The Scarlet Macaw is a very beautiful and well-known parrot, whose bright red plumage is easily noticeable in the jungle. However, the population of this bird is constantly declining due to poaching, deforestation, and lack of nests. One subspecies has almost disappeared in Mexico and Central America.
Scientists have discovered that the parents themselves are one of the main causes of chick mortality. Gabriela Vigo-Traco, a scientist from Peru, has been studying these birds for over two decades. This researcher, affiliated with Texas A&M University, is also co-director of the Macaw Society.
She found that Scarlet Macaws intentionally leave the smallest chicks to starve. A female can lay up to four eggs in one nest, but usually only one or two chicks survive. The third and fourth chicks almost always die, and about 25% of the second generation of chicks die.
In 2018, Vigo-Traco's team extracted a chick from a nest in the Tambopata National Reserve in Peru. He was named Parker. He was the smallest of four siblings and had not yet opened his eyes. He was weak and malnourished; without rescue, he would have died of starvation.
By installing cameras in the nests, scientists observed that the parents, especially the mother, push away the smallest chick. When the father brings food, the mother feeds herself and the larger chicks. The small chick, being cold, continues to cry, but it is not bothered by its siblings. The cause is not a lack of food.
Vigo-Traco believes that parents cannot care for chicks of different ages. The needs of chicks hatched with an interval of four to five days vary greatly, requiring different feeding methods and different nest temperatures. If they try to feed everyone equally, no one survives. Therefore, they choose the healthiest and largest chicks. Initially, this was a survival strategy, but now that the species is declining, it has become a serious problem.
They also tried hand-rearing. However, this requires one and a half to three months. In captivity, it is difficult to achieve the survival of parrots in the wild because they do not learn to recognize predators, find food, or form flocks. Therefore, Vigo-Traco's team preferred the path of rearing in the wild.
Parker was hand-fed at the field station for three weeks, receiving food every two hours. Then, a nest with a chick of similar age or an empty nest was found in the jungle. On December 22, 2018, Parker was placed with a new mother, Tambo. Tambo immediately took care of him. After several months, Parker was able to fly. He became the first fourth chick in decades to leave the wild nest.
Between 2017 and 2019, the team successfully rescued 25 chicks. Three of them were adapted but died from electricity, predators, or diseases. Vigo-Traco compares this to a game of chess, which requires careful consideration of every move.
This method is complex and expensive. The three-year experiment required a team of 20 people, as well as costs for salaries, accommodation, and equipment. It is difficult to replicate everywhere. Ronnie Garcia-Anleu in Guatemala also tried this method, but after 2019, he could not continue it. It is very difficult to find a suitable nest at the right time.
It is necessary to walk miles through the jungle. In some places, birds are kept in captivity and then released. In Costa Rica, the population increased through nest protection, school education, and the installation of artificial nests. The main methods there were combating deforestation and poaching.
Currently, Vigo-Traco is trying a new approach: moving a chick from one nest to another without hand-rearing. This reduces costs. Exchanging chicks of different ages between two nests has been successful, as parents can now raise two chicks of the same age. This technology is now being applied to other parrot populations from Argentina to Central America. The relatively healthy Peruvian population provided knowledge for other countries. Parker reappeared in 2019, flying with his adoptive parents and siblings, like in a normal family.