue from the illicit pet trade and were rehabbed at a nearby facility and then transferred to this large cage in the Ayampe River Preserve in order to re-acclimate to life in the forest. The birds have plenty of room to fly and seem highly energetic, flying back and forth, climbing the walls and ceiling of the cage, and preening each other. They are fed a diet of the same fruits and seeds that they would find in the nearby forest. Large branches of native trees, sometime containing fruit are brought into the enclosure and propped up to further mimic the native forest into which they will eventually be released. But these measures do not guarantee success upon release. A few birds that were part of an earlier soft release were rediscovered water-logged and apparently unable to get themselves dry. It seems that life in multiple cages had not prepared them for some of the basic rigors of life in the wild. Some of the other main problems they face upon their eventual release (planned for the middle of the dry season in February so they are hopefully not met with an immediate downpour upon release) are continued pressures from the illegal cage bird trapping trade and predation from animals they have not yet encountered like Pumas.

The project hopes to mitigate the threat of poaching with community based education programs. The birds are also fitted with GPS chips that will track them after release and give authorities an idea of whether the birds are safe. Once they learn to life in their new wild surroundings the next problem becomes creating new generations of little macaws. Most of the forest surrounding their current enclosure, having been at least selectively logged over the years, no longer contains trees large enough or old enough to contain cavities suitable for such a large bird to nest in. The project, in theory, has this issue covered as well and will be placing large nest boxes throughout the forest in hopes that the birds will use them. Presumably they will introduce them into their cage sometime before release to the birds get used to the sight of them and then hope that they make the connection once they are out in the forest.

Admittedly it was a little strange, as birders, to get excited about seeing birds in a cage. But knowing what they've gone through to get here, and that they will soon be the hopeful harbingers of a triumphant return to their ancestral home, makes the experience slightly more uplifting that seeing a parrot depressingly trapped in a cage in someone's living room (no matter how cute it is when it dances to Shakira songs on YouTube).

If the project succeeds it will be a monumental conservation success story and could even provide the impetus for broader forest protections. With a little luck and a lot of hard work from dedicated local volunteers like Byron, future visitors to Ayampe may be able to gaze out over the nearby hillsides from their beach bungalow balcony and watch troops of green and red comets streaming above the trees, their wild, demonic cackles echoing through the forest.Read more