There's an extraordinary small owl, called the Pernambuco pygmy owl. And again, this one was probably wiped out by a combination of habitat loss and illegal harvesting to the caged bird trade. There's another macaw - an even larger one - called glaucous macaw, found in the other end of Brazil, adjacent to Paraguay and Argentina. It's an extraordinary collection of species. What sense can you give us of what's loss? Tell us about the other seven birds on this list - at least some of them. It was a combination of habitat loss and degradation as agriculture expanded across South America.īut, in particular, this species was targeted for the caged bird trade and changed hands for very large sums of money - which then created an incentive for people to go out and trap the last individuals in the wild. What is exactly responsible for the extinction of the Spix's macaw? Stuart Butchart is the Chief Scientist at BirdLife International, the organization that identified eight species of birds as extinct in a new report. I mean, the one hope is that some birds remain in captivity, and there is now a conservation program happening to try to increase that captive population and address the threats to the habitats in the wild, and in due course release some birds. This extraordinary story inspired the very popular film. I understand the bird is the one portrayed in the child's movie Rio, is that right? But unfortunately, she died in just a few weeks, probably through collision with a power line.Īnd that lone male survived for another few years until 2000, but hasn't been seen since and is believed to have died in that year.ĭespite intensive searches around that locality and elsewhere, no birds have been subsequently found in the wild. AS IT HAPPENS: Mammal extinction blamed on climate change for 1st timeĪnd after a few years, they released a female Spix's macaw from captivity.But sadly, trappers got these birds in the subsequent years. And then in the mid-1980s, a tiny population of just three birds was discovered in northern Brazil. And no one knew where they were found in the wild. And these enigmatic birds were known for over 150 years only from individuals that were caught by trappers and appeared in the caged bird trade. These are stunning cobalt blue parrots, with a very long tail and very distinctive screeching call. What would I have seen if I'd been fortunate enough to encounter a Spix's macaw in the wild? They recommend four other species - the glaucous macaw, the Pernambuco pygmy owl, the Javan lapwing and the New Caledonian lorikeet - be listed as "possibly extinct."īutchart spoke with As it Happens guest host Helen Mann from Cambridge, England. The list, published by Stuart Butchart and his colleagues at BirdLife international, recommends the Spix's macaw and three other birds be listed as extinct - the cryptic treehunter, the Alagoas foliage-gleaner and the po'ouli. Now they're on a list of eight bird species that scientists say have disappeared in the past decade. One of the little blue parrots inspired the 2011 hit animated kids' movie Rio. Birders who want to see a Spix's macaw in the wild are going to have to go looking for images on the web.
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