Flying back from the brink of extinction

One of the world's rarest parrots - the Spix's macaw - is now ready to start breeding

- Simon Birch

SPIX'S MACAW HAS BEEN RETURNED S to live freely in its native Brazil having been extinct in the wild thanks to a remarkable and pioneering international conservation effort.

Named after the German naturalist Johann Baptist Ritter von Spix who first collected a specimen in 1819, the South American parrot's plight began when its homeland in northeast Brazil was destroyed by overgrazing and clearing.

Its fate was then sealed by the fact that its distinctive blue plumage proved irresistible to global bird collectors. By 2000, Spix's macaw was declared extinct in the wild.