The Ara Project | |
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9°51′42.92″N85°24′13.06″W / 9.8619222°N 85.4036278°W | |
Date opened | 1992 |
Location | Punta Islita, Guanacaste, Costa Rica |
No. of animals | 200 |
No. of species | 2 |
Website | http://www.thearaproject.org |
The Ara Project was an NGO and former zoo run by a retired United States expatriate couple that existed in from the 1980s to 2008 as a private zoo under the name Amigos de las Aves. It was re-branded from 2009 to 2018 as "The Ara Project" with the goal of conserving the two native macaw species of Costa Rica: the great green macaw (Ara ambiguus), known locally as lapa verde, and the scarlet macaw (Ara macao), known locally as lapa roja. [1] [2] [3] It has since re-branded again.[ citation needed ]
In the 1980s retired American expatriate couple Margot and Richard Frisius started a zoo called "Amigos de las Aves". Over the years they created what had become the biggest collection of great green macaws in captivity.
Amigos de las Aves launched a scarlet macaw reintroduction program in 1999 on the property of Tiskita Jungle Lodge, although as of 2010 these released birds had not bred. [4]
In January 1999 Amigos de las Aves released 13 scarlet macaws at a forested site at an ecolodge calling itself the Curú Wildlife Refuge on the southern Nicoya Peninsula of northwestern Costa Rica. As of 2004 these had not bred in the wild. [1] [5] [6] [7]
In 2008 Margot Frisius died and the Frisius family decided to hand over the organization to a trust fund known since 2009 as "The Ara Project". To comply with new Costa Rican wildlife laws imposed by MINAE (Ministry of Environment, Energy and Telecommunications) further controlled release programs were initiated. [8]
At a forested site near Golfito the Alajuela Costa Rica Zoo Ave, a zoo near the city of Alajuela which houses rescued animals captured from poachers or smugglers by the government, 38 scarlet macaws were released by 2002. These were raised free of human contact, unlike those at Curú. As of 2004 these had also not bred in the wild. [5] [9] Rescate Animal Zoo Ave still exists, but The Ara Project macaw breeding centre was moved in 2013 to Punta Islita. [1] [10] Ten birds were released in the Punta Islita area in 2012, of which seven survived as of 2013. [1]
Over 150 scarlet macaws have been released, with its latest population in Punta Islita where over 50 macaws have been released since 2011. Released populations are now breeding successfully.
Between 2011 and 2016, 45 great green macaws were released in Manzanillo de Limon. Nest boxes are installed and education activities take place in the local region. The population is now an established population that is breeding in the wild.
Between 2015 and 2018, The Ara Project was run by Sam Williams. It busied itself with captive breeding, reintroductions, wild population management, making artificial nest boxes, education and habitat management. As of 2019 the project has branched into two NGOs, the Macaw Recovery Network based in Punta Islita and Ara Manzanillo, each entity existing independently. Williams now runs the Macaw Recovery Network, which focusses primarily on researching and protecting wild Macaw populations, captive breeding to re-establishing populations where they went extinct, inspiring local communities and reforestation in the North of Costa Rica. [2] [11] [12]
As of 2019 macaw populations in Costa Rica appear to be slowly recovering. According to the Macaw Recovery Network there are about 300 green macaws in the north and the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, while the red macaws reach about 2,000 animals. [2] According to Ara Manzanillo there are some 350 in Costa Rica (E. Monge 2010). [11]
Macaws are a group of New World parrots that are long-tailed and often colorful. They are popular in aviculture or as companion parrots, although there are conservation concerns about several species in the wild.
Species reintroduction is the deliberate release of a species into the wild, from captivity or other areas where the organism is capable of survival. The goal of species reintroduction is to establish a healthy, genetically diverse, self-sustaining population to an area where it has been extirpated, or to augment an existing population. Species that may be eligible for reintroduction are typically threatened or endangered in the wild. However, reintroduction of a species can also be for pest control; for example, wolves being reintroduced to a wild area to curb an overpopulation of deer. Because reintroduction may involve returning native species to localities where they had been extirpated, some prefer the term "reestablishment".
Spix's macaw, also known as the little blue macaw, is a macaw species that was endemic to Brazil. It is a member of tribe Arini in the subfamily Arinae, part of the family Psittacidae. It was first described by German naturalist Georg Marcgrave, when he was working in the State of Pernambuco, Brazil in 1638 and it is named for German naturalist Johann Baptist von Spix, who collected a specimen in 1819 on the bank of the Rio São Francisco in northeast Bahia in Brazil. This bird has been completely extirpated from its natural range, and following a several-year survey, the IUCN officially declared it extinct in the wild in 2019. However, two batches of individuals have since been reintroduced into the wild in 2022.
The scarlet macaw is a large yellow, red and blue Neotropical parrot native to humid evergreen forests of the Americas. Its range extends from southeastern Mexico to Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela and Brazil in lowlands of 500 m (1,600 ft) up to 1,000 m (3,300 ft), the Caribbean island of Trinidad, as well as the Pacific island of Coiba. Formerly, the northern extent of its range included southern Tamaulipas. In some areas, it has suffered local extinction because of habitat destruction, or capture for the parrot trade, but in other areas, it remains fairly common. It is the national bird of Honduras. Like its relative the blue-and-yellow macaw, the scarlet macaw is a popular bird in aviculture as a result of its striking plumage.
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Golfo Dulce is a gulf in Costa Rica, located at the south of the Province of Puntarenas. The inlet starts on the Pacific Ocean side of Costa Rica and extends slightly northward before turning west. The most westward part is at the city of Rincon. The bay separates the Osa Peninsula from the mainland Costa Rica.
The great green macaw, also known as Buffon's macaw or the great military macaw, is a critically endangered Central and South America parrot found in Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia and Ecuador. Two allopatric subspecies are recognized; the nominate subspecies, Ara ambiguus ssp. ambiguus, occurs from Honduras to Colombia, while Ara ambiguus ssp. guayaquilensis appears to be endemic to remnants of dry forests on the southern Pacific coast of Ecuador. The nominate subspecies lives in the canopy of wet tropical forests and in Costa Rica is usually associated with the almendro tree, Dipteryx oleifera.
Ara is a Neotropical genus of macaws with eight extant species and at least two extinct species. The genus name was coined by French naturalist Bernard Germain de Lacépède in 1799. It gives its name to and is part of the Arini, or tribe of Neotropical parrots. The genus name Ara is derived from the Tupi word ará, an onomatopoeia of the sound a macaw makes.
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