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Conservation Actions Underway
CITES Appendix I and II. Asociación Armonía/Loro Parque Fundación produced a Blue-throated Macaw Recovery Plan in 2003. Live export from Bolivia was banned in 1984, but illegal export continues1. The Asociación Armonía/Loro Parque Fundación parrot trade monitoring project has not recorded the species in trade for the last two years13, but the large scale illegal trade infrastructure in Bolivia means there is the potential to start trapping again if there is a demand. Agreement has been reached with some landowners to control access and deter potential trappers, and negotiations with other landowners continue3,4. Based on field surveys recommendations have been made that the Paraparau region, Beni Department, be given greater conservation priority11. Much of the remaining population occurs on private ranch-lands. Many landowners are sympathetic to conservation work on their lands and continued support will benefit the species's recovery. The population in captivity (some of which is held in captive-breeding facilities) is many times larger than the wild population. A nest box campaign has been run since 2004 and has found that there is a great demand for suitable nesting cavities. The active management and monitoring of nest box use has helped to reduce the incidence of nest failure17. Work with indigenous people looking for alternatives for headdress macaw feathers is ongoing. There has been a widespread education programme, including pamphlets, posters, T-shirts, and presentations, short-wave radio spots, video programs, TV interviews, travel to the most remote ranches giving presentations on laptops, and creation of interpretation centres in the bottle-neck towns of Trinidad, Santa Rosa and Santa Ana. Other measures include ongoing surveys of potential areas where populations may persist; a pet trade monitoring programme in two main Bolivian cities and land acquisition programs in order to protect key habitat and populations. Asociación Armonía, with the help of the American Bird Conservancy and World Land Trust, completed the purchase of a 3,555 ha private reserve protecting at least 20 Blue-throated Macaws in November 200814. The reserve will be used for education, research and tourism and, with the support of Bird Endowment, an additional 100 nest boxes were due to be put in place for the 2008/2009 breeding season13. The World Land Trust also carries out nest-box provision, as well as the feeding of nestlings and other manipulations. In 2009 a formal agreement was signed between the Loro Parque Fundación, Asociación Armonía, the Zoo Fauna Sudamericana and the Noel Kempff Mercado Natural History Museum which formalises the initiation of a managed cooperative breeding programme in Bolivia15. It was hoped that by the end of 2010 the first birds would be moved from the USA to Bolivia, as part of a repatriation programme initiated by the World Parrot Trust17. A monitoring project was also planned to track movements during the breeding and non-breeding seasons.
Conservation Actions Proposed
Continue nest guarding and monitoring. Expand, monitor and improve nest boxes. Continue illegal pet trade monitoring. Lobby local and national government regarding illegal pet trade. Research and promote the acquisition of land for Blue-throated Macaw long-term conservation, studies into habitat requirements and restoration and sustainable tourism support. Continue wide-ranging education programmes, especially in Santa Rosa y Santa Ana area - supported by interpretive centres. Develop alternatives and controls to macaw feather headdress usage. Develop tourism infrastructure on private reserve land to sustainably support protecting areas, and to control the negative impact Blue-throated Macaw tourism can have throughout the area. Maintain a low level of population monitoring and occasional new surveys. Field research to identify principal health threats.
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Decreasing
