3 days ago
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For fifteen scarlet macaws, a return to the wild came yesterday morning in the Cayo District. The birds were released after spending roughly one hundred days in rehabilitation, where they were cared for and prepared for life back in the forests. The release is part of ongoing efforts by Friends for Conservation and Development (FCD), together with the Forest Department, to protect Belize’s scarlet macaw population. Under a protocol established by the Forest Department, the macaws were rescued and brought into care, where they were fed and monitored. But rehabilitation was about more than simply keeping the birds alive. The macaws were eventually moved into a flight cage, giving them the opportunity to build their flying abilities and prepare for the demands of the wild. Love News spoke to Biodiversity Research Inventory Technician, Wilmer Guerra on the release of the macaws.
Wilmer Guerra, Biodiversity Research and Inventory Technician: “The 15 Scarlet Macaws are part of the first batch of 19 Scarlet Macaws that we extracted from their natural cavities and we had to unfortunately be able to grow them in our insitu facilities at Las Cuevas Research Station. They have gone through extensive rehabilitation process and now they were fully ready to be able to be soft released into the wild. So that’s basically what we did yesterday, releasing 15 of them. Basically these Scarlet Macaw chicks were or at risk chicks. So we are biomonitoring in the Chiquibul ecosystem. So whenever we find chicks that are at risk of being poached either because the nest has been poached in the past, or because they are in the immediate areas that we know have been poached in the recent years. So we extract those chicks and we take them to our in-situ facilities. There might also be other reasons that we have already set as protocols with the Forest Department. For instance if a third chick hatches in the nest usually the third chick is starved to death by the parents. The parents won’t feed the third chick. Usually they only feed the first and the second which are the strongest. And the weakest, which is usually the third chick is starved to death. So we take that third check and we hand rear it in our in-situ facilities. It’s a long process that we do in collaboration with our partners. We have, for instance, the Belize Wildlife Referral Clinic. They provide the veterinarian services. So as they are extracted, they are monitored with the assistance of the vet, who is Dr. Isabel. And then we also have, of course, collaboration with our main partner which is the Forest Department. And so once that chick is extracted out into our insitu facilities then we basically mimic a lot of the natural conditions that are out there in terms of the amount of food that’s given to the chick. And we basically feed them a special form of formula that’s specifically developed for Scarlet Macaws. We also mimic the time of feed that we basically feed our chicks. And so they go through about four to five months of rehabilitation in our facilities. Basically, around the first 45 days we feed them only the formula then we slowly start incorporating things like wild fruits and other supplements so that the Macaw would be able to develop as how it would normally develop out in the wild. And once it reaches about day 90 then we transfer it to our bigger facilities which is the flight cage where the Macaw would be able to basically practice its flight muscle. And about 120 to 140 days of age then the chick would basically be released out into the wild.”
The cage was opened yesterday morning, allowing the macaws to make their way back into their natural environment. Some immediately flew farther from the release site, while others stayed nearby as they adjusted to their surroundings. For FCD, the release is also connected to a much broader effort to monitor and protect scarlet macaws in Belize. The organization’s Research Unit has been monitoring natural nesting cavities since March, keeping track of the birds and their chicks while also maintaining a presence around nesting areas. That presence serves another purpose helping to deter poachers.
Wilmer Guerra, Biodiversity Research and Inventory Technician: “These Macaws basically if we hadn’t released them out they wouldn’t have been alive basically because the first reason is poaching. If otherwise they would have ended up in the illegal wildlife trade across in Guatemala where they would be sold off in the black market. So they would spend the 80 years of their life inside a cage. So a number of, a number like 15 chicks being released back into the wild is very good for the population. 350 is a very small population. It’s in the brink of extinction. So the work that we are doing is very important for the conservation of the species, right? They are soft release. Basically they would slowly adapt to the wild. So usually what happens is that they would fly off and forage in wild fruits for about two, three days and then they would fly back to our facilities where we have platforms in which we would still provide food and water for them allowing them to slowly incorporate into the wild right. The last management step that we consider if we find a chick, for instance, that needs to be extracted because of poaching the first option is to try and see if there is a foster nest. So what we have been doing is insert a chick from high poaching areas into a nest that’s relatively safe and that we can safeguard and insert a check that’s not originally for that parent, so the parent would successfully foster that chic and fly it off into the wild. But if there’s no foster nest then basically that’s when we have to extract to our lab and ultimately do the soft release program.”
FCD says illegal wildlife trade remains one of the major challenges facing the species, but despite those threats, there is progress. It says Belize’s scarlet macaw population is roughly at five hundred, an increase from the approximately three hundred and fifty recorded during the last national survey.
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