LEAR'S MACAW CONSERVATION

On Christmas day 2018 I started this little project "The Lear's Macaws 12 days of Christmas". It was meant to tell a brief story of the plight of the Lear's Macaw and hopefully make people aware of some of the trials and tribulations of this amazing Macaw.
I have personally visited these Macaws in the wild on many ocassions now and I feel they are a part of me. It is probably the best experience I have had with wild parrots, over the last 20 years of visiting the Neotropics, even better than the clay licks of Tambopata, Peru. This is only my opinion and I still think seeing the Parrots on the clay licks and in lots of other habitats was my best career change ever, so I do not want to diminish any other Parrot encounter that anyone can have. I thoroughly recommend that anyone interested in parrots in whatever way, if you have the opportunity, go and see parrots in the wild.
The Lear's Macaw could so easily have gone the way of the Glaucous Macaw, from a similar habitat in southern Brazil and just into other surrounding countries, if it wasn't for previous adventurers, explorers and naturalists. However even here I am still not totally convinced that the Glaucous Macaw is in fact extinct, but that is another story and I have yet to visit its previously known range.

 In late 1978 Helmut Sick re-discovered the Lear's Macaw in Brazil in Canudos, Bahia, Brazil. In the early 1980's the population of the Lear's Macaw was estimated to be between 60 and 80 individuals.
With all the conservation efforts of the projects listed below the population of the Lear's Macaw has gone up, in the region of 1400 individuals. This hasn't happened on its own. It has taken a lot of collaboration of many different people on the ground doing the work as well as many different individuals, companies and conservation donators from across the globe. I have fortunately been able to see, first hand, a number of these projects in action and have been able to contribute in some ways towards these projects however what I have done is miniscule in comparison to others and I THANK everyone involved in whatever way you have contributed towards giving the Lear's Macaws a good fighting chance to continue to thrive.

WANT TO DONATE TO THE LEAR'S MACAW PROJECTS

By clicking on the 'Donate' button and then clicking on the 'Use this donation for' button, you can donate to either an individual Lear's Macaw project or if you choose the "Lear's Macaws in the wild" option then funds here will be split between all 4 projects.

You can donate directly to the projects but this option enables the people who can just spare £5, £10 or £20 easily help with the protection of the species.

Habitat Preservation and Patrolling of the land to restrict poaching..

The Lear's Macaws roost and nest in the sandstone cliffs of Canudos and other valleys around this limited habitat region going further afield to feed within the very dry caatinga biome of this area. The caatinga is being depleted by the advance of farm lands.
​Poaching is still a threat for these magnificent birds.
I have painted a poor picture for this Macaw so far but things are changing, there are lots of conservation projects working for the benefit of a deserving bird. Firstly the preservation of land to secure safe nesting and roosting sites monitored by rangers to protect against poaching.

Lear's Macaw Chick Monitoring and Ringing also Release of Captive Bred Lear's Macaws

Nests of Lear's Macaws are monitored, chicks are rung and general gathering of information about the species is carried out.
Recently in a remote valley a population of just 2 Lear's Macaws have been found. They are living on their own but not breeding so are assumed to be either the same sex or too old to breed. In conjunction with the Loro Parque Fundacion, who have sent out several captive bred Lear's Macaws, conservationists are releasing these captive birds to fly alongside the existing 2 Macaws so that they can be taught how to survive in the wild and re-populate this valley properly. This is in its early days yet so data will take a while to come back on this and the valley is in such a remote place that it is fairly difficult for even the conservationists to access. However this is a great way to increase the wild population.

Corn Subsidy Programme

Like most Macaws the Lear's Macaw has a favourite palm nut that it prefers. This is the Licuri Palm however it does eat in excess of 30 different foods including corn.
​Due to the expansion of farming and the reduction in natural food sources for the Lear's Macaws then corn is on the menu. I have witnessed the Macaws, which can sometimes number 60 to 100 individuals, decimate an entire field of corn in a day. Unfortunately the farmers revert to using guns to save their crop.
​However, now, there is a Corn Subsidy Programme which has been put in place to assess the damage done by the Macaws and the farmers are given vouchers to collect processed corn from the warehouse as compensation. In return the farmers give a committment to not harm the Macaws.

