A promising sign for an endangered parakeet

Rachel Fritts

This spring, more than 20 wild-hatched Gray-breasted Parakeets took flight in a private reserve in the Aratanha Mountains in Brazil — likely the first fledglings of the species in this location in decades. Gray-breasted Parakeets are small, social parrots with green bodies, white cheeks, and bright red tail feathers. While they were once widely distributed across mountain forests in eastern Brazil, their numbers dwindled beginning in the late 1800s due to deforestation and the European pet trade. By 2007, only a single viable population of less than 100 individuals remained, and the species was listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List. In 2009, Brazilian conservation organization Aquasis embarked on an urgent mission to save the last remaining individuals from extinction. They put up artificial nest boxes to substitute…

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BirdWatching (Digital) - 1 Issue, July/August 2023

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