NEWS

Poached to extinction for their mystique

FEATURES and beauty, Spix’s macaws (opposite page) will
reenter the wild from this aviary in Brazil.

Caption goes here. Nat ad quae

rem quidest, qui odicatiorem quias
sitia iliquiant rerum sequam et.

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A WILD HOPE
PHOTOS: MARTIN GUTH; (OPPOSITE PAGE) PATRICK PLEUL/PICTURE ALLIANCE VIA GETTY IMAGES
Two decades after it disappeared in nature,
the stunning blue Spix’s macaw will be reintroduced to its forest home

I
n 1995, conservationists and scientists By Kai Kupferschmidt, food and avoiding an attack by a falcon. She
embarked on a desperate attempt to in Curaçá, Brazil grew stronger by the day, flying farther and
save the world’s rarest bird, a blue- farther, and after little more than 2 months
gray parrot called the Spix’s macaw. the wild, close to this dusty, small town in had paired with the male. Two weeks later,
The bird had scarcely been spotted northeastern Brazil. she mysteriously disappeared.
since scientists first described it in the From DNA in molted feathers, researchers Years later, a local man said he had found
early 19th century, and it had taken on in the United Kingdom confirmed that the the bird dead below a power line. “If that’s
an aura of mystery, making it irresist- last wild bird was a male. At the time, fewer really true, then that is just incredibly bad
ible to parrot lovers—and to poachers. than three dozen birds were known to be held luck,” Collar says. It is almost unheard of for
“For well over a century we just had this in collections and zoos around the world, parrots to hit power cables, he says, and in
very, very weak information that there was and a decision was made to release a single reality she might have been taken by poach-
this kind of mythical, rather beautiful blue female in hopes the birds would pair and ers. “The world of Spix’s macaw is full of very,
bird,” says Nigel Collar, a conservationist produce offspring. The female was released very great uncertainties and a lot of people
at BirdLife International. By the mid-1990s close to where the male lived and seemed who say a lot of things that they don’t neces-
only a single individual remained alive in to quickly adapt to her new life, eating wild sarily really mean.” The wild male vanished

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a few years later, and the Spix’s and by the end of that year,
fate seemed sealed—another poachers had taken two of them.
species lost. After the plan to pair the last
Now, conservationists are at- male with a captive bird failed
tempting to undo that fate. On in 1995, the male remained with
11 June, more than a quarter- a female of a different species,
century after the female flew an Illiger’s macaw, until he, too,
into oblivion, they plan to re- disappeared in October 2000.
lease eight Spix’s macaws from The International Union for
captivity into the wild. Twelve Conservation of Nature officially
more are supposed to follow declared the Spix’s macaw ex-
at the end of the year and still tinct in the wild in 2019, exactly
more in the years to come. If 200 years after Spix had de-
everything goes according to scribed it.
plan, these birds will be the Even then, the bird retained
vanguard of a new population its hold on the popular imagi-
of Spix’s macaws in their natu- nation. The story of the last
ral habitat. The project, long lone male inspired songs—
hampered by infighting and including one written from the
overshadowed by controversy, perspective of the Illiger’s fe-
had to overcome significant male waiting in vain for his re-
scientific hurdles to even come turn—and two animated movies
this far. But the biggest chal- that together earned $1 billion.
lenge still lies ahead.
“The Spix’s project is unique ON A HOT MORNING in Febru-
in that they are reintroducing ary, Martin Guth, a bald and
a species back into the wild burly German businessman and
that is currently extinct, has parrot collector, stood in the
been extinct in the wild for over spot where the Spix’s will be-
2 decades,” says Thomas White, gin its new life in the wild. The
a wildlife biologist at the U.S. nongovernmental organization
Fish and Wildlife Service and a (NGO) he founded, the Asso-

