Another successful year for the Thick-billed Parrot

Thick-billed Parrot © Christopher Wood, from the surfbirds galleries.American Bird Conservancy’s Mexican partner Pronatura Noreste is reporting another successful year for the Thick-billed Parrot nest box program.

The endangered Thick-billed Parrot breeds primarily at three sites in Mexico’s western Chihuahua state. Due to harvesting of timber and fires, the large trees that provide nest cavities for the birds have almost disappeared. Many of the remaining tree cavities are damaged with cracks and openings, and others have built up large numbers of parasites from repeated use year after year. Weather conditions and nestling parasitism have seriously reduced fledging success from these remaining natural cavities.

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New Reserve and Nest Box Success Offer Hope for Eventual Reintroduction of Endangered Thick-billed Parrots to the U.S.

One of 20 nest boxes placed in large trees to compensate for the lack of nest trees. Photo: Alfonso Banda, Pronatura Noreste(Washington, D.C.) A project to boost the population of the endangered Thick-billed Parrot in Mexico by creating protected reserves to conserve habitat and providing nest boxes to increase reproduction may make it possible for the species to be once again found in the United States. In September, American Bird Conservancy worked with its Mexican partner group Pronatura Noreste to support the acquisition of 2,470 acres of vital old-growth nesting habitat at Mesa de las Guacamayas in northwestern Mexico, one of three primary nesting areas remaining.

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Thick- billed parrot brings birders to Engle

Thick-billed parrot at Armendaris

Wildlife watchers continue to flock to the Armendaris Ranch headquarters to view a mysterious bird temporarily living in a sparse patch of pine trees shading the sun-baked Chihuahuan desert east of Truth or Consequences.

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Effort to Reintroduce Thick-Billed Parrots In Arizona Is Dropped

Thick billed parrotA SEVEN-YEAR effort to return thick-billed parrots to the pine forests of Arizona where they once thrived has failed because birds raised in captivity floundered in the wild, quickly becoming prey for hawks.

Some of the birds starved, others succumbed to disease, but most were eaten by predators, often within 48 hours of their release. Researchers have suspended the project, saying they are uncertain whether any of the 88 parrots released in the Chiricahua Mountains of southeastern Arizona from 1986 to 1993 survived.

Reintroducing a dying species to the wild, even in its native habitat, is never easy, conservationists say. In fact, most attempts fail, especially when they involve animals born in captivity. Yet wildlife researchers say that such efforts tend to be more popular than other conservation techniques, like those that rely on legislation and public education.

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