Licuri Palm Planting

It's all very well compensating farmers for the corn but as the population of Lear's Macaws increases then this becomes an ever spiralling cost so what we need is more natural foods for the Macaws. For this reason there is another conservation project Jardin da Arara de Lear whose mission is to expand the amount of Licuri Palm trees. This has already been carried out to a small degree in the past, in fact I was involved in a project with the Parrot Society UK which planted 50 licuri palms, but this time it is intended to plant much more.

BELOW IS A COPY OF HOW IT WAS PUBLISHED EACH DAY ON FACEBOOK
​FROM CHRISTMAS DAY 2018 TO THE 12TH DAY OF CHRISTMAS.

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On the first day - In late 1978 Helmut Sick re-discovered the Lear's Macaw in Brazil ​

​On the second day - In the early 1980's the population of the Lear's Macaw was estimated to be between 60 and 80 individuals.

​On the third day - Like most Macaws the Lear's Macaw has a favourite palm nut that it prefers. This is the Licuri Palm however it does eat in excess of 30 different foods including corn.

On the fourth day - The Lear's Macaws roost and nest in the sandstone cliffs of Canudos and other valleys around this limited habitat region going further afield to feed within the very dry caatinga biome of this area. The caatinga is being depleted by the advance of farm lands.

On the fifth day - 5 Lear's Macaws in a tree but this could be so different. Poaching is still a threat for these magnificent birds.

On the sixth day - Due to the expansion of farming and the reduction in natural food sources for the Lear's Macaws then corn is on the menu. I have witnessed the Macaws, which can sometimes number 60 to 100 individuals, decimate an entire field of corn in a day. Unfortunately the farmers revert to using guns to save their crop.

On the seventh day - I have painted a poor picture for this Macaw so far but things are changing, there are lots of conservation projects working for the benefit of a deserving bird. Firstly the preservation of land to secure safe nesting and roosting sites monitored by rangers to protect against poaching.

On the eighth day - Nests of Lear's Macaws are monitored, chicks are rung and general gathering of information about the species is carried out.

On the ninth day - As mentioned earlier the farmers shot the Lear's Macaws for eatiing and destroying the corn but now there is a Corn Subsidy Programme which has been put in place to assess the damage done by the Macaws and the farmers are given vouchers to collect processed corn from the warehouse as compensation. In return the farmers give a committment to not harm the Macaws.

On the tenth day - It's all very well compensating farmers for the corn but as the population of Lear's Macaws increases then this becomes an ever spiralling cost so what we need is more natural foods for the Macaws. For this reason there is another conservation project Jardin da Arara de Lear whose mission is to expand the amount of Licuri Palm trees. This has already been carried out to a small degree in the past, in fact I was involved in a project with the Parrot Society UK which planted 50 licuri palms, but this time it is intended to plant much more.

On the eleventh day - Recently in a remote valley a population of just 2 Lear's Macaws have been found. They are living on their own but not breeding so are assumed to be either the same sex or too old to breed. In conjunction with the Loro Parque Fundacion, who have sent out several captive bred Lear's Macaws, conservationists are releasing these captive birds to fly alongside the existing 2 Macaws so that they can be taught how to survive in the wild and re-populate this valley properly. This is in its early days yet so data will take a while to come back on this and the valley is in such a remote place that it is fairly difficult for even the conservationists to access. However this is a great way to increase the wild population.

On the twelth day - Well with all these conservation efforts the population of the Lear's Macaw has gone up, in the region of 1400 individuals. This hasn't happened on its own. It has taken a lot of collaboration of many different people on the ground doing the work as well as many different individuals, companies and conservation donators from across the globe. I have fortunately been able to see, first hand, a number of these projects in action and have been able to contribute in some ways towards these projects however what I have done is miniscule in comparison to others and I THANK everyone involved in whatever way you have contributed towards giving the Lear's Macaws a good fighting chance to continue to thrive.