Hands-on management helps Scarlet Macaw in Guatemala

10/02/2019

Deep in the verdant forests of northern Guatemala, an exemplary crossover between field management and aviculture of techniques is taking place in order to nurture Scarlet Macaw chicks to independence.

This initiative is part of a long-term project of WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society)-Guatemala, supported by the Loro Parque Fundación (LPF), for the conservation of the northern cyanoptera subspecies of Scarlet Macaw which, as implied by its scientific name, is differentiated by the greater extent of blue in the wings.

There is also another important distinction. Taking into account the huge geographical distribution of the nominate subspecies macao through South America north to Costa Rica, Scarlet Macaw is not recognised as a threatened species. By contrast, the northern subspecies, because of habitat loss and internal trade within its native countries, has disappeared from most of its former haunts and is threatened with extinction. For this reason, in 2002 WCS-Guatemala began the project in the Department of Petén, Guatemala, the area containing the most important remaining northern Scarlet Macaw nesting sites in the Maya Biosphere Reserve (MBR), especially El Peru, El Burral and La Corona. The project not only works to sustain the high concentration of active nests in this area, it also has importance to maintain the connectivity of northern Scarlet Macaw populations throughout the Selva Maya of Mexico and Guatemala, and potentially with the Belizean population.

Continued

Scarlet macaw DNA points to ancient breeding operation in Southwest

August 13, 2018, Pennsylvania State University

Somewhere in the American Southwest or northern Mexico, there are probably the ruins of a scarlet macaw breeding operation dating to between 900 and 1200 C.E., according to a team of archaeologists who sequenced the mitochondrial DNA of bird remains found in the Chaco Canyon and Mimbres areas of New Mexico.

Remains of a thriving prehistoric avian culture and breeding colony of scarlet macaws exist at the northern Mexican site of Paquimé, or Casas Grande. However, this community existed from 1250 to 1450, well after the abandonment of Chaco Canyon, and could not have supplied these birds to Southwest communities prior to the 13th century, said Richard George, graduate student in anthropology, Penn State.

Historically, scarlet macaws lived from South America to eastern coastal Mexico and Guatemala, thousands of miles from the American Southwest. Previously, researchers thought that ancestral Puebloan people might have traveled to these natural breeding areas and brought birds back, but the logistics of transporting adolescent birds are difficult. None of the sites where these early macaw remains were found contained evidence of breeding—eggshells, pens or perches.

"We were interested in the prehistoric scarlet macaw population history and the impacts of human direct management," said George. "Especially any evidence for directed breeding or changes in the genetic diversity that could co-occur with different trade networks."

The researchers sequenced the mitochondrial DNA of 20 scarlet macaw specimens, but were only able to obtain full sequences from 14. They then directly radiocarbon-dated all 14 birds with complete or near complete genomes and found they fell between 900 and 1200 CE.

"We looked at the full mitochondrial genome of over 16,000 base pairs to understand the maternal relationships represented in the Chaco Canyon and Mimbres regions," said George.

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