Conservation program prepares captive parrots for life in the wild

Researchers at the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences (VMBS) are working with parrot free-flight experts and partners in Brazil in an effort to increase the success rate of releasing captive parrots into the wild.

In a recently published study, the team successfully released a small flock of blue and yellow macaws using gradual exposure to the birds’ natural environment and exposure to trained adult birds to prepare them for survival in the wild.

Two years later, all six birds in the study flock are alive and have even survived a forest fire in the region.

“Parrots are one of the most endangered groups of birds in the world,” said Dr. Donald Brightsmith, a professor in the VMBS’ Department of Veterinary Pathobiology (VTPB). “For several species, the best hope we have for increasing their numbers is to raise them in captivity and release them. But some programs spend thousands, even millions, of dollars raising parrots in captivity, only to find that these birds are not able to survive in the wild because they don’t have enough ‘real-world experience.’” 

While blue and yellow macaws are not endangered, the researchers hope to apply their techniques to populations in desperate need of conservation help.

The new method uses free-flight training, a technique developed to allow pet owners to fly macaws and other large parrots in open areas, similar to falconry. 

Though the technique has been used with parrots for a couple of decades, this team of researchers has only recently introduced free flight as a conservation tool. 

“We facilitate young macaws learning to fly, join flocks and evade predators by carefully exposing them to situations they would normally encounter anyway, all at the right stage of development,” said Chris Biro of Liberty Wings Freeflight Training, an expert in free flying parrots who helped develop the technique back in the early 2000s. “Using this method, the macaws in this study gradually learned to fly outside their cages in a controlled environment, which helped them be ready to fly freely in the wild.”

“This method is incredibly efficient because it doesn’t require generations of a species learning how to survive in a specific environment by trial and error,” said Dr. Connie Woodman, the program manager for the USDA Conservation Innovation Grants program at Texas A&M University and a VTPB faculty member. “By fledging into the release environment and watching the trained adults, our released birds can quickly learn key survival skills and significantly increase their chances of survival.” 

Learning To Fly

Preparing captive macaws to survive in the wild begins when the birds are young, about the time that they begin to get curious about the world outside the nest.

“Before a baby parrot begins fledging — the process of learning to fly and leave the nest — it will start climbing up and looking out at the world outside,” Biro said. “Already, that chick is creating a mental database of what’s normal for its world. If they see a predator, that would be out of the ordinary, so the chick learns to react to threats.”

At a later developmental stage, the chicks are encouraged to walk onto a perch and then to jump to nearby perches. From there, they begin learning to fly.

“To help the chicks learn to fly as a flock, we even train them together with other chicks and the trained adult birds, so they learn to go from ‘point A’ to ‘point B’ together. Before long, they learn to fly in beautiful, tight flocks,” Brightsmith said. 

At night and in between training sessions, the parrots rest safely in the aviary, where they receive food and water. But over time, the young birds spend less and less time in the aviary and with the adult birds, learning to find food and water on their own.

“A key part of the process is actually breaking the bond between the parrots and the humans that have been feeding them,” Brightsmith said. “In his work with parrots, Chris actually discovered that when the chicks are around 8 months old, they begin to move away from their parents and become independent. We make sure to wean the birds off hand feeding by this time so they transition to being independent wild birds, just like they would with their parents.”

Combining Free Flight With Conservation

Free flying is a promising conservation strategy because it takes advantage of macaws’ natural development while allowing researchers to control certain variables, like location.

“In many traditional releases, once you open the cage, the birds get only one shot at success,” Brightsmith said. “Often, they fly off in one direction for 10 to 15 kilometers (six to nine miles) until they’re exhausted; then they land and have no idea where anything is. They get hungry and thirsty and become easy for predators to pick off. But by doing free flight training in the environment where the birds will be released, they gradually learn the landscape, where to find food and water, and how to find their way home.”

Releasing macaws in groups also increases the chances of creating new populations that will grow over time, increasing their numbers in the wild.

“With those traditional releases, the parrots might fly off in completely different directions and not be anywhere near a potential mate,” Brightsmith said. “That’s not very helpful for increasing the numbers of an existing population or starting a new one.”

Surviving A Forest Fire

The ultimate test for the researchers’ study flock came the day after their article was published.

“A forest fire ripped through the area,” Woodman said. “To survive a natural disaster like that, animals have to have very good skills. We were very worried, both for the flock’s survival and for the effect it would have on our research. Without good evidence of our method’s success, it was less likely that other researchers would believe that it works.”

For about 36 hours, the team waited anxiously for news of the flock’s survival.

“We finally received word from the field project leader, Dr. Humberto Mendes of the Universidade Federal de Alfenas, that all six birds were found sitting in the trees outside the fire zone,” Woodman said. “Not only did they survive, but they reunited as a flock. That means they’ve survived now for two years without human help, and they’re skilled enough to survive a disaster like this.”

As humans continue to encroach on parrots’ natural habitats and droughts become more common due to climate change, disasters like the fire may become a more common challenge, making it vitally important that conservationists help animals learn to adapt to new situations. 

“I think a lot of us probably remember those nature documentaries for kids that stress the importance of not interfering with nature, that it’s important to let something take its course,” Woodman said. “The problem is that we’ve already interfered so much with the changes we have made to our climate and ecosystems worldwide. The good news is that with techniques like free flight training we can also help put species back and rewild our damaged ecosystems.”

The Future Of Free Flight Research 

Free flight conservation research is tricky to do because it involves so many different organizations.

“We call it a trans-boundary partnership,” Woodman said. “That’s because it involves academia, government and private industry, and they all have their own boundaries and rules to follow. Not only are we having to cross boundaries to make the research happen, but the birds themselves cross boundaries literally when they fly into other countries.”

With the success of their recent study, the team is hopeful that other conservationists will begin applying free flight techniques, especially to species that are endangered or threatened.

“There’s room to believe that similar techniques might be possible with other kinds of animals,” Biro said. “What’s important is that whoever is using this method understands the reason behind each step.”

By Courtney Price, Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences