Spix's Macaw news

[DDcorvus]

again good news! 2 Spix's Macaws hatched at the ACTP. Both chicks will be hand raised. The young are coming from the original breeding female together with the original male Ritchie which returned back from Brazil after failing to produce there.

Good news except the two young is the sign that next to the LPF and Al-Wabra a third institution seems to get the hang of breeding Spix's (second breeding succes after Frieda in 2008). Worrying fact is that there are still no breeding results in Brazil itself.

 

[Kifaru Bwana]

again good news! 2 Spix's Macaws hatched at the ACTP. Both chicks will be hand raised. The young are coming from the original breeding female together with the original male Ritchie which returned back from Brazil after failing to produce there.

Good news except the two young is the sign that next to the LPF and Al-Wabra a third institution seems to get the hang of breeding Spix's (second breeding succes after Frieda in 2008). Worrying fact is that there are still no breeding results in Brazil itself.

@DDCorvus/Pertinax
I share both your concerns re. the Brazilian birds. Our esteemed Brasileira forumster eduardo has commented regularly that the birds in Brazil are alas not kept in good conditions.

I would expect that a more than cultured avicultarist and psittacologist would be able to breed the Spix's macaw with some degree of success. The reason why it only so few instances of breeding have occured in captivity has more to do with the paucity of locations and facilities holding birds and the relatively low numbers overall that ended up suriviving and/or reproducing in captivity.

I do still have a lingering hope that the Brasilian govt. will get its act together on conservation breeding programmes and put serious funding towards its zoos to enable them to cover and execute that all important role in ambassador species like the Spix's macaw (and als the Lear's macaw of course).

 

[eduardo_Brazil]

@DDCorvus/Pertinax
I share both your concerns re. the Brazilian birds. Our esteemed Brasileira forumster eduardo has commented regularly that the birds in Brazil are alas not kept in good conditions.

I would expect that a more than cultured avicultarist and psittacologist would be able to breed the Spix's macaw with some degree of success. The reason why it only so few instances of breeding have occured in captivity has more to do with the paucity of locations and facilities holding birds and the relatively low numbers overall that ended up suriviving and/or reproducing in captivity.

I do still have a lingering hope that the Brasilian govt. will get its act together on conservation breeding programmes and put serious funding towards its zoos to enable them to cover and execute that all important role in ambassador species like the Spix's macaw (and als the Lear's macaw of course).

Hi,

Im trying to get a picture of the cage where the spix are keept in Sao Paulo... I would think several times before put even budgerigar in such a small cage.

I doubt if this birds at São Paulo will get in breeding condition, since one of males is very afetive or was to a Ara maracana..and this small cages dont facilitate anything for this birds!

I would like to see them transfered to the Lymington Foundation that have results with Lears..São Paulo still dont have results with Lears even keeping more than 20 individuals!

Maybe in future the Brazilian Government will awake from is dormency with breeding programs, but its a very difficult task since they have to change the entire law regarding keeping animals in Brazil...

 

[Pertinax]

Good news except the two young is the sign that next to the LPF and Al-Wabra a third institution seems to get the hang of breeding Spix's (second breeding succes after Frieda in 2008). Worrying fact is that there are still no breeding results in Brazil itself.

I don't think Spix are anymore difficlt to breed than other Macaws, that's in experienced hands with proper housing, food and husbandry. What's needed are compatable partners, decent-sized flights etc which Sao Paolo can't seem to provide. Even the Swiss breeder (Meisser?) was able to breed some of his Spix, in a highly unsuitable (Alpine) climate.

One other thing I think they will need to address soon is allowing some pairs to hatch and rear some young themselves. Obviously removal of eggs/handraising is the safer option, ensures more chicks are raised and more eggs laid. But longterm it could produe a population with most/all birds handraised and where chick-raising ability is lost through lack of experience. I know Al Wabra have signified they will allow pairs to raise their own chicks at some stage.

 

[DDcorvus]

I don't think Spix are anymore difficlt to breed than other Macaws, that's in experienced hands with proper housing, food and husbandry. What's needed are compatable partners, decent-sized flights etc which Sao Paolo can't seem to provide. Even the Swiss breeder (Meisser?) was able to breed some of his Spix, in a highly unsuitable (Alpine) climate.

One other thing I think they will need to address soon is allowing some pairs to hatch and rear some young themselves. Obviously removal of eggs/handraising is the safer option, ensures more chicks are raised and more eggs laid. But longterm it could produe a population with most/all birds handraised and where chick-raising ability is lost through lack of experience. I know Al Wabra have signified they will allow pairs to raise their own chicks at some stage.

