Sustaining a Splendid Species: efforts are being undertaken by concerned citizens and conservationists to preserve the diminishing habitats of great green macaw populations throughout Central and South America.

• Author: Hardman, Chris
• Position: Essay

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Cautiously we plod through a cattle pasture trying to avoid slipping in the mud or stepping on piles of dung. In the treetops above us, we hear raucous screeching, and the closer we get, the louder and more insistent the screeching becomes. Our guide, Alexander, sets up Iris spotting scope and waves to us eagerly while we stumble through the tall, wet grass to reach him. Suddenly a large bird with a three-foot wing span bursts out of the tree canopy and flies overhead. With much squawking and branch shaking another follows and then another. We stare in awe at the great green macaw, one of only 270 left in Costa Rica--a magnificent rare bird that is in danger of extinction.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Citizen conservationists such as Alexander Martínez are playing an important role in the fight to save the great green macaw. A wiry 61-year-old in constant motion, Martínez works daily on saving not only the green macaw, but other bird species as well. He operates a small bed and breakfast in the town of Puerto Viejo de Sarapiquí in the Caribbean low-lands of Costa Rica. He and his son, Kevin, guide bird hikes and take people into the hills to visit the wildlife reserve and rescue center Martínez and a friend run. In addition, Martínez volunteers with a group of local park guards who monitor and protect green macaw nests.

In his youth, Martínez was an avid hunter, but after living in Canada for a decade he returned to a very different Costa Rica. The country had gone through a logging boom in the 60s and 70s, and the introduction of chain saws and heavy equipment greatly accelerated the process. "I was shocked that everything I left behind that was so beautiful and so green was gone," he explains. It was then that he put down his gun and picked up a pair of binoculars.

The great green macaw (Ara ambiguus ) lives in wet lowlands in small pockets of forests from Honduras to Ecuador. Deforestation has shrunk their habitat and concentrated their population into five areas: the border of Honduras and Nicaragua, the border of Nicaragua and Costa Rica, the Darien region of Panama and Colombia, and two small populations in Ecuador. Scientists estimate that there are only 7,000 of these birds living in the wild.

One of the first people to sound the alarm about the status of the bird was World Wildlife Fund scientist George Powell. Little was known about the bird and its behavior in 1994, so Powell, who was working at the RARE Center for Tropical Conservation, started the Great Green Macaw Research and Conservation Project. He determined that Costa Rica had already lost 90 percent of the great green's nesting territory and that there were only 210 birds left in the country. Even more alarming was his calculation that the species needed at least 50 breeding pairs to survive. At that time, Costa Rica only had 25 to 35.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

What makes the macaw so vulnerable is its preference for the almendro (Dipteryx panamensis ) tree for feeding and nesting. At nearly 164 feet tall the almendro is a giant in the forest. When the massive branches break off, they leave behind vast tree cavities ideally suited for macaw...