Species protection: O how beautiful are Panama trees - for the rare hyacinth

The first tree that morning is just a few minutes' drive from the research station, densely packed with a few dozen palm and deciduous trees on a small elevation - an island in a sea of ​​grass. These forests are called Capão here in Brazil in the Pantanal, one of the largest wetlands on earth. It's November, the rainy season is just beginning, in a few weeks the grassy area will be flooded, and then the tree will actually be on an island. It is easy to see that there is something special about this tree. A silver metal dress surrounds its trunk at a height of two meters. Biologist Neiva Guedes explains protection against animals that could climb up. It is a Panama tree, and birds have made their nests high up in a natural cave that Guedes desperately wants to protect: hyacinth macaws.

There are more than 350 species of parrots worldwide. The macaws are the largest of them, and

, the hyacinth macaw, is the largest of the macaws, up to a meter in length. However, according to estimates, only about 6,500 specimens live in the wild worldwide, the largest population is to be found in the Pantanal. Their species is endangered because the blue macaws are popular in the animal trade and poachers hunt them down because ever larger fires threaten the Pantanal in the dry season. And because the imposing birds are real specialists: They feed almost exclusively on the fruits of two types of palm, the acuri and bocaiuva palms. And they prefer the caves in large, old Panama trees (

), here called Manduvi, for their nests.

A string is tied to one side of the tree that Guedes is visiting that morning. A huge loop that hangs from a branch high above. The researchers tie a solid rope to it, pull it over the branch and attach the end to a palm tree. Now Lucas Rocha Novaes can latch onto the rope and climb up to the nest hole. At a height of ten meters, he uses a temperature gun to measure how warm it is in and around the nest. Then he carefully reaches in with gloves, takes the young animal out, puts it in a cloth bag and puts it in a basket, which he gently drops on the floor. There Guedes receives the basket, and on the unfolded loading area of ​​the pick-up, she carefully takes the bird out of the bag. This macaw is almost three months old and already beautiful with its bright blue plumage,only the skin around the eye and on the lower beak glows yellow. “What a fine fellow,” says Guedes. She measures the animal, weighs it and takes a blood sample. This is the only way to determine the sex with certainty, and the plumage does not reveal anything later. Finally, it gets a metal ring on its leg, it says “Projeto Arara Azul”.

In November 1989, Neiva Guedes was very close by. At the time, the studied biologist worked for the environmental agency of the state of Mato Grosso do Sul in the capital Campo Grande. At a training event in the Pantanal, she was just 26 years old when she saw hyacinth macaws in the wild for the first time: "That was love at first sight." At that time, it was estimated that there were far more animals in captivity than in nature. The bird, it seemed at the time, could soon have disappeared from the Pantanal. Guedes decided to fight to save the species. She quit her job, went back to university, studied forest sciences and started the “Projeto Arara Azul” in 1990, now one of the longest-running species protection projects in Brazil. The goal: to explore the hyacinth macaw,to better protect him.