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Saving the Puerto Rican Parrot
An endangered species almost lost to Hurricane Maria
© Tom MacKenzie / USFWS
In 2017, Hurricane Maria tore through the island, causing widespread destruction for both people and for birds. The critically endangered Puerto Rican Parrot was devastated by the storm when they lost their food sources. However, the Puerto Rican Parrot Recovery Program helped save the birds in the wild with feeding stations. The program is working to boost the species’ numbers through captive breeding.
BirdNote®
Saving the Puerto Rican Parrot
Adapted from the Threatened podcast
This is BirdNote.
[Puerto Rican Parrot calls]
Tanya Martínez is the project leader for the Puerto Rican Parrot Recovery Program. She and her team are working to boost the numbers of this critically endangered parrot in the wild.
[Puerto Rican Parrot calls at the breeding center]
In 2017, Hurricane Maria tore through the island, causing widespread destruction for both people and birds. Tanya says the wild parrots lost many of their natural food sources. So they began depending on feeding stations at the breeding center.
Tanya Martínez: The entire wild population, uh, would just descend on these feeding platforms, and they were just completely ravenous. And we ended up having to fill these feeding stations multiple times a day just so that the birds would have enough to eat, because there just wasn't enough food around.
The wild population of parrots was devastated. But several dozen clung to survival thanks to the feeding stations. And the breeding program began rebuilding right away.
Tanya Martínez: Immediately after the hurricane, all of our focus was really just about stabilizing operations, fixing the infrastructure, rebuilding cages, making these captive breeding facilities functional.
[Puerto Rican Parrot calls]
Learn more about efforts to save the Puerto Rican Parrot on the Threatened podcast, available in both English and en español. Listen in your podcast app or at BirdNote dot org. I’m Ari Daniel.
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Senior Producer: John Kessler
Content Director: Allison Wilson
Producer: Mark Bramhill
Managing Producer: Conor Gearin
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2023 BirdNote January 2023
Narrator: Ari Daniel
ID# PRPA-01-2023-01-16 PRPA-01