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technical adviser to the project. ciation for the Conservation of
“There’s very few reintroduction Threatened Parrots (ACTP), has
programs around the world that taken on the challenge of bring-
have done something like that, ing the bird back to the caatinga.
none with parrots or macaws.” ACTP, which houses more than
Few reintroductions of birds In the wild, Spix’s macaws nest in the hollows of large caraibeira trees, which grow 170 Spix’s macaws in Tasdorf,
have been successful, and none along streams in the dry forest of northeastern Brazil. near Berlin, built a facility just a
was as ambitious as this one, few hundred meters from where
says George Amato, a conservation bio- German naturalist Johann Baptist von Spix Guth is standing and, in March 2020, flew
logist at the American Museum of Natural spotted the parrot on an expedition to the 52 macaws to Brazil by private jet to take up
History. Yet for the Spix’s it has to be tried, interior of Brazil. Spix noted that the bird residence there. In 2021, three chicks hatched
he says. “I hope it works, because we really appeared to be “very rare”—then shot it and at the facility, the first Spix’s born in the bird’s
have no other alternatives.” brought it home to Munich, setting the tone original home in more than 30 years.
for humanity’s relationship with this strik- But that morning, Guth was angry.
THE NATURAL HOME of the Spix’s macaw ing bird going forward. Nearby, workers were busy constructing a
is in the caatinga, a tropical dry forest in As the human footprint increased in the huge U-shaped aviary where the birds will
northeastern Brazil that covers 10% of the caatinga, the bird became even rarer. Tragi- be able to fly longer distances than they can
country. In the rainy season, which lasts for cally, this only made it more coveted by in their small cages inside the main facility.
about 2 months, everything appears lush parrot collectors, who were willing to pay It was running behind schedule. “Even on
and green. But the rest of the year plants tens of thousands of dollars for a single the way here, the guy still said everything
here compete in shades of gray and white— bird. “The rarer it was, the more it became was finished,” Guth grumbled. He was con-
PHOTO: LUIZ CLAUDIO MARIGO/MINDEN PICTURES

caatinga means “white forest” in the Indige- a kind of status symbol,” Collar says. The vinced that a rival who was previously in-
nous Tupi language. It is here that the Spix’s bird became something akin to the exceed- volved in the Spix’s project had something
macaws once nested in the hollows of old ingly rare blue Mauritius stamp coveted by to do with the delay. The Spix’s project may
caraibeira trees growing along the creeks philatelists, says Roland Wirth, a conserva- have high-minded goals, but its history is
that cut through the caatinga, feeding on tionist at the Zoological Society for the Con- replete with jealousies and backbiting.
seeds and nuts. servation of Species and Populations. “The The idea of breeding Spix’s macaws in
It is impossible to know how many Spix’s very wealthy, very passionate collectors captivity and reintroducing them to the
macaws existed in the past. By the time really wanted to have one, and they would wild began long before Guth’s involvement,
Western science discovered the bird, hu- do almost anything to do so.” and even before the lone wild male had dis-
mans had already started to parcel large By the beginning of 1987, only three Spix’s appeared. In 1990, conservationists formed
parts of the caatinga into ranches. In 1819, macaws were known to survive in the wild, a committee to oversee a reintroduction

