As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Thursday 18 October 2012

Discovery of Critically Endangered South American Bird in New Area Offers Increased Hope for Avoiding Extinction


A new discovery by the Peruvian environmental group Asociación Ecosistemas Andinos (ECOAN), of a population of the critically endangered Royal Cinclodes is providing some increased hope that this bird may be able to be saved from extinction.

In August 2012, ECOAN biologists spotted a Royal Cinclodes and possibly a second bird inside the Huaytapallana Regional Conservation Area in Peru’s Junín department (comparable to a U.S. state). This sighting was 29 miles north of the nearest and previously northernmost population discovered in Junín in 2008.

“There may well be fewer than 250 of these birds left in existence,”said Constantino Aucca Chutas, President of ECOAN. “These new sightings are therefore quite significant because they raise the odds that this rare species might be saved.”

The Royal Cinclodes is listed by the IUCN-World Conservation Union as Critically Endangered; it was recently listed as Endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. The largest concentrations are found in Peru’s Cusco and Apurimac departments in the south of the country, with other populations in Bolivia’s department of La Paz, close to the Peru border, and elsewhere in Peru’s Puno and Ayacucho departments. (To see a map of the area, go to: maps.google.com and then search on “Area de Conservacion Regional Huaytapallana, Junin, Perú”)

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