I cannot agree more with you Pertinax. The problem with the Spix's is that there always have been so few of them. Husbandry wise it does not seems to be very different from other small macaws. B.t.w. the LPF announced in their press-release that the proven pair that is brooding on an egg now so I assume they ll be allowed to raise the chick as well (which would be a logical step as this pair already has already several offspring in Tenerife and Brazil so the risk of losing this young would be acceptable.)

And hand-raising does not have to affect the chick-raising ability of macaws. As long as the birds are properly socialized there are no problems with that. Even parent-raised macaws have to learn how to raise chicks and it's very common that a first and second nest get lost, because of the inexperience of the parents.

 

[DDcorvus]

Eduardo do you know how things are going at the Lymington Foundation? I kind of expected some breeding results there already or maybe I m just too impatient? And it would be a logical step to move some birds from the Sao Paulo Zoo there and just leave retired birds in the Zoo for educational purposes.

 

[Pertinax]

And hand-raising does not have to affect the chick-raising ability of macaws. As long as the birds are properly socialized there are no problems with that. Even parent-raised macaws have to learn how to raise chicks and it's very common that a first and second nest get lost, because of the inexperience of the parents.

Yes, I do appreciate that handraising macaws shouldn't interfere with their instinctive behaviour to breed and raise young if properly socialised. In that respect its good to see the Al Wabra young birds all together in a flock 'playing' together in a large flight. I think I foresaw a situation though where no parent-reared birds at all were being produced and that can't be good for a species in general. Some behavioural traits could well be lost over time/generations with that situation.

I do hope LP allow the pair to try and raise a chick. I know Macaw parents need to 'learn by practise' so its always a risk the first few times, but my concern was that none of the current breeders are getting that sort of experience- so far- reasons obviously as stated above.

 

[eduardo_Brazil]

Eduardo do you know how things are going at the Lymington Foundation? I kind of expected some breeding results there already or maybe I m just too impatient? And it would be a logical step to move some birds from the Sao Paulo Zoo there and just leave retired birds in the Zoo for educational purposes.

I really dont know what is going one at Lymington...maybe not suitable pairing (São Paulo Zoo birds would help). But you can sure that the owners of Lymington provide the best of care for his birds...so I think is only a question of time for get some thing out.

I dont know the age of the birds at Lymington! Maybe older individuals could be considered ?

 

[Kifaru Bwana]

I really dont know what is going one at Lymington...maybe not suitable pairing (São Paulo Zoo birds would help). But you can sure that the owners of Lymington provide the best of care for his birds...so I think is only a question of time for get some thing out.

I dont know the age of the birds at Lymington! Maybe older individuals could be considered ?

I seem to remember reading somewhere re. the total captive flock including the Lymington birds. Obviously, it would be better if some of the Sao Paolo birds were transferred to the private facility which seems in a better position to care for these rare birds in housing more conducive to psittacine husbandry and rearing.

I too figure that Spix's macaw is not particularly hard to breed given a good facility and husbandry care level at a given locale. It just seems sad the Brazilian govt. remains intransigent on the Sao Paulo birds issue ... (indeed Eduardo it needs movement on the part of the govt.).

Pretty soon in the entire project it would be the nationally administered side in Brazil (e.g. Sao Paulo Zoo) which would then be the odd one out in Spix's breeding. Some embarrassment ... (alas, which might start them into action on better facilities et cetera for breeding)

I agree it would be better to have a facility with 2-4 birds only at Sao Paulo and house the others in state-of-the-art facilities at Lymington or elsewhere in the country. To hell with ownership ....!@!

 

[ryanwatson]

