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Spix’s Macaw: Finding the Last Wild Bird

Status:
Past
The last male Spix's Macaw before disappearance
© Luiz Claudio Marigo | http://www.lcmarigo.com.br/ingles/index.htm
Collaborators/Funders:

Bird Life International

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The Spix’s Macaw (Cyanopsitta spixii) is listed as Extinct in the Wild due to habitat destruction and illegal trapping. In 1990, the World Parrot Trust funded a survey for Spix’s Macaws remaining in Brazil.  One last bird was discovered in the search; by 2000 it had disappeared. In 2002, a captive Spix’s Macaw was found living in the United States by a parrot enthusiast. After an intense five-month effort by the WPT, the rescuer and veterinarians, geneticists and government officials, the macaw named Presley was returned to its native Brazil to join a breeding program in Recife, after about 25 years in captivity in the US. He was paired for a time with a female, but no breeding occurred. There are hundreds of birds in private hands, with one facility conducting releases into the wild.

Status: IUCN Extinct in the Wild  / CITES Appendix I

Population: Extinct in the wild with a number released in the 2020s; unknown numbers in captivity.

Range: The Rio Sao Franscisco Valley, in N Bahia, Brazil.

Natural history:  Spix’s Macaw requires gallery woodland with Tabebuia caraiba trees near creeks in the caatinga for breeding.  Its food came from two Euphoribacae plant species. Birds used well-used flight paths to and from food sources and until the 1980s were strongly gregarious.