THANE’S FIELD NOTES
Blue-and-Gold Macaw
(Ara ararauna)
When I first went to Trinidad with my colleague Bernadette Plair, I was treated to a remarkable journey that was at times hot, buggy, sleepless, bat-infested, and Spartan-like. Journeys are often defined by what you do not have, punctuated by unexpected gifts unavailable in your normal day-to-day. What I experienced on this trip was the opportunity to see more than a hundred species of birds in just two weeks, the most notable of which was the reestablished blue-and-gold macaw, a brightly colored and loud bird near and dear to Bernadette’s heart.
Bernadette was born in Trinidad and grew up in the Sangre Grande area of the island. A soft-spoken woman with innate island diplomacy and keen tenacity, she has played a pivotal role in the conservation of her native wildlife. Like many “Trinis,” Bernadette is of African, French, and East Indian descent, and recalls as a youngster in the 1950s and 1960s seeing and hearing the blue-and-gold macaws that the island was once famous for. “When I was a little girl,” she told me, “I would see these beautiful and brightly colored birds flying above the canopy of palm trees, and naturally I never imagined that they could ever disappear.”
These raucous birds are hard not to notice. Macaws are the largest and among the loudest of parrot species—and the blue-and-gold macaws are particularly striking with their vibrant royal blue wings and tail, which frame their nearly electric golden-yellow breasts. Unfortunately, the bird is particularly popular as a pet, and by the early 1960s it was extirpated from the island.
Their disappearance from Trinidad was actually the result of a number of factors. Illegal rice farming in the Nariva Swamp area of East Trinidad altered the bird’s habitat. Blue-and-gold macaws rely on the palm trees on the edges of the swamp to build their cavity nests, and as the trees fell, so did the numbers of birds. Poachers cut down the hollow palms to raid the nests of young chicks and export them for the pet trade. Although illegal, and often controlled by the same people who traffic in illegal drugs, the shipping of parrots from throughout much of the tropics continues today.
Bernadette now lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, and is a research scientist at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden’s Center for Conservation and Research of Endangered Wildlife. During her twenty years at CREW, she has worked with many endangered species, from collecting data on the growth rate of the first captive-born Sumatran rhinoceros calf in 112 years to cloning endangered tropical plant species. All the while, she would visit her native home once each year to be with family, often noticing that most of the same problems for the island’s wildlife still existed.
Poaching remained abundant, there was a lack of game wardens, and habitat loss due to illegal farming and development was growing. “These problems appeared to be getting worse each time I would go home,” she said, “and it was a great concern because I could tell, objectively, what was being lost.”
Rather than wait for others to do something, Bernadette decided to found CRESTT, the Centre for the Rescue of Endangered Species of Trinidad and Tobago. Initially, her idea was to start with what seemed a relatively simple project—bringing the blue-and-gold macaw back to Trinidad. After all, their historic range of Nariva Swamp was designated a protected 15,440-acre wetland in 1993. Bernadette’s hope was that with this new protected status, putting birds back in the area would be a relatively quick and easy accomplishment. “Our hopes were indeed high in those early days,” she said to me.
However, initial attempts to launch the program with confiscated birds met with no success. These adult birds, rescued from the pet trade, were not willing to breed in captivity on the island. They also suffered from the typical handicaps of captive animals reintroduced into the wild. The rescued macaws were naive to predators and vulnerable to new diseases, and had difficulty thriving. Still, Bernadette didn’t lose hope. In fact, CRESTT continued to gain momentum. Bernadette garnered greater support from Trinidad’s Wildlife Section and Forestry Division, as well as from international NGOs, including the Endangered Parrot Trust, Florida Avian Advisors, and the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.
And by 1999, an effective pilot project was under way: Eighteen young parrots were collected in Guyana by a licensed trader, in the hope that they would eventually form nine breeding pairs. The birds were transported from the forests of Guyana into special pre-release cages in Nariva, where they could become acclimatized to the surrounding trees and swamp.
This new system of translocating birds worked better than using captive-bred macaws. The Guyanan macaws brought with them their natural experience and savvy for survival in the wild. They quickly filled the niche vacated forty years ago in the Nariva Swamp and soon took hold.
With these releases came success at last, but also more work for Bernadette and her CRESTT team. As everywhere, it takes a multipronged approach for conservation to work in Trinidad. As Bernadette knows, “Conservation is never completely done. The work goes onward and onward.” Government officials had to stay informed and involved in order to keep game wardens in the protected Bush Wildlife Sanctuary region of the swamp. Teams of volunteers had to be rallied to feed and water the birds while they were in big pre-release cages in the swamp. And small groups needed to camp at night near the birds to ensure their safety from wild or potentially even human predators—a very buggy but rewarding experience.
Public education was essential to long-term success, so as to eliminate interest in again taking the macaws out of nature. Everything from newspaper coverage to television stories and a billboard campaign declaring WELCOME HOME! to the beautiful parrots made sure not a single “Trini,” or native to the island, could fail to know of the return of this once vanished creature. The result is that the blue-and-gold macaw is the flagship species of conservation in Trinidad. It is a source of pride symbolizing both the beauty of the island and the islanders’ tenacity in bringing the birds back from the brink of extinction.
Perhaps the most joyful part of the ongoing efforts is how the Nariva Swamp and the macaws in particular have been embraced by many schools in Trinidad. Colorful festivals, parades, and musicals are all regularly performed by schoolchildren celebrating the natural heritage of Trinidad and how, with care, there is room for nature and people.
Today, a decade and a half after Bernadette’s initial setbacks, the birds are solving their own problems. Nine of the initial parrots survived, several living in breeding pairs. In 2003, another seventeen wild birds from Guyana were released to provide new genetic stock. To date, twenty-six of the thirty-one released birds have survived, and thirty-three chicks have been produced since the first releases in 1999. And any birders worth their salt will see macaws flying over the Nariva Swamp if they spend even a day in the area. But as much as the beautiful macaws, the children are what gives Bernadette hope. “I truly love seeing these young Trinis,” she told me, smiling, “who—just like I did fifty years ago—stop on their way home to point and marvel at such a beautiful sight as a flock of macaws.”