Hi,

Sorry for chiming in so late on this subject, but I only just learnt of Zoo Chat recently after receiving a "Spix's Macaw - Google Alert" which took me to this thread.
As the Blue Macaw Coordinator for AWWP and the International Studbook keeper for the Spix's macaw, I felt I should correct some of the above information and speculations.
The estimate of the number of Spix's macaws outside the official captive breeding program has been reduced to 12 birds in Switzerland. It turns out that information given to us that more were in Switzerland, Croatia, South Africa, and Japan was all bogus. These twelve birds in Switzerland are owned by two different people but held in the same "secret" facility. All of these birds are related to the studbook managed population, but it still would be nice to get them included in the program. Currently there are 74 (29.44.1) spixii in the program, with chicks most recently hatching in Germany (1.1) in January and AWWP (0.0.1) in March. This total may seem lower than expected given that we had a similar number accounted for in 2007. The reason for this is that the 12 birds supposedly owned by ACTP in Switzerland never materialized, and hence were taken out of the equation.
The old male AWWP bred from in 2010 is of Swiss origin, not Philippines, and it is not the first time her has bred, just the first time for AWWP and the first time in 10 years. In total he has sired 18 offspring, of which 12 are thought to still be alive, 10 off which are in the managed population.
Sheikh Saoud has no commercial interests in keeping wildlife, we do not sell any animals. The Sheikh's intention for the Spix's macaw is to help with reestablishing the species in the wild. Before this is possible the captive population needs to experience steady population growth, something which is proving difficult because of genetic problems; 69 of the 74 birds relate back to one sibling pair and of the 5 non-directly related (but genetically similar) birds, only 3 are viable breeders. Consequently, egg viability is currently only approximately 10% and even less for F2 birds - aprrox 2%.
The issue of ownership is something very over-hyped, it is not important who owns the birds, all that is important is how they cooperate. Brazil has never even asked Sheikh Saoud to return ownership of his Spix's Macaws as he acquired them legally and has proven to be a very valuable asset to their efforts to recover the species. To anyone critical of Sheikh's Saoud's involvement in Spix's Macaw conservation, ask yourself the question: where would the species be if he had not stepped in and took control of the Swiss and Philippines populations and got them back into the program? Brazil does not care about the ownership of the captive birds, what they care about is getting the species back to the wild where ownership is irrelevant. AWWP is committed to returning Spix's macaws to Brazil, and in preparation for reestablishment, we have purchased the 2380 hectare Concordia Farm which we are in the process of registering as a private conservation reserve, therefore protecting it against any possibility of it ever being used for agriculture again. In the second half of 2011 AWWP will establish a breeding facility for Spix's macaws in Brazil and will send birds from Qatar to stock it in 2012.

 

[ryanwatson]

Hi,

Sorry for chiming in so late on this subject, but I only just learnt of Zoo Chat recently after receiving a "Spix's Macaw - Google Alert" which took me to this site.
As the Blue Macaw Coordinator for AWWP and the International Studbook keeper for the Spix's macaw, I felt I should correct some of the above information and speculations.
The estimate of the number of Spix's macaws outside the official captive breeding program has been reduced to 12 birds in Switzerland. It turns out that information given to us that more were in Switzerland, Croatia, South Africa, and Japan was all bogus. These twelve birds in Switzerland are owned by two different people but held in the same "secret" facility. All of these birds are related to the studbook managed population, but it still would be nice to get them included in the program. Currently there are 74 (29.44.1)
AWWP (21.33.1), ACTP (2.3), Loro Parque (3.6) SPZ (2.2) and Lymington (1.0) spixii in the program, with chicks most recently hatching in Germany (1.1) in January and AWWP (0.0.1) in March. This total may seem lower than expected given that we had a similar number accounted for in 2007. The reason for this is that the 12 birds supposedly owned by ACTP in Switzerland never materialized, and hence were taken out of the equation.
The old male AWWP bred from in 2010 is of Swiss origin, not Philippines, and it is not the first time her has bred, just the first time for AWWP and the first time in 10 years. In total he has sired 18 offspring, of which 12 are thought to still be alive, 10 off which are in the managed population.
Sheikh Saoud has no commercial interests in keeping wildlife, we do not sell any animals. The Sheikh's intention for the Spix's macaw is to help with reestablishing the species in the wild. Before this is possible the captive population needs to experience steady population growth, something which is proving difficult because of genetic problems; 69 of the 74 birds relate back to one sibling pair and of the 5 non-directly related (but genetically similar) birds, only 3 are viable breeders. Consequently, egg viability is currently only approximately 10% and even less for F2 birds - aprrox 2%.
AWWP is committed to returning Spix's macaws to Brazil, and in preparation for reestablishment, we have purchased the 2380 hectare Concordia Farm which we are in the process of registering as a private conservation reserve, therefore protecting it against any possibility of it ever being used for agriculture again. In the second half of 2011 AWWP will establish a breeding facility for Spix's macaws in Brazil and will send birds from Qatar to stock it in 2012.

