A success story from Costa Rica

Just over a decade ago, only two fragmented populations of the Scarlet Macaw (Ara macao macao) remained in Costa Rica, with 330 birds in the Carara Biological Reserve in the central Pacific region, and 700 on the remote Osa Peninsula, in and around Corcovado National Park. But, due to the remaining 9,100 sq kms of macaw habitat being turned into protected national parks in 2003, a vigorous awareness campaign to help protect the macaw from trappers, and the emergence of three major ‘breeding for release’ projects which have come into fruition in the last decade, the Scarlet Macaw is at last being given a chance of long-term survival in the forests of Costa Rica.

Read more in the magazine…