The only wild specimens of a rare blue parrot, which were recently returned to their natural habitat, have been diagnosed with an incurable, likely lethal virus, the Brazilian government said on Thursday.
The disease strikes a major blow to a program seeking to return the Spix’s macaw to its semi-arid natural habitat in northeast Brazil, 25 years after they were declared extinct in the wild.
Brazil’s conservation agency, Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio) said that since a first group of Spix’s macaws arrived in the country from Germany in 2020, about 20 had been freed, only 11 of which had survived.
Photo: AFP
All of the survivors have tested positive for circovirus, which causes beak and feather disease in parrots, but poses no danger to humans.
“The disease has no cure and kills the bird in most cases,” the institute said.
Another 21 birds of about 90 still in captivity at a breeding center in Bahia, Brazil, also tested positive.
Real-life efforts to save the parrot are more worthy of a high-stakes drama, marked by institutional conflict, concerns over unscrupulous breeders and sales to private collectors.
The BlueSky breeding center is a partner of the German Association for the Conservation of Threatened Parrots (ACTP), which holds 75 percent of the world’s registered Spix’s macaws, ICMBio said.
Brazil terminated its partnership with ATCP last year, after the German organization sold 26 of the birds to a private zoo in India without its consent.
Brazil has repeatedly raised concerns at meetings of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, the global wildlife trade regulator, over loopholes that allow for the sale of captive-bred Spix’s macaws and fuel demand for the fragile species.
Aside from habitat loss, demand from private collectors drove the extinction of the bird in the wild.
ICMBio has fined the BlueSky breeding center 1.8 million reais (US$336,060) for failing to implement biosafety protocols to curb the spread of the virus.
Inspectors found “extremely dirty” bird feeders encrusted with feces, while workers were handling the birds “wearing flip-flops, shorts and T-shirts.”
The breeding center had fiercely resisted efforts to recapture the wild Spix’s macaws, which a court ordered them to do last month.
It wrote on its Web site this week that parrots in South America were “more resistant” to circovirus than those elsewhere in the world.
Several had already recovered and were testing negative, the center said.
BlueSky said it had increased sanitary measures, isolated healthy birds and built barriers to prevent contact between wild birds and captive birds.
“No birds died, all have excellent flight capacity and are feeding well,” it said.
THE TRAGEDY OF PUNCH: Footage of the seven-month-old Japanese macaque has gone viral online after he was rejected by his mother and formed a bond with a soft toy A baby monkey in Japan has captured hearts around the world after videos of him being bullied by other monkeys and rejected by his mother went viral last week. Punch, a Japanese macaque, was born in July last year at Ichikawa City Zoo. He has drawn international attention after zookeepers gave him a stuffed orangutan toy after he was abandoned by his mother. Without maternal guidance to help him integrate, Punch has turned to the toy for comfort. He has been filmed multiple times being dragged and chased by older Japanese macaques inside the enclosure. Early clips showed him wandering alone with
South Korea would soon no longer be one of the few countries where Google Maps does not work properly, after its security-conscious government reversed a two-decade stance to approve the export of high-precision map data to overseas servers. The approval was made “on the condition that strict security requirements are met,” the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. Those conditions include blurring military and other sensitive security-related facilities, as well as restricting longitude and latitude coordinates for South Korean territory on products such as Google Maps and Google Earth, it said. The decision is expected to hurt Naver and Kakao
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday said he did not take his security for granted, after he was evacuated from his residence for several hours following a bomb threat sent to a Chinese dance group. Albanese was evacuated from his Canberra residence late on Tuesday following the threat, and returned a few hours later after nothing suspicious was found. The bomb scare was among several e-mails threatening Albanese sent to a representative of Shen Yun, a classical Chinese dance troupe banned in China that is due to perform in Australia this month, a spokesperson for the group said in a statement. The e-mail
TENSIONS: The march went ahead without clashes, but arrests were still possible as police investigate suspects behind Nazi salutes, racist slurs and homophobic insults Thousands of people on Saturday marched in southeastern France under heavy security in tribute to a far-right activist whose killing, blamed on the hard left, has put the country on edge. The crowd — many wearing black and some covering their lower faces with masks — marched through the city of Lyon carrying flowers and placards bearing pictures of Quentin Deranque and the words: “justice for Quentin” and “the extreme left kills.” The 23-year-old died from head injuries following clashes between radical left and far-right supporters on the sidelines of a demonstration against a politician from the left-wing France Unbowed
RSS