Protecting Yellow-headed Parrots

Each fall, as the leaves in my yard begin their yearly descent from the trees to the ground, I start dreading the copious amount of raking I’ll have to do in the coming weeks. Keeping the leaves out of my quarter-acre yard seems to be a never ending battle. Imagine if you had to manage more than 200,000 acres of land, with only nine other people to help you. Sounds rather overwhelming, doesn’t it?

The yellow-headed parrot, Amazona oratrix

That, in essence, is what park rangers in the Rio Bravo Conservation and Management Area in Belize must deal with on a daily basis, as they work to protect species such as the yellow-headed parrot (Amazona oratrix) from a variety of threats, mainly poaching. The ten park rangers, working for the non-profit group Programme for Belize (PFB), are responsible for helping PFB monitor, maintain, and manage over 200,000 acres of land, which as you can imagine, is no easy task.

Finding ways to help these rangers and PFB with the difficult task of protecting the yellow-headed parrot was something that I was able to do through my participation in the Emerging Wildlife Conservation Leaders program (EWCL). EWCL is designed to bring together top young professionals in the wildlife conservation community and provide them with training in leadership and campaigning skills, while also offering networking and mentoring opportunities with some of the wildlife conservation community’s top professionals. The program lasts for two years and includes two weeklong training sessions at the White Oak Conservation Center in Florida, as well as a final two-day training and graduation session in D.C. at the conclusion of the second year.

Parrot poachers chop down nesting trees and cut open nesting holes to steal parrot chicks

During the first weeklong training session, the EWCL participants in the program break into small groups and begin to utilize the skills they’ve acquired up to that point to develop and implement a campaign involving an international wildlife conservation issue.

Finding Ways to Help Parrots

It was through EWCL that I, along with my five wonderful group members, learned about the issues facing the yellow-headed parrot in Belize. The bird, which has experienced a 90% population decline over the past decade, is endemic to the Rio Bravo conservation area. Although the land in the area is protected, poachers often sneak into the park to capture yellow-headed parrot chicks, eventually selling them into the local pet trade. Protecting the chicks and birds from poachers isn’t an easy task for the park rangers, especially considering the size of the area they’re trying to monitor. In addition, prosecuting someone who does poach a nest isn’t an easy task in Belize, where the crime is considered petty.

As we graduated from the EWCL program this past weekend, I realized that the most important lesson I’d learned from the entire two-year experience was how great of an impact an individual and small group can have on wildlife conservation. In just two years, my group, along with the three other groups that made up my graduating class, was able to help protect four wildlife species from across the world.

EWCL enabled my group to work to help protect the yellow-headed parrot in Belize. Through the great work of several of my group members, we were able to secure funds from the Ulysses S. Seal Conservation Fund of the Minnesota Zoo to hire additional rangers during the last breeding season. These additional rangers helped provide enhanced protection from poaching for the yellow-headed parrot chicks during the last breeding season. The Ulysses S. Seal Conservation Fund also provided funds to help purchase climbing equipment for the rangers, a vital tool desperately needed to allow the rangers on the ground to check on yellow-headed parrot nests that are often very high off the ground in the cavities of local pine trees.

Yellow headed parrot chicks in their nest

Through the generous support of the World Wildlife Fund’s Russell E. Train Education for Nature Program, our group was also able to help organize and secure funding to host a GIS mapping software training course in Belize that will take place in February of 2011. GIS training was something that the rangers from BFB said would be a useful tool for them to help fight and track the poaching problem in the Rio Bravo conservation area.

A Video is Worth a Thousands Words

Finally, through funds provided by the EWCL Board and various other in-kind donations, our group was able to secure fantastic video footage of the yellow-headed parrot, including the first-known footage of yellow-headed parrot chicks in the wild. Below, you’ll find a link to a video in which you can see that footage, the challenges rangers face in protecting the bird, and the wonderful work that is being done to help ensure the survival of these wonderful birds.

EWCL has been a wonderful experience for me. I’ll always treasure the people I’ve been able to work with, the experiences I’ve gained, and the lessons I’ve learned about wildlife conservation. But as we graduated from the EWCL program this past weekend, I realized that the most important lesson I’d learned from the entire two-year experience was how great of an impact an individual and small group can have on wildlife conservation. In just two years, my group, along with the three other groups that made up my graduating class, was able to help protect four wildlife species from across the world. If the 21 people from my EWCL graduating class can come together and help protect four threatened wildlife species, there is no reason why any individual or group should think they can’t have the same positive impact on wildlife conservation.

A special thanks to my fellow yellow-headed parrot group members – Michelle Williams Benham, Nav Dayanand, Matt Kirby, Eliot Levine, and Melanie Sorensen, who did so much work to make this project so special! And a special thanks to Nina Fascione and Jeff Flocken, who together started the EWCL program, for all of the help they and the EWCL Board provided to all of us.

Stay tuned for more posts from recent EWCL graduates!