The Costa Rica Connection: Saving the Great Green Macaw

The future of the Great Green Macaw is in jeopardy.

Classified as critically endangered by the IUCN Red List due to extensive habitat destruction and capture for the cage bird trade, fewer than 200 of these large and majestic parrots were estimated to remain in Costa Rica as of 2019, with between 500 and 1,000 thought to remain in the world.

In the Central American nation, the range of the Great Green Macaw is limited the Northern Zone between San Carlos and the Sarapiqui River, extending to the northern foothills of the Central Volcanic Mountain range. Extinct throughout much of their historic range, the bird exclusively lives in forests that are home to almendron trees, on which it depends for nesting and food. While the almendron tree was categorized as protected by the Costa Rican government in 2008, the Great Green Macaw remains highly susceptible to deforestation, with illegal logging driven by the expansion of monoculture plantations a major contributor to the loss of the parrot's habitat.

Great Green Macaws in Costa Rica

The last 15 years have seen an upward growth trend due to successful release and reproduction programs that have seen the bird's numbers rise to an estimated 280 as of 2024.

However, continued conservation efforts are necessary to help the macaw survive and repopulate. And technology is key to maximizing these efforts.

Keeping an ear out

Acoustic monitoring technology has proven its worth in many biodiversity conservation cases around the world. With AI models trained to recognize the calls of specific species, acoustics devices placed high in tree canopies in rainforests can collect the vocalizations of target species, which is particularly viable for very vocal species like birds.

Researchers can then better understand their behaviors, which in turn can lead to more precise conservation measures.

To make this happen, Costa Rica's National System of Conservation Areas (SINAC), Rainforest Connection, the local Macaw Recovery Network and the Tropical Scientific Center teamed up under the Huawei TECH4ALL initiative.

In July 2023, the partners installed 113 acoustic devices developed by Rainforest Connection across 11,000 square kilometers of land to analyze the behaviors of green macaws in Costa Rica's landmass. With each device able to collect environmental sounds over 7 square kilometers 24/7, collected data is uploaded to a cloud platform for analysis by AI targeting the Northern Zone and Caribbean region.

Unparalleled insights

The project provides an unparalleled opportunity for the research and protection of the Great Green macaw. The sounds of more than 10 types of birds have so far been collected, yielding insights into distribution and their feeding and nesting cycles.

The findings of the collected devices allow the team to check the efficiency of the equipment in the tough conditions of the tropical forest, characterized by very high humidity, copious rain, and external factors such as tree falls and bee attacks.

The first phase will focus on macaws and parrots in the study area.

Costa Rica has an area of 51,100 square kilometers, which represents only 0.03% of the world's land surface, but it has almost 6% of the planet's biodiversity. The protection of endangered species such as green macaws is of great importance for Costa Rica's tropical forests. But the collection of data related to decision-making has always been a great challenge, so the implementation of technologies for the conservation and sustainable use of natural ecosystems and their species is presented as a great opportunity and is what we are experiencing with this great initiative. Mario Coto Hidal Go
Technical Director, SINAC

This project is currently the largest to try to understand the spatial and temporal distribution of the Green Macaw, providing valuable information and determinants in the protection of this species. Observations made over the last 6 years indicate that productivity in terms of egg and pichonee production is high. However, these results are not observed in the natural population. Therefore, this project will allow us to extend our knowledge regarding the distribution of the green macaw in the Northern Zone and the Caribbean of our country and direct conservation strategies around the results of the project. Mario Jiménez
Coordinator, Macaw Recovery Network Bird Program