Blue-fronted Amazon Project

Category: Education, Nestlings, Pantanal, illegal wildlife trade | Date: Oct 01 2008 | By: Blue-fronted Amazon

On Sept 19^th, after receiving an anonymous call, the Environmental Military Police made the seizure of 377 offspring of parrots - the largest ever held in Mato Grosso do Sul. Fifty-three, out of the 377 nestlings, died. Fifteen were yellow-faced parrots (Amazona xanthops), and the rest were blue-fronted parrots (A. aestiva). The parrots were being transported in boxes of vegetables and came from Ivinhema (approximately 290 km from Campo Grande) and the smugglers were using kids to collect the nestlings and eggs from the nests. The animals were brought to the Center for Rehabilitation of Wild Animals (CRAS) in Campo Grande, where they are receiving health care from the CRAS personnel, under the coordination of Vinicius Andrade Lopes. Sadly, the blue-fronted amazon parrot is still illegally collected in Brazil. It is a very popular parrot, due its ability to mimic sounds – being able to imitate words and phrases. This illegal capture directly decreases the recruitment of this species, and compromises its ability for further reproduction, as most of the nest-cavities are destroyed by the smugglers in order to gain access to the nests. These animals will stay at least for one year at CRAS and might be released after that. I met with Vinicius to discuss the necessary strategies in order to prevent the illegal wildlife trade, as raise public awareness and monitoring. It is very sad for us to see all these animals, knowing that they are only a small fraction of all the animals captured every year. But we will keep fighting for them and their environment. We will use all our efforts to fight against the illegal wildlife trade, and aware public about the importance of this and all the other wildlife species in Pantanal. We won’t give up. We will never give up.

Tags: Illegal Animal Trade, Nestlings, Pantanal