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 program. That meant building up an ad- served a prison sentence and, this person introduction effort, he grew determined
equate captive population, which proved to claimed, had sold endangered birds ille- to prove his critics wrong. “They said, ‘He
be a complicated and controversial process. gally, in violation of the Convention on In- won’t be able to breed the birds.’ I did. They
At first conservationists only knew of a few ternational Trade in Endangered Species of said, ‘He won’t send any birds to Brazil.’ I
captive birds—and owners were reluctant to Wild Fauna and Flora. (Guth says that like did. They said, ‘He won’t reintroduce the
come forward, because the export of wild- other breeders and NGOs, ACTP sells some birds.’ We are doing that.”
life had been illegal in Brazil since 1967. But birds legally, but has never sold Spix’s or He has put himself in an interesting
the Brazilian government agreed to grant other highly endangered birds, and that his position, Collar says. “He is the one now
amnesty to owners if their birds joined the offenses were committed decades ago and who can go down in history as the person
breeding program, and “one by one, people have nothing to do with the current project.) who saved the Spix’s macaw. Or if he really
came out and admitted they had Spix’s ma- Tim Bouts, a veterinarian who was then the messes up, then he goes down in history as
caws,” says Wolfgang Kiessling, a business- curator at Al Wabra and attended the meet- the person who made it go extinct.”
man who founded and runs Loro Parque, ing, says he spoke in defense of Guth, who
a private zoo on the island of Tenerife that was not present: “Let’s be honest, this table WHILE OWNERS WERE FIGHTING over control
held some Spix’s macaws for many years. here is full of criminals. Every single Spix’s and credit, conservationists and research-
Still, by 1996 only 39 captive birds were that came into captivity was illegal.” ers were fighting to save the species. When
known around the world. Making matters The meeting ended with no agreement. ornithologist Cromwell Purchase went to
worse, most of them were closely related. Guth has pressed ahead, even as some Al Wabra in 2010 to head its Spix’s macaw
Only nine of the birds had come from the have questioned his motives and methods, program, he was told the species was “on
wild, and 21 of the remaining 30 the fence.” At the time, 54 of 71 birds
were offspring from a single pair known worldwide were in Qatar, and
in the Philippines, raising con- Lost ground the captive population faced twin
cerns about inbreeding. For the The Spix’s macaw’s native home is the caatinga, a dry tropical forest threats: disease and a low birth rate.
Spix’s to have any future, birds that is leafless most of the year. The forest has dwindled because of The major disease threatening cap-
from different collectors needed to ranching, another obstacle facing the effort to reintroduce the macaw. tive Spix’s was proventricular dilata-
be brought together to breed, but tion disease, which affects the nerves
arguments over who would send a in parrots’ gastrointestinal tract and
bird to whom under what condi- Fortaleza causes them to slowly waste away. A
tions kept derailing the plans. “The BRAZIL common scourge of pet birds, it had
rarer the animal, the more politics been known since the 1970s, but its
Caatinga
is involved,” says Cristina Miyaki, cause was completely unclear. Then,
a bird geneticist and a member of Curaçá Recife in 2008, researchers identified a

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the advisory committee of the Spix’s novel virus in the brains of affected
São Francisco
project. In contrast to the spirit of River Atlantic birds: a type of bornavirus, a group
cooperation required for a success- Ocean known to cause brain disease in
ful recovery effort, Collar wrote in Salvador horses and sheep.
1992, “ownership is a matter of jeal- “We tested all known Spix’s in the
Brasilia 0 250
ousy, prestige and possessiveness world for this virus,” says Michael
that is fundamentally different in km Lierz, a veterinarian at the Justus
psychological origin.” Liebig University Giessen. In Qatar,
Meanwhile, the constellation of owners pointing to the lack of transparency around a traffic light system was implemented,
kept changing. Starting in 2000, Sheikh ACTP and its sources of funding. Guth says with infected birds deemed “red” and
CREDITS: (MAP) N. DESAI/SCIENCE; (DATA) TERRABRASILIS/NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR SPACE RESEARCH

