Puerto
Rican Parrot
By Stacy Okoro
The Puerto Rican Beauty
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| Photo from: technes.tmcnet.com |
The Puerto Rican parrot is the only existing native parrot left on the
U.S. territory of Puerto Rico. As of current, the parrot has only been found
naturally existing on the island. With its majestic emerald-green
color, blue flight feathers, outstandingly white eyes, and red bands resting
atop their beaks, these parrots can be easily spotted in their monogamous
pairs.
The parrots reproduce only once per year and
the female produces about three to four eggs at a time. Their breeding season
occurs from February to July.[1] And their diet mostly consists of wild fruits, flowers, leaves and seeds.[2]
First Recognized as Endangered
The Puerto Rican parrot was first characterized as endangered in 1967.
Since then, the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has implemented resources
and various technique trying to revive the low population.
Population Numbers and Continued
Threats
It was speculated that there was once up to one million parrots thriving
on the island, but since the increase in human presence, numbers have been
dramatically dropping. Habitat destruction and loss has been attributed to humans clearing the forest for agricultural efforts and cutting down
trees for homes. This has lead to a dramatic shift in the parrot's habitat range.[3] The parrots moved from their initial low-grounded habitats up into
the Luquillo Mountains, where they now depend on hallowed trees to nest.
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| Pair of parrots in a tree cavity thetimes-tribune.com |
By 1898, about
twenty years after the Puerto Rican parrot was categorized as endangered, the
conservation techniques used seem to be showing improvements on the wild populations. The
numbers of naturally occurring wild parrot doubled; from about 22 to 47
parrots. But, later in that same year, a
hurricane crashed onto the island and brought the numbers down again.
Since the 90s, USFWS has sustained a wild population
at around 50 parrots. They also have nearly 400 parrots bred and kept in two
separate aviaries with the intention of slowly reintroducing them back into the
wild populations. In 2013, 100 parrots that were released into the wild were
being monitored.[4] With the numbers of the
parrots steadily increasing, there is much hope that the Puerto Rican parrot
populations will thrive in the near future.[5]
Other major threats to the parrot’s
population are predation from red-tailed hawks, competition for nesting habitats from honeybees, diminished breeding
productivity caused by non-native species, low breeding rates contrasted with
high mortality rates, commercial nest-robbing, hunting, and scientific testing.[6]
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| The shaded yellow regions are where current parrot populations are located. There are aviaries located at each site. www.adrai.com |
Goals: Operation Recovery
The Recovery Plan of 2009 states that the primary
goal was to have the parrots downlisted from ‘endangered’ by 2020. This would
mean that the parrot population network is an interacted and self-sustaining
one. With the current rise in the population numbers and improvements to
habitat this goal seems attainable. USFWS hopes to establish a third self-maintaining
parrot population on the island so the species could maintain genetic variation
and also interact with the other two subpopulations[7].
In order to that, USFWS hopes to:
- Protect and manage the wild populations
- Protect and manage the public and privately-owned habitats
- Support and sustain the dynamics of captive flocks
- Release captive flocks into wild to promote reproduction and establish additional wild populations
- Promote awareness and education by enforcing laws
http://www.oiseaux-birds.com/card-puerto-rican-parrot.html
[1]
Puerto Rican Parrot: Questions and Answers (http://www.fws.gov/southeast/prparrot/pdf/PR_parrot_QA.pdf)
[2]
Puerto Rican Amazon: http://www.arkive.org/puerto-rican-amazon/amazona-vittata/
[3] Ibid
1
[4]
Report: Puerto Rican Parrot Makes a Comeback: http://news.yahoo.com/report-puerto-rican-parrot-makes-major-comeback-195916806.html
[5] Ibid
2
[6] Recovery
Plan: http://ecos.fws.gov/docs/recovery_plan/090617.pdf
[7]
Recovery Action Plan: http://ecos.fws.gov/docs/action_plans/doc3105.pdf
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