Conservation status of the recently described Ecuadorian Amazon parrot Amazona lilacina

Abstract

Summary Amazona lilacina is a threatened species endemic to Ecuador, existing across a patchwork of mangroves, lowland coastal forests, agricultural and community owned land. The species was described in 2014 and listed as ‘Endangered’ on the IUCN Red List, however, full assessment of the population was lacking. Using a combination of field observations, roost surveys and community questionnaires, conducted over the last 20 years, we provide up-to-date information on the species’ Extent of Occurrence, estimate its global population size, and evaluate its level of threat. Our results suggest the species occurs across an area of 19,890 km2 in three distinct geographically isolated subpopulations. Roost surveys across the range estimate the minimum remaining population at 741–1,090 individuals and we present evidence to suggest a 60% decline over the past 19 years in one part of the species’ range. We conducted community questionnaires with 427 people from 52 communities. The presence of pet parrots was reported in 37 communities, including 17 communities which reported pet A. lilacina. From this we predict that over half of all communities within our study area keep parrots as pets and at least 96 communities keep A. lilacina. Our findings justify an IUCN Red Listing of at least ‘Endangered’ for this species and highlight the need for conservation support. In order to assess population health in more detail, further research is required to assess genetic diversity and roost dynamics, and to identify areas that may be important for feeding and nesting throughout the range. As many of these areas are likely to overlap with community owned land, we suggest that future conservation actions should revolve around, and be led by, these communities.

Parrot Ownership and Capture in Coastal Ecuador: Developing a Trapping Pressure Index

“…We also found that capture location corresponded to the occupation of the poacher, which may explain the variation between rural communities as occupation depends heavily on location, i.e., in-land or coastal. Our trapping pressure index identified that the southern distribution of the species is likely to be at greatest risk, which agrees with earlier work showing a vast population decline in this area [17] and provides further evidence that this area should be prioritised for conservation support.…”

“…These communities ranged in size from 50 to 300 people. The reason these sites were chosen was because our focus was on understanding risk to Lilacine Amazons, so the selected communities fell within the species extent of occurrence and were <15 km away from key roosting, nesting and feeding grounds [17]. These 12 communities were grouped into four clusters ( Figure 1).…”

“…Attitudes and subjective norms are also factors that influence decision making [14], and are therefore likely to affect the level of pet keeping and capture in different areas. In Ecuador, wild bird keeping is illegal [15], and whilst ownership appears to be declining in major cities [16] demand is still high in rural areas, where over half of coastal communities still keep pet parrots [17]. The most frequently reported confiscated bird species in the country are those with wild distributions exclusive to this coastal region [16,18].…”

“…The Critically Endangered Lilacine or Ecuadorian Amazon Amazona lilacina, a species recently split from the A. autumnalis group, is found exclusively within the coastal region of Ecuador [22]. CITES reported thousands of individuals of this species being trapped and exported in the early 1980s [23] and although frequency of trapping is likely to have reduced significantly in recent years, there are still multiple reports of capture and petkeeping within rural communities [17]. An average of 392 wild-caught parrots, including 30 A. autumnalis, were confiscated annually in Ecuador between 2003 and 2016 [16].…”

Opportunistic or Non-Random Wildlife Crime? Attractiveness Rather Than Abundance in the Wild Leads to Selective Parrot Poaching

“…Although international bans have largely reduced the legal trade on parrots [42,49] and the upsurge of captive-breeding [6,49] has reduced the demand of wild-caught traded birds, illegal trade is still active [50], although at much lower volumes, including illegal trade on African grey parrots [51]. Nonetheless, while international trade is a matter of concern, less attention has been paid to the conservation impact of domestic trade on parrots, even though it is known to occur in different regions of the world, such as Madagascar [52], Asia [34], and all across the Neotropical region [9,23,35,38,39,[53][54][55][56][57]. Due to its illegal nature, the true scale and impact of parrot poaching are often underestimated [34] and based mainly on counts from pet markets [53,55,58], government seizures, or other information sources difficult to verify [9,35,53].…”