A group called “WildEarth Guardians” is trying to get the Department of the Interior to implement a recovery plan for the Thick-billed Parrot, the last existing parrot species indigenous to the United States. The bird has been on the U.S. Endangered Species list for 36 years, and the government is thus supposed to develop a recovery plan. They have never done so, although there were attempts to reintroduce the species to Arizona and New Mexico in the 1980s and 1990s.
The “sky island” habitats they’re talking about in the area have had some tough times lately, with some extensive fires, as well as insect-damaged trees (possibly in response to climate change). Makes you wonder if these habitats could support Thick-billed Parrots any more, but it sure would be interesting to see them try again, especially since there also aren’t very many of the birds left in the wild in Mexico anymore.
Group tries to save last parrot species indigenous to the United States
Re: Thick-billed parrots “the last parrot species indigenous to the United States”
In the 80s and early 90s I had more than a little professional contact with several of the groups most recently active in the captive breeding and re-population efforts with the thick-billed parrots. I think it is important to note that although heretofore larger numbers of the species used to be observed in the pinon-pine “sky islands” of AZ and NM, it is considered by some ornithologists most likely that they were transient seasonal visitors from long-established and sustained Mexican populations.
From my more authoritative sources there was reluctant private acknowledgment that there is no objective evidence that the species had ever bred, much less maintained a sustainable breeding population within the U.S.
It seems those Federal/State research funds for more highly visible and popular wildlife programs are simply hard to turn down.
Ever since the signal success of the peregrine falcon breeding and re-introduction program, it appears to have become easier to promote public, government, and institutional grant support for so-called “re-establishment / re-introduction” programs. Some, clearly needed, have worked well. However, it seems to me that in at least some cases a greater effort to confirm proof of existence of a previous self-sustaining breeding population is needed.
There are certainly many native species of wildlife suffering undeniable – and, in many cases, unexplained – population declines. These species, indeed, are deserving of intensive field research and, where the need is obvious, redoubled efforts at habitat preservation and restoration. Diversion of the shrinking pool of Federal and State non-game wildlife funds and efforts to programs of scientifically unsubstantiated need (but with good “P.R.”) is, in my personal opinion, deplorable.
I think “deplorable” is a little strong for me, Dave. I’ll get a lot more worked up over that shrinking pool itself, and lack of sufficient funding in general, than I will over which species money is being spent on.
In some ways, I support programs such as this, or the Fed. involvement in the Ivory-billed Woodpecker search, because they DO come with free P.R. If you do succeed in reintroducing a “glamorous” species such as this, that P.R. may translate into revived public interest and support, and just maybe you do get that chance to reverse the trend in shrinking budgets for these efforts.
Hi, Terry,
“Big diff” twixt the Ivory-billed WP and the thick-billed parrot. The former was, and may still be a native breeding species in the U.S,; there’s is not, apparently, evidence of the same for the latter. As one whose daily professional activities for over thirty years involved maintaining awareness of the various pools of potential research funding in the general area of wildlife biology and conservation, I can reliably testify that it was more than irksome to see slices of the already scant grant pie being allocated to projects of the sort you suggest might engender increased public interest(scant on scientific justification, but long on poterntial positive public visibility…) and a net increase in funding. When I finally retired I asked some of my old colleagues to let me know when that finally happened! So far, that phone hasn’t rung. I remain convinced that greater care needs to be devoted to allocation of limited funds – and this in ANY significant endeavor dependent upon limited funding, not just conservation efforts.
I wonder if a lot of it is just the funding environment itself that drives this. For example…I work for USGS. What I find irksome with regard to USGS, is how we too often seem to be “chasing money” rather than focusing on what may be scientifically important.
Whenever some hot button topic comes up, something that gets a lot of play in the press, attention seems to completely swivel towards that topic. Typically, given the funding situation we also have, that means the money to address the “issue du jour” comes from existing projects.
To me it’s the whole funding environment that causes this. There’s so much competition even WITHIN Federal government for funding dollars for projects, that we seem to always be chasing the current hot issue. Longer term planning, commitment to longer term programs, is what ends up suffering.
As long as they remain on the list, humane treatment of the birds is not insured, and the birds can be indiscriminately killed. It is in our power to prevent this awful practice.