LORO PARQUE FUNDACIÓN SAVES THE BLUE-THROATED MACAW FROM EXTINCTION

Every year in the Bolivian city of Santísima Trinidad the traditional “Chope Piesta” is celebrated. A typical festival where a great variety of indigenous dances are performed, the dancers wear striking headdresses with plumage formerly taken from the blue-throated macaw. This has led to the birds being poached for decades. This has led to the birds becoming endangered.

For more than 20 years, Loro Parque Fundación has been working to find an alternative to the use of the feathers of the parabas (as they are called in Bolivia). Multiple workshops to learn how to make headdresses with artificial feathers and the promotion of a feather competition with alternative material have managed to maintain the tradition while preserving the biodiversity of the region.

The blue-bearded macaw has been saved from certain extinction thanks to Loro Parque Fundación. It is a real jewel of nature which, in the 1990s, did not exceed 50 specimens.

Nowadays, no more than 350 specimens have been counted in the wild and, although it is still critically endangered, its prospects of not disappearing are considerably better.

By Raquel Álvarez

Photos by José Chiyah Álvarez