Saoud Bin Mohammed Bin Ali Al-Thani of some donors prefer to remain anonymous separated from the others. This eventually
Qatar bought dozens of Spix’s to keep at and that he is trying to avoid the disputes eliminated the threat of avian bornavirus
Al Wabra, his private wildlife preserve. In over funding and credit that doomed the to the Spix’s population.
time, he came to own the vast majority of all project in the past. “Yes, we are doing things The other problem was reproduction.
known Spix’s macaws in the world. differently,” he says. “It certainly didn’t work Only a few pairs were producing chicks.
Guth entered the scene in 2005, beating the way they tried it before.” At first a decision was made to keep them
out the sheikh to buy from a private Swiss Even some people who say they are intimi- reproducing. “The goal was to produce as
owner three Spix’s macaws that had not pre- dated by Guth acknowledge the effectiveness many animals as possible to keep the species
viously been part of the breeding program. of his pushing, bullying, and cajoling. “He is from going completely extinct,” Lierz says.
“The three birds he had were the most a bit of a bulldozer,” Wirth says. “But he gets Over time the focus shifted to making bet-
important ones, because they could im- things done.” When the sheikh died suddenly ter matches, in order to preserve the Spix’s
prove the genetics of the population,” says in 2014 and the future of his Spix’s macaws genetic diversity and, therefore, its chances
Camile Lugarini, a veterinarian at the was in doubt, Guth stepped in through his of survival. But birds with diverse genetics
Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity NGO to bring the birds from Qatar to Tas- wouldn’t necessarily form a pair. “Parrots are
Conservation (ICMBio), who leads the dorf. In June 2018, Guth and Brazil’s envi- monogamous and very choosy,” Lierz says.
Spix’s macaw project for the Brazilian Min- ronment minister signed a memorandum So, veterinarians at Al Wabra considered
istry of the Environment. of understanding in Berlin to build the facil- artificial insemination. For many birds,
In May 2012, a meeting in Brazil’s capital, ity in Brazil, transfer birds, and reintroduce including chickens, pigeons, and birds of
Brasília, brought together representatives of them. (ICMBio and the Pairi Daiza Founda- prey, this is fairly straightforward, Lierz
all the important stakeholders. It was testy. tion were also signatories.) says. The technique involves massaging
One participant argued that Guth should “I wasn’t born as a conservationist,” Guth a male’s cloaca from the outside with the
have no part in the project because he had says. But as he became involved in the re- thumb. (“A short and smooth thumbnail is

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advantageous for performing cloacal mas- Together these challenges doomed some Puerto Rican parrots to El Yunque National
sage and protects the bird from accidental earlier reintroduction programs. One of the Forest after they were wiped out by Hurri-
injury,” one paper notes.) But this tech- highest profile examples was an attempt to cane Maria in 2017. Since 2020, 75 captive-
nique does not work on most large parrots. bring the thick-billed parrot back to Arizona, reared animals have been released in the
Around 2010, Lierz and his colleague Daniel Amato says. This brightly colored bird still forest, which now hosts 34 birds. Four new
Neumann developed a new method: insert- lives in Mexico but has been hunted to ex- nests were spotted this year, White says.
ing a small probe into the cloaca to deliver a tinction in the United States. Between 1986 “This was a true reintroduction and it has
weak electric current that stimulates a male and 1993, 88 of them (mostly confiscated been very successful.”
bird to release sperm. “As kids we used to birds originally trapped illegally in Mexico,
hold these 9-volt batteries to our tongues but also some captive-bred birds) were re- THAT NIGHT, as darkness descended over the
and it tingled, that’s roughly how you have leased in the Chiricahua Mountains in Ari- caatinga, Lugarini headed out with a col-
to imagine this,” Lierz says. league to a creek near the facility. Wearing
With artificial insemination, the re- leather gaiters to protect against snakes,
searchers could finally pair birds according she followed the mostly dry creek bed, mov-
to their genetics. But the timing was cru- ing as quietly as possible. She stopped in
cial: Females usually lay two or three eggs front of a caraibeira tree, where a pair of
and the moment one egg is laid is the right Illiger’s macaws had made their nest.
time to inseminate the next one. Purchase Illiger’s macaws, also known as blue-
says he and Neumann spent hours watching winged macaws, play an important role in
female Spix’s macaws on video monitors. the plan to bring back the Spix’s. Illiger’s
“As soon as we see the egg, we’re out and we are more common and inhabit a larger area
go from aviary to aviary and we catch the than the Spix’s macaws, but in the caatinga
male that we want, male No. 1 on the list. the two birds’ lifestyles overlap. Both nest in
We try and collect semen from him, and if hollows in caraibeira trees and feed on the
we don’t get enough … then we go to male same fruits and nuts. When the eight Spix’s
No. 2,” Purchase says. In May 2013, the first are released, eight Illiger’s macaws taken
artificially inseminated Spix’s macaw chicks from the wild will be released with them.
hatched. More followed. “That’s what got us The team hopes this mixed flock will join
out of the genetic bottleneck,” Bouts says. up with wild Illiger’s in the caatinga, allow-
ing the Spix’s macaws to benefit from their
THE MORNING AFTER GUTH was fuming knowledge of how to avoid predators, find
about the aviary delay, Purchase walked food, and navigate.

