Population of Red-Tailed Amazon Has Increased in Paraná State

07/16/2015 - 10h38

Since late last year the red-tailed amazon no longer features on the Brazilian endangered species list. Originally from the Atlantic Forest, it has never registered such a high population rate in a census.

The study, which has been held for 13 years by the non-governmental organization Society for Wildlife Research and Environmental Education, found 7,464 animals in Paraná state - which holds the world's highest concentration of this species.

The number is 24% higher than last year and almost double that of 2003.

According to the biologist and project coordinator, Elenise Sipinski, this growth is "moderate" and attests to the effect of measures for conservation and awareness that have been adopted in recent years.

For example, artificial nests made of wood boxes or PVC pipes have been built by staff and residents since 1998, to compensate the felling of hollow trees, which served as a natural nest. This year, out of the 110 installed nests, 83 were occupied – 87 new birds were born in them.

Awareness campaigns with locals were also effective.

Some residents used to collect newborn chicks still in the nest to gift friends or even to sell them. Today, this is not common, and the locals are partners in the preservation of animals.

To Sipinski, increasing local tourism and the pressure from the real estate market, can also threaten the species.

"They are concentrated in a very small area. Anything that happens there may cause unbalance."

There was, according to the researcher, a small population of parrots in the north coast of Santa Catarina, but 20 years have passed with no record of them.

Translated by CRISTIANE COSTA LIMA

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	Divulgação/SPVS
	The population of the red-tailed amazon has increased in Paraná state