Anyone who ’s seen the funky movie Rio knows of the Spix ’s macaw , the beautiful and goofy blue bird thought to be among the last of his sort in the film . While the character Blu win in saving his species by falling in love and ultimately becoming a Padre , the realness is n’t nearly as gratifying .
The Spix ’s macaw is one of eight bird mintage substantiate or likely extinct in the natural state , according to an eight - twelvemonth - longanalysisconservation group BirdLife International publicized Wednesday . Of those eight potential extinctions , five were in South America . The authors find fault deforestation .
“ Ninety percent of bird extinctions in recent centuries have been of species on islands , ” said Stuart Butchart , a master scientist at the organisation and lead author of thestudypublished in an approaching edition of Biological Conservation , per a press release . “ However , our solvent affirm that there is a growing wafture of extinctions sweeping across the continent , take mainly by habitat red and debasement from unsustainable agriculture and log . ”
Tropical forests lost39 million acresof tree diagram natural covering in 2017 . That ’s damaging to the animals who call these tree home . And the Spix ’s macaw , which once spanned the part near São Francisco River in eastern Brazil , is n’t the only macaw to suffer . There ’s also the Glaucous macaw , another blue parrot that hails from Brazil . Other shuttlecock the new study advocate re - sort out as extinct or possibly extinct on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature ’s Red List include the cryptic treehunter and Alagoas foliage - gleaner , also from Brazil . The poo - uli , a arresting bird with a fatal brass that has n’t been seen in its aboriginal Hawaii since 2004 , is also on the tilt .
The authors looked at 61 bird coinage that had n’t been spot for more than 10 years or that have been fancy in the last 10 years but have faced spectacular downslope . From there , they examined any literature on the animals—819 record and 356 surveys sum — in addition to consulting with expert who ’ve examine them . control for the possibility of misidentifying species , the study assessed the probability that any threat occurred over the metal money ’ entire mountain range , and that these threat were severe enough to touch the mintage .
With all that in mind , the authors arrived to their dissatisfactory conclusion . Still , while Blu ’s mintage has n’t been seen in the wild for more than 18 years outside alone sighting in 2016 , up to 80 are alive in captivity , accord to BirdLife International .
And who know ? These recommendations are n’t made lightly , but there is always a paring of hope that a Spix ’s macaw is hide somewhere deep in the forests of Brazil , waiting to be discover .
discipline 4:03 p.m. : This post has been corrected to remove the reference to Pixar Animation Studios . Rio is not a Pixar film . We regret the error .
Birdsconservation
Daily Newsletter
Get the best tech , science , and culture news in your inbox daily .
News from the future tense , delivered to your present .
You May Also Like
