Endangered: Blue-Throated Macaws

by Stephanie Ernst · 2009-06-01 10:05:00 UTC
Topics: show more

Search for "blue-throated macaw," and above and below links to sites covering their plight, you'll also find links providing info on the birds as pets. And that's frustrating considering that the (now illegal, but still alive) pet trade in blue-throated macaws is a primary reason that the species is critically endangered. The other major reason they're in trouble? The same reason so very many other wild, free-living animals are losing their homes and seeing their numbers dwindle: habitat destruction for cattle ranching.

There appear to be 250-300 remaining among the palm trees of their their northern Bolivia habitat, and "all known sites are on private cattle-ranches, where burning and clearing for pasture, and tree-felling for fuel have reduced the number of suitable nest trees and inhibited palm regeneration," explains BirdLife International. Indigenous communities also hunt the birds in order to use their bright, colorful feathers in traditional headdresses.

The BirdLife International page features more information, including details on conservation efforts, which beyond education and cracking down on the illegal pet trade, can be successful only with the cooperation of cattle ranchers, given that they own the birds' habitat. (Here is where, in casual conversation, I would go off on a tangent about the preposterous human idea of "owning," staking claim to, and denying other animals' access to land and soil and trees and plants. Obviously, I oppose the idea of ownership of animals themselves, but ownership of what animals need to survive and what they have a right to--that is, their natural habitat--is just as much a problem.)

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Photo by Mauricio Herrera, courtesy of Bird Endowment/Saving the Blues, shows a chick who had just emerged from her nest box (a part of the conservation effort), ready to start flying.

And a note for those who didn't see the first explanatory post a little under two weeks ago: this is the second post in what's to be a weekly series profiling various endangered animals. I missed last week--my apologies.

Stephanie Ernst wrote the original Animal Rights blog at Change.org until December 2009. She can now be found at Animal Rights & AntiOppression.
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