Wild parrot species returns to its habitat in Atlantic Rainforest reserve

In early January 2025, twenty red-browed amazons (Amazona rhodocorytha), a parrot species that was extinct in the Brazilian state of Alagoas, began to be reintroduced into a thousand-hectare forest reserve in Coruripe, located 86.5 kilometers from the state capital, Maceió. Over the next few months, the birds will be joined by other animals, including the Alagoas curassow (Pauxi mitu), tortoises, and solitary tinamous (Tinamus solitarius).

The goal of reintroducing these animal species is to restore the original fauna of the Atlantic Rainforest area, which belongs to a sugar and alcohol plant, in order to restore the functionality of the ecosystem.

Some of the results of the ARCA project, which is supported by FAPESP, were presented at the Brazil-France Forum on Forests, Biodiversity, and Human Societies. The forum took place from June 16th to 18th at the National Museum of Natural History (MNHN) in Paris.

The event, organized by FAPESP in partnership with the University of São Paulo (USP), was part of the program for FAPESP Week France, which began on June 10th in Toulouse, the capital of the Occitanie region in southern France.

“The area where we’re reintroducing these animal species has the largest amount of native pau-brasil (Paubrasilia echinata) outside the southern state of Bahia and faces two major problems. The first is forest reconnection, which takes longer to solve because it depends on planting forests to reconnect the fragments. The second, and most urgent, is keeping the forest standing and alive because it’s collapsing due to the lack of seed-dispersing animals,” Luiz Fábio Silveira, deputy director of the USP Museum of Zoology and project coordinator, told Agência FAPESP.

For this reason, the researchers are releasing captive birds and animals in the area to disperse seeds and help the forest remain standing, while also initiating programs to reconnect forest fragments, Silveira explained. “This area will serve as a model for other fragments of the Atlantic Rainforest.”

Conversion process

According to the researcher, the process of reclaiming the area to be converted into a forest reserve involved the Public Prosecutor’s Office, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and local leaders. It also required lengthy negotiations with landowners.

Most of the forest fragments in the state of Alagoas are privately owned, primarily by sugar and alcohol mills. These fragments are too small for the government to claim them for conversion into public reserves, such as national parks or biological reserves.

In light of this reality, the researchers decided to approach the Public Prosecutor’s Office and local NGOs to persuade the mill owners to convert the designated conservation areas into Private Natural Heritage Reserves (RPPNs in the Portuguese-language acronym). These RPPNs are privately owned conservation units established to protect biological diversity.

“This type of conservation unit isn’t as restrictive as federal ones because it guarantees the perpetuity of ownership of the area and, at the same time, keeps the forest standing, without deforestation. Many plant owners also liked the idea because it allows them to improve their ESG ratings [which measure environmental, social, and governance performance],” said Silveira.

However, one obstacle was the cost of registering these areas as RPPNs with the notary, which the mill owners had to pay. After discussing the matter with the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the researchers convinced the notary offices in Alagoas to waive the fees. “It’s agreements like this, which seem very small, that sometimes encourage the owner of an 800-hectare forest area, for example, to transform it into an RPPN and thus ensure its preservation,” said the researcher.

Silveira emphasized that the project has made it possible to create more than 5,000 hectares of protected Atlantic Rainforest in the state of Alagoas. “Eighty percent of the endemic and endangered animals in that region have been protected through the program.”

Community involvement

The Alagoas curassow is one of the species protected through the program, which began in 2018. Resembling a chicken, it is the largest land bird in northeastern Brazil. Similar in size to a turkey, it weighs around 4 to 4.5 kilograms. Due to its size and diet of fruit, the bird was mercilessly hunted and became extinct in the wild 40 years ago.

“There were no species of this animal left in the wild in the early 1990s. Only three were rescued by a private breeder, and we decided to use them to start the project,” said Silveira.

This bird species was chosen to begin the program because conserving it requires large areas of trees that provide shelter for other animals.

In September 2019, six Alagoas curassows (three males and three females) were released into a private reserve in Rio Largo, a municipality just over 20 kilometers from Maceió, which has almost 1,000 hectares of continuous forest.

The reserve has a 400-square-meter aviary, but the birds, which are all between one and two years old, are not kept in cages. They can move around the entire property, which connects to neighboring sugarcane fields.

According to Silveira, the bird is one of the few animal species that has returned to its natural habitat on the American continent in recent decades after becoming extinct in the wild. “This was one of the first initiatives in the Americas. Another in the region was that of a species of crow that occurs only in Hawaii and had also been extinct,” he compared.

The reintroduction of the species sparked public excitement, resulting in carnival blocks, street races, murals, and the Alagoas government’s declaration of the curassow as the state bird. A similar commotion occurred in relation to the reintroduction of the red-browed amazon. “The population is beginning to have these animals back in their daily lives, and they’re starting to feel a great pride in their return,” Silveira pointed out.

“This involvement of the population is very important because now we have the guardians of the red-browed amazons and the mutuns. The residents of these regions, instead of wanting these animals in their homes, prefer to see them in the wild. This way, not only does the communities’ perception and understanding of wildlife begin to change, but also how it can be appreciated in a different way. They’re now our main guardians within the forest,” said the researcher.

Silveira receives videos twice a day that are recorded by community members monitoring the animals. He showed the Agência FAPESP reporter a video of a flock of red-browed amazons flying through the reserve. “It’s not just the animals, but their sounds that are returning to the forest,” he celebrated.

The birds were reintroduced after spending two years in an eight-meter-high aviary in the middle of the forest to acclimate them. During this time, they underwent physical and behavioral tests, such as how they reacted to the presence of their predators. “About ten couldn’t be reintroduced because they didn’t pass all the tests and remain in captivity,” said Silveira.