El Oro Parakeet—One Of World's Rarest Parrots—To Benefit From Conservation Land Purchase In Ecuador

Tuesday, December 03, 2013

The outlook for at least 15 globally endangered bird species—including the rare El Oro Parakeet—has just gotten brighter, thanks to a land deal engineered by Ecuador’s Fundación Jocotoco, Rainforest Trust, and American Bird Conservancy. The deal expands Ecuador’s renowned Buenaventura Reserve by 600 acres, to a total of 4,600 acres.

The rare birds expected to benefit include many of the world’s last 800 El Oro Parakeets and all of the remaining Ecuadorian (El Oro) Tapaculo, which numbers as few as several dozen individuals.

“The protected forests in this reserve are surrounded by cattle pastures and fragmented woodlands,” said Benjamin Skolnik, who leads ABC projects in Ecuador. “That makes preserving and expanding it vital to the birds it protects.”

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