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into a large room at the facility carrying a The team had already collected seven
gray plastic cage in each hand. He set them Illiger’s, and Lugarini had come for the
down on the tiled floor, opened the door of eighth. Her headlamp casting a red glow,
one, reached inside with a dark towel, and she grasped a cord looped around a branch
enfolded what was inside. Kneeling on the high in the caraibeira tree, fixed a rope to
floor, he delicately unwrapped the towel. Johann Baptist von Spix first described and painted it and then used the cord to pull the rope
A gray head emerged first, then turquoise the macaw in an 1824 publication. over the branch and back down. Looking
feathers covering the parrot’s belly, and fi- up, she sighed with apprehension at the
nally the rich blue of its back and tail. zona. Many were killed by hawks or cats or sight of bats circling the tree. “That’s worse
Purchase carried the bird over to Francois starved to death. After 2 months, only about than the snakes,” she said. Yet she slowly
Le Grange, a veterinarian, who began to ex- two-thirds of the wild-caught birds survived. ascended the rope, the red light marking
amine it—a final check before it would join But the captive-bred birds did much worse, her progress. Ten meters up she reached the
the other candidates for release in the not- as a paper noted in 1994: “Almost all indi- nesting hollow and looked inside. No birds.
quite-finished outdoor aviary. The bird’s viduals have been lost within a few days of The Illiger’s macaws that had been nesting
outraged “ca-á ca-á” echoed off the walls as release as a result of substantial deficiencies here were gone.
Le Grange plucked a feather from beneath in basic survival skills.” The program was One clear lesson from previous reintro-
its wing. Then he listened to its heartbeat abandoned in 1993, and the last time a thick- ductions is that releasing more animals is
with a children’s stethoscope. He swabbed billed parrot was spotted in Arizona was in better. That’s because a bigger group can ILLUSTRATION: DAVID TIPLING PHOTO LIBRARY/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
the mouth and the cloaca and finally drew 1995. “The release program was a failure, work together to spot dangers and find
some blood from a vein in the neck. even though a lot of money and effort was food. Finding a suitable mate is easier, too.
The swabs would be tested for patho- spent on it,” Amato says. “After that, many For highly social species like macaws, num-
gens that might pose a risk to other ani- biologists felt that release programs for par- bers are especially important. “Let’s say you
mals after the birds are released. But the rots generally were unlikely to be successful.” release 20 individuals and they all go 20
team is much more worried about the Yet Amato notes some hopeful counter- different directions, well then you haven’t
dangers these parrots themselves will face examples: the feral populations of escaped reestablished a population,” White says.
in the wild. After generations in captivity, parrots that thrive in many parts of the “They need to live in a group.” Combining
their instincts for navigating and finding world, including London and New York captive Spix’s and wild Illiger’s thus solves
food have weakened, White says. There City. “These are like accidental reintroduc- two problems, White says. “We can actually
are predators, too, including opossums, tions that worked,” he says. Some recent increase the flock size without extra Spix’s
snakes, and birds of prey. And, of course, planned reintroductions have also had … while using a native species which knows
humans—the species that drove the bird to positive results, White says, including one the habitat, knows the area, that can func-
extinction in the first place. he was involved in: the reintroduction of tion as mentors.”

