Endangered and Threatened Species:Scarlet Macaw

[Christinenc2000]

Endangered and Threatened Species: Scarlet Macaw; Listing

 

[Christinenc2000]

1. Consideration of Scarlet Macaws in the Pet Trade

In analyzing the status of the scarlet macaw, we consider to what extent, if any, captive individuals contribute to the viability of the species within its native range in the wild. Many scarlet macaws are held as pets or captive bred for the pet trade. It has been suggested that scarlet macaws captive-bred for the pet trade contribute to the conservation of the species in the wild by reducing demand on wild populations for pets and, therefore, the number of individuals poached from the wild (Fischer 2004, entire). However, the effect of legal wildlife trade on market demand and wild populations is a complex phenomenon influenced by a variety of factors (Bulte and Damania 2005, entire; Fischer 2004, entire) and we are not aware of any evidence indicating that scarlet macaws captive-bred for the pet trade currently benefit wild populations.
It has also been suggested that pet scarlet macaws and scarlet macaws captive-bred for the pet trade provide a safety net for the species by potentially providing a source of birds for reintroduction to the wild. However, pet scarlet macaws are poor candidates for re-introduction programs because those bred for the pet trade are bred with little regard for genetics and include an unknown number of subspecies crosses (Schmidt 2013, pp. 74-75), pets socialized with humans fail to act appropriately with wild individuals when released, and individuals held as pets may pose a disease risk to wild populations (Brightsmith et al 2005, p. 471). We are not aware of any evidence indicating that release of pet or pet-trade scarlet macaws benefit wild populations. For additional information regarding our evaluation of reintroduction efforts, see Reintroduction Efforts (under Additional Information on Subspecies A. m. cyanoptera and Additional Information on the Northern DPS of A. m. macao, below).
As indicated above, we are not aware of any information indicating that scarlet macaws held as pets or captive-bred for the pet trade contribute to the conservation of the species in the wild. Therefore, we do not consider them further in our assessment of species status, except when assigning status to subspecies crosses (see 7. Adding a proposal to treat the Southern DPS of A. m. macao and Interspecific Crosses as Threatened Based on Similarity of Appearance).

 

[Scott]

Thanks Christine! So many parrots are endangered, but I did not recognize the plight of the Scarlet. I'd love to see efforts expended towards helping them all rather than adopting a defeatist attitude of "we can't save them all." So many species coexist in similar environments; there must be a halo effect from efforts targeted towards specific species.