Blue-fronted Amazon Project

Category: Field Work, Pantanal | Date: Sep 27 2007 | By: admin

This Project started in 1997 and the first results, referring to the survival rates of the rehabilitated and restocked young that were monitored by radio telemetry and direct observation, were published in 2000 at the Brazilian Ornithology Society Journal.
Regarding the reproductive biology of the Blue Fronted Amazon Parrot, 94 nests were observed between 1997 and 1999. These nests produced 238 eggs, from which hatched 141 nestlings and 97 young parrots fledged. These results were published in 2002 at the Journal of Field Ornithology (73:399-403).

The increase in body weight and of the length of the wings of 86 wild nestlings and 123 captivity nestlings from the Wild Animals Rehabilitation Center (CRAS) were registered from 1997 to 1999. These results were published in 2003 at the Ornitologia Neotropical (14:295-305).
Besides the published scientific articles, the results of the Blue-fronted Amazon Project became subject of three chapters of the book “Ecologia e conservação de psitacídeos no Brasil”, published in 2002 and one chapter of the book “Iniciativas para preservação de Psticatídeos”, published in 2006.
All these activities relied on the participation of many professional (interns, volunteers, research helpers and technicians), which formed the team coordinated by the zootechnician Gláucia Seixas, MS in Ecology and Conservation, and actual PhD candidate. Special attention should be given to Vandir Fernandes da Silva, the field technician who has been working in the Project since it started.
Media made advertisement of the project, with informative and educative profiles, trying to make the population aware of the damage capturing these animals can cause to nature.
During its first phase (1997-2003), the project was developed in partnership with the following organizations: Wild Animals Rehabilitation Center (CRAS - MS), Environment Institute Pantanal (IMA-P) and Environment State Agency of Mato Grosso do Sul (SEMA-MS). Since 2003, the project is executed by Fundacao Neotropica do Brasil.
Conservation International - Brazil, Parque das Aves Foz Tropicana, Fundação O Boticário de Proteção à Natureza and American Bird Conservancy have provided financial support, at different times during these 10 years of Project. Refúgio Ecológico Caiman, RPPN Rio Negro, Fazenda Refúgio da Ilha Ecologia and Fazenda San Francisco provide lodging support.

The general objective of this study is to obtain, register and make available information about the Blue Fronted Amazon Parrot environmental requirements at Pantanal, Brazil, to propose conservation action for this specie.

For that, the specific objectives are:
1. Evaluate the Blue Fronted Amazon Parrot abundance at the different habitats at Miranda´s Pantanal and to generate an index that works as instrument for population monitoring;
2. Examine the Blue Fronted Amazon Parrot dairy activity pattern and grouping propensity and your relations with local abundance, food availability, nesting and collective resting sites, during the year at Miranda´s Pantanal;
3. Examine the use of different habitats that compose the study area for Blue Fronted Amazon Parrot proposals as feeding, nesting and collective resting sites at Miranda´s Pantanal;
4. Examine the Blue Fronted Amazon Parrot diet and your relation with food availability; and
5. Generate a Geographic Information System to help at the Blue Fronted Amazon Parrot long time monitoring in Pantanal.

CONSERVATION OUTCOMES EXPECTED FROM THIS PROJECT
With the results of this work we aim to improve our knowledge about the Blue Fronted Amazon Parrot ecology in Pantanal, generated since 1997 by the BLUE FRONTED AMAZON PARROT PROJECT. Data concerning the reproductive biology will serve to guide future decisions about the management and conservation of this species. The results of this study will also be directly applied as a model to other parrot species, endangered or not. This information will provide a substantial database to the Blue Fronted Amazon Parrot’s conservation and habitats, subsiding future conservation strategies and management of this species at Mato Grosso do Sul.