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Parrots known as Spiks macaws, a bird previously extinct in the wild, have begun to flourish in South Africa following a successful breeding and conservation programme.
Twenty years ago the future of the iconic bird looked pretty bleak.
The last member of the species had disappeared from the wild, leaving only a few birds in the cages of collectors scattered around the world.
But already thanks to the efforts of parrot conservation Cyanopsitta spicii – with its characteristic gray head and bright blue feathers has made a sensational comeback.
A bunch of them are already flying to their native Brazil, after being released a month ago.
Later this year, activists plan to release more birds, which are expected to start breeding on their own in the wild next spring.
“The project is going very well,” says biologist Tom White, an adviser to the U.S. Wildlife and Fisheries Service.
“One month after we released the birds, they have all survived. They behave as a herd and stay close to the release site, sampling the vegetation there. It’s going as well as it could.”
Macaw Spix is named after the German biologist Johann Baptist Ritter von Spix, who first recorded it as a species in 1819. But the bird fell victim to environmental damage that began in the 19th century with the expansion of agriculture in the Caatinga forests in northeastern Brazil.
The bird has been saved through conservation projects as well as modern genetics for determining breeding pairs and artificial pollination.
So several hundred Macaw Spiks were born in closed conditions and then learned to survive in the wild.
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