 

[Pertinax]

Before this is possible the captive population needs to experience steady population growth, something which is proving difficult because of genetic problems; 69 of the 74 birds relate back to one sibling pair and of the 5 non-directly related (but genetically similar) birds, only 3 are viable breeders. Consequently, egg viability is currently only approximately 10% and even less for F2 birds - aprrox 2%.

Hi & welcome to Zoochat. Thankyou for the very comprehensive update and explanation about the current situation with Spix.

I wasn't aware of quite such extreme relatedness of most of the birds. Can you supply any history for the sibling founder pair, e.g. would they be the original pair owned by de Dios in the Phillipines?

Can anything be done to redress these fertility problems?

 

[Kifaru Bwana]

@ryanwatson
Thanks for the update. Al Wabra's work is well appreciated in informed circles, not just in matters macaws.

Nice to learn that 2012 a new facility will be stocked up with Al Wabra bred up birds.

Keep up the good work!

 

[nanoboy]

Hi Guys,

I am doing some reading on the illegal wildlife trade and I wanted to pick your brains:

If a Spix's macaw were to become available for sale today, how much would it trade hands for? The last time one of the birds was sold, what was the selling price?

And as a bonus question for anyone knowledgeable on the subject, what's the highest price paid for a bird of any species?

 

[Pertinax]

something which is proving difficult because of genetic problems; 69 of the 74 birds relate back to one sibling pair

Thanks for this valuable update.

Would the 'sibling pair' mentioned above, be the first pair of birds obtained by De Dios in the Phillipines?

 

[ryanwatson]

Spix pedigree

Sorry for delay in replying, I do not get much free time these days... The founder pair I mentioned are the original breeding pair from BII, Stbk's #11 and #12. We use micro-satellite data of all the individual birds in the population to guide our pairing choices and hope that the species can squeeze through the genetic bottleneck they are currently in. Would be really nice to have all the birds which are not managed in the studbook in the program, and although to the best of our knowledge they are all related to the birds in the studbook, it could still make a significant difference.
Please find attached the most recent Spix's Macaw pedigree.

 

[ryanwatson]

Spix's Macaw are worth approximately 60,000-80,000 Euros each. The highest price that I know of for a bird, US$400,000 for a white Saker falcon which was wild caught somewhere in one of the ____stans and solds to a wealthy middle-eastern falconer, I think from Kuwait. Apparently it was taken on a hunting trip to Morocco and performed well on it first hunt before flying away and never being seen again during the second hunt!

 

[nanoboy]

Spix's Macaw are worth approximately 60,000-80,000 Euros each. The highest price that I know of for a bird, US$400,000 for a white Saker falcon which was wild caught somewhere in one of the ____stans and solds to a wealthy middle-eastern falconer, I think from Kuwait. Apparently it was taken on a hunting trip to Morocco and performed well on it first hunt before flying away and never being seen again during the second hunt!

Hi ryanwatson,

Many thanks for the reply. The price of a Spix's Macaw is incredible, but still a bit low I suppose considering that they are supposedly extinct in the wild.

That is a very funny story about the falcon. I just did some reading and these falcons appear to be fairly widespread and definitely not as rare as a Spix's. I guess the high price was due to its pedigree or training or something like a thoroughbred race horse....

Oh, on another note, has anyone seen the new animated movie "Rio"? It is about a Spix's Macaw! From what I read, it seems to be based on a true story (the macaw anonymously lands on a woman's doorstep, she raises it, then years later is approached to take it to Brazil to become involved in a breeding programme).

ryanwatson, or anyone else, a question about these high-priced illegally traded birds. I have a perception that the birds are kept under horrible conditions (eg small cramped cages) when caught and before a sale. But I also imagine that when the bird is bought by a collector, the bird actually lives a more luxurious, pampered life than you or I. I mean, I can't imagine someone paying $50k for an exotic animal and not giving it the best care that money can buy? Is this true?

 

[jwer]

Come to think of it, does anyone (Mister Watson?) know what happened to the lone male Spix Macaw that was discovered in a Denver livingroom in 2002 and transported to Brasil?

Did they manage to incorporate him into the breeding stock, and did you get any information about his ancestry?

 

[Pertinax]

It is about a Spix's Macaw! From what I read, it seems to be based on a true story (the macaw anonymously lands on a woman's doorstep, she raises it, then years later is approached to take it to Brazil to become involved in a breeding programme).

Sounds like a derivation of the story of Presley, the Spix male that was discovered in about 2003 living in a cage in a living room in a Denver(?), Colorado USA suburb.