Of Paper and Ponies (and Science!)

rhamphotheca:

Fuertes’s Parrot (Hapalopsittaca fuertesi)

CRITICALLY ENDANGERED

The beautifully-colored Fuertes’s Parrot, also known as the Indigo-winged Parrot, was thought to be extinct for 90 years, but was rediscovered in 2002 by ABC’s Colombian partner, Fundación ProAves. A small population of 60 individuals was found living in fragmented and unprotected high-Andean cloud forests of Quindio Department.

Since then, concerted action has protected the tiny range of the Fuertes’s Parrot. ProAves and other conservation groups have established a series of reserves known collectively as the Threatened Parrot Corridor. Together these reserves cover roughly 19,000 acres of key habitat, and protect approximately 70% of the Fuertes’s Parrot population as well as populations of four other species of imperiled parrots: the Yellow-eared Parrot, Rusty-faced Parrot, the Golden-plumed Parakeet, and the Rufous-fronted Parakeet.

A nest box program has been initiated in the reserves and has helped bolster the Fuertes’s population significantly.

Check out more about this project here, and support additional conservation for this rare parrot of the Andes!

(via: American Bird Conservancy)     (photo: Fundación ProAves)

So pretty!