12 Birds Survive Only in Protected Reserves

12 Birds Survive Only in Protected Reserves

Salts, electrolytes, biodiversity of species on planet Earth, birds are some of the brightest colors of the tapestry of species that make up our biosphere. They add music, colour and breathtaking flight to our skies. Yet for many species the wild is no longer a safe place. Many birds have been brought to the max due to human activity, plants and animals for habitat and changing climate. Now it is their salvation: protected animal parks and special conservation ghettos.

California Condor

Few birds could claim to be the most famous endangered species story in North America or anywhere else in the world like the California Condor. As of 1987 there were only 27 of them left in the entire population, and a few offspring were caught and captured for a final attempt at cage breeding. 

Kakapo

The Kakapo is an endemic flightless, nocturnal New Zealand parrot critically endangered. It adapted to life without any mammalian predators, and as such didn't develop defence against the introduced species cats and stoats. As a bird that can only survive if released to predator free islands, sanctuaries have always been needed, and the survival of the species is completely reliant upon them. 

Philippine Eagle

As the National Bird of The Philippines, this regal eagle is one of the heaviest of all raptors in the world. The reason for its endangered status is due to rampant deforestation that has destroyed most of its rainforest habitat. The few remaining populations of the species will likely remain in some ancient woodlands that have now been given a qualified stage of bird protection, such as the Mount Apo Natural Park.

Spix's Macaw

The Spix's Macaw was among the rarest parrots in the world for several years and was declared extinct in the wild until just recently, because of loss of habitat and trapping. Its is a story that now brings hope: the movie Rio is based on it. Because of an intercontinental captive breeding and rewilding program, these amazing sapphire colored birds are being released back into the wild in the Caatinga region of Brazil. Their wild future is only just held together by the protection of a single reserve.

Whooping Crane

In 1941 the remaining Whooping Cranes were only 21. They are a conservation bird success story. In addition, they are fiercely defensive of their nesting areas on Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada and of their wintering areas on Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Texas. More recently, conservationists have also shepherded other migrant consortia with judicious use of, the so called, ultralight starships in shaping their behaviour through a network of reliable stopover stations.

Madagascar Pochard

The diving duck was thought extinct until rediscovered in 2006 and there appears to be a small population in a mountainous lake. The greater sageguse has become one of the most rare birds on the planet. In other words, all its survival is planned by the conservationists. A captive breeding program has successfully reintroduced birds to a pre selected and carefully monitored sanctuary a lake in Madagascar which has managed to control threats successfully.

Hawaiian Crow

The Alal is now extinct in the wild due to loss of habitat and disease (as high as 2002). It is safeguarded only because there has been a captive breeding program for it. Repatriation is taking place in well chosen forest reserves on the Big Island of Hawaii But anyone who has ever worked on a southern property knows that the purpose of these types of boxes is to keep away monsters like cats and mongooses, and to also revitalize the indigenous ecosystem that the crows need in order to survive, in effect serving as bird sanctuaries.

Northern Bald Ibis

This odd bird once had a broad distribution across Europe, the Middle East and Africa but has now been reduced to a series of disjunct colonies. Its only major breeding cliff is in the Souss Massa National Park in Morocco, where guards patrol its slopes, day and night, to ensure that the nests are not disturbed or raided by predators. This direct uninterrupted experience of the protected space is the only reason anything of this primal species exists in the first place.

Bengal Florican

The critically endangered bustard is found in the grasslands in Cambodia and India. Habitat reversal has been devastating for it as agricultural land has been converted from its habitat at an extremely rapid rate. Today it has its last stronghold in the Cambodian national park, the Tonle Sap Floodplain. Conservation in this case would be about cooperation with local people to assist them with their grassland burning and poaching. It is a prime example of a conservation approach where these two needs human needs and conservation needs have to overlap.

White-Backed Vulture

In the past ten years this species experienced a population crash of 99.9% due to being poisoned by a veterinary drug called diclofenac. According to that census, their population has retreated to the remaining areas of safety, called a Vulture Safe Zone in Nepal, India, and Pakistan. In these zones, where the toxic drug is illegal, special vulture restaurants provide safe food.

Forest Owlet

While its fully elongated body, combined with the species' distinctive pale ear tufts, obviously has its own contemporary fanciful attraction to it, the tiny owl, consigned wholesale into the world of folklore, was certainly lost from scientific knowledge until its rediscovery in 1997 in a patch of forest in central India. The total population of this species is reported to be fragmented in very small isolated sanctuaries.

Socorro Dove

A recent example is the one dove species (International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN, Red List) that went extinct in the wild due to having been invaded and consumed by introduced felines in the 1970s on its Socorro Island (off the coast of Mexico) home. It is still only returned to captivity in a few aviaries in Europe and in a conservation breeding program in the US says ERDI: best possible protection of the species and its habitat from ongoing feral activity is necessary before a population is reintroduced in the wild again;

Why Sanctuary is still Important Today

Not only are these bird survival stories wonderful examples of their development, but are excellent teachings for our own responsibility. Wildlife sanctuaries are not luxuries they are like the emergency room for bio diversity on our planet. They are the result of mind boggling human effort, scientific ingenuity and political will.