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On November 2006, a group of some twenty parrots bred in captivity will be released in a forest in central Puerto Rico, Bosque Estatal Río Abajo in Arecibo. Federal and local agencies are collaborating in a project expected to prevent the extinction of this beautiful animal. The parrots will be fitted with radiotransmitters that will emit information which will be used by scientists to study the living patterns of parrots in the wild.
The Puerto Rican parrot prefers to nest in hollow forest trees, high above the ground. The reduction of forests in Puerto Rico throughout the last 500 years has been responsible for diminishing nesting areas for the parrots. The Puerto Rican parrot has its share of natural enemies in the wild, especially predating animals that feed on the eggs and the hatchlings. Its worse enemy, however, is man. The parrot was hunted for food by native Puerto Ricans before the discovery of Puerto Rico by Christopher Columbus in 1493. In the last 500 years, settlers have destroyed many of the forests where the parrots flourished. The parrot was also caught to be kept as a household pet.
Today your chances of seeing a Puerto Rican parrot in the wild are very slim, because of the limited number of birds remaining. Other similar parrot species from other Latin American countries have been introduced as pets, and a number of them have fled or been released. Chances are that if you do see a green parrot in the wild in our forests or cities, it will be one of the alien species.
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To say that Amazona vittata vittata, the Puerto Rican Parrot, is a species in danger of extinction, is a huge understatement. The species, which is endemic to Puerto Rico, was at one time widely distributed geographically throughout Puerto Rico and neighboring Culebra. On November 2006, the estimate of living parrots is for under two dozen birds, all in the El Yunque Caribbean National Forest.
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