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 been hampered by the lack of knowledge
of this little-studied biome and by its loca-
tion in one of the poorest regions of Brazil,
where the goats that provide a lifeline for
the local population have devoured much of
the natural vegetation.
“In the beginning I did sometimes
think, ‘Why are we putting all this effort
into bringing back one species that is ex-
tinct when there are so many other species
that we could still save from extinction?’”
Lugarini says. “But you have to remember
that this flagship species helps us preserve
and restore the caatinga, and that helps
many other species, too.”
Curaçá is home to about 30,000
inhabitants—and many homages to the
Spix’s. Next to the gas station is the Spix
hotel. The theater, restored with money
from the Spix project, is bright blue. The
city’s flag in front of the town hall includes
a Spix’s macaw, though Lugarini notes “they
got it wrong”: The bird has the yellow mark-
ings around the eyes and next to the beak
that are typical of the Lear’s macaw, another
threatened macaw that lives not far away.
One resident, Fernando Ferreira, wrote
the song about the lovesick Illiger’s macaw.
Wearing shorts and a T-shirt, his gray hair
swept back in a ponytail, Ferreira sat down
with a guitar and sang another song he
wrote about the Spix’s macaw, known here

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as ararinha azul, or little blue macaw: “My
wish is to see you fly, my wish is to see you
come back,” he sang. On the afternoon of
11 June, Ferreira will perform this song at
a ceremony at the theater. There will be a
video, speeches, and a press conference.
Earlier that day, in front of a small group of
people, Purchase will open the door of the
aviary to release the birds.
For those who have worked toward this
for years, it will be a moment of joy and
apprehension. “It will feel like a weight
off my shoulders, probably,” Purchase says.
But then comes the next weight—worrying
Veterinarian Francois Le Grange (top right) and animal keeper Sebastian Laurisch examine a Spix’s macaw at the about their survival. There is an element of
breeding station in Germany where these three chicks (bottom) were born. guilt, Miyaki says, because humans drove
the Spix’s to extinction. “We owe it to the
Releasing birds of the right age can help threat to success was predation. To reduce species, for it to go back to the wild.” But the
PHOTOS: PATRICK PLEUL/PICTURE ALLIANCE VIA GETTY IMAGES (2)

keep them from scattering. Spix’s macaws this risk, Purchase put metal bands around experience of 1995 still casts a shadow, she
start to reproduce around age 4 and then trees with nest hollows or nest boxes to says. “The frustration after the first release
tend to return to the same nesting site year keep predators like opossums from climb- of that female was so big,” she says. “I try to
after year. “The sooner that those released ing the trees. To avoid tipping off would-be be optimistic, but I’m very anxious.”
macaws start reproducing, the sooner they poachers, he put decoy bands around trees The project estimates that between one-
become anchored to that site,” White says. without nests, as well. The birds will also third and two-thirds of the birds will be
“So you want to have birds that are enter- wear tracking collars. lost in the first year. If the losses are higher,
ing or at reproductive age.” Providing sup- After a long day, Lugarini headed back to the birds may be taken back in. “You try to
plementary food and nest boxes may also her hotel in Curaçá. As the four-wheel drive make sure that you have covered all of the
encourage the birds to remain close to the vehicle bounced over the dusty road, goats bases and thought about as many possible
release site. scattered and closed wooden gates slowed options and outcomes as possible,” White
When White and other researchers re- her progress. It was a reminder that the says. “But the day you release those birds,
viewed 47 releases of captive parrots into Spix’s natural habitat barely exists anymore. the day they leave that cage, a lot of things
the wild, they found that the single biggest A restoration project is ongoing but has are no longer within your control.” j

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 A wild hope
Kai Kupferschmidt

Science, 376 (6598), • DOI: 10.1126/science.add3235

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