Rare Macaws in Peril as Guatemala Jungle Shrinks
Date: 26-Jun-03
Country: GUATEMALA
Author: Greg Brosnan
Biologists working for a Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) have been pulled out of the colorful bird's main nesting area in fear of armed men believed to be land settlers who burn the jungle to clear land for cattle or homes.
On May 29, five men who were probably land invaders, dressed in dark clothes and armed with shotguns and rifles, tried to set a trap for two WCS biologists during their rounds. The two escaped by fleeing through thick bush.
"Not even the law of the jungle applies here," said Rodrigo Morales, a biologist and macaw specialist with Guatemalan environmental group Defenders of Nature.
Environmentalists say a rare subspecies of scarlet macaw native to virgin jungle in southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras is being wiped out as settlers burn down its habitat to make room for crops, poachers steal valuable chicks and authorities turn a blind eye.
Scarlet macaws exist in other nations, such as Brazil and Costa Rica, but the ones in southern Mexico and northern Central America have been isolated for so long that most scientists consider them a subspecies, known by the scientific name ara macao cyanoptera.
Famed for their bright red plumage streaked with yellow and blue, Central American scarlet macaws mate for life.
EDGE OF EXTINCTION
According to Macaws Without Borders, a conservation group dedicated to protecting the bird, there could now be as few as 600 left in the wild.
"We're talking about 40 nests perched on the edge of extinction," said Florida-born environmentalist Roan McNab, director in Guatemala of the WCS, which also runs New York's Bronx Zoo.
"This is the absolute wild west," he said of the main Guatemalan nesting ground for the rare birds in Laguna del Tigre national park in the country's lawless northern Peten department.
Peten, which makes up a third of Guatemala, was mostly virgin jungle until only a few decades ago but forest fires are rapidly turning protected areas into a dust bowl. The worst forest fires in years ravaged much of the Laguna del Tigre park earlier this year before rains began in May.
Some fires spread from nearby farms practicing "slash and burn" agriculture while others are started by land grabbers who environmentalists say are often sponsored by large landowners seeking to expand territory for rearing cattle.
The area is also a major corridor for cocaine smuggling and illegal migrants headed to the United States.
Magali Rey of Guatemalan environmental group Madre Selva (Mother Jungle) said powerful local interests sought to turn Peten into "one enormous pasture."
LONE CHICK
Before being run out of the area, biologist Jeovani Tut monitored an artificial nest which was home to the only known hatchling this season in the species' main nesting area.
On one visit, Tut peered into the nest balanced high above the ground in a tree towering over miles of pristine jungle.
"It's beautiful!" the biologist cried out to colleagues waiting 30 feet below at the sight of the lone chick, a tattered ball of red, yellow and blue feathers that squawked loudly at his intrusion.
Before being pulled off the job, Tut had been prepared to camp under the tree where the lone chick had hatched until it could fly, to scare away falcons and human predators.
Poachers, who use crampons to climb trees and sometimes carry machine-guns, sell chicks for hundreds of dollars.
Resource-starved police are helpless against them and last year officers in another part of Peten were caught smuggling chicks themselves.
Human encroachment into previously isolated areas has also wrought havoc on the natural food chain.
Driven in greater numbers into macaw nesting grounds as forests shrink, predators such as falcons are grabbing more chicks.
As species concentrate in the remaining pockets of jungle, macaws, which have low reproduction rates, also have to compete for nests with other birds, mammals and bees that hijack prime spots. Biologists fa