About two decades ago, the unexpected discovery, recorded from a lifetime along the undulating plains with the Kanuku Mountains, delighted conservationists and became world famous in ornithological tradition.
Led by experienced native guides, an American scientific team organized jointly by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington stumbled across a living, isolated Guyanese treasure. They found an undocumented population of the captive of the rare wild twig with its crimson color and black head, known as the Red Siskin, surviving in the remote southwestern corner of our country, having dominated by curvy grasses, and the bird’s preferred home of the “caimbé” or “sandpaper tree,” Curatella americana, with its sweet, edible pale flowers and tillandsia-covered branches.
The Kanuku means “forest” in the Wapishana language, a reference to the zone’s incredibly rich variety of local wildlife, including over half of our known bird species, and nearly three-quarters of all mammals found here, ranging from the Giant otter, and the Harpy Eagle to the Arapaima.
While observing a flock of mixed species on the outskirts of the Rupununi forest, and savannah dotted with “bush islands,” on April 12, 2000, veteran Evolutionary Biologist Mark Robbins – who has a special ear, many thousands of recordings and the gear perfect for different bird songs – he heard a small flock of Carduelis-like birds flying overhead. The genus Carduelis is a group in the family of the Fringillidae dynasty.
As no Carduelis were known from the area at that time, the interesting Collections Manager at the University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute followed and located the group a few minutes later. He was amazed to see three Red Siskins adult males and two adult females sitting motionless at the top of a leafless tree about 15 meters above ground. In the next hour, he found three additional pairs and at least one other female in a small area of about a quarter to one kilometer.
Addressing the moment of discovery, Mr Robbins said, “Very unexpectedly, I heard scones call as they flew above and out of sight” and “When I realized what they were, I thought I must be dreaming.”
That expedition was co-led by Michael Braun, Research Scientist in the Department of Vertebrate Zoology at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. “It was like seeing a ghost,” admitted Mr Braun. “Ornithologists had dropped this bird in the wild, outside a small, local population in western Venezuela far near the border with Colombia.”
Subsequently removed from the genus Carduelis, the updated Red Siskin is now known as Spinus cucullatus, with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) continuing to include the beautiful bird as “endangered” on the dreaded Red List of species, whose populations are in decline. globally. The List is the world’s most comprehensive list of the conservation status of biological species.
Until that remarkable discovery of Guyana from at least an estimated hundreds of Red Scissors, anxious ornithologists feared that the wild bird might disappear, given that it had been widely trapped from its native northern slope in South America, for the insane cage bird trade especially in Europe. , over a deadly and destructive century and a quarter.
With the Siskins breeding population very fragmented in much of its historical range, the Smithsonian team conducted an extended area survey, returning in October through early November of that year. Focusing on the Guyanese Siskins preferred habitat of savannahs and semi-humid woodlands, they managed to identify nearly 130 of the birds, calculating a possible total of at least 675 specimens along adjacent land such as Kanuku slopes and hills.
The researchers thought the population was densest at the initial site due to optimal habitat, with the wide area of scrub where sandpaper trees dotted with marsh under seasonal water helped to reduce burning at the base of the mountain . Thus, the marginal areas of relatively low-status growth between the semi-moist forest and savannahs remained abundant. In stark contrast, just a few kilometers away, hills were devoid of any woody vegetation due to excessive fires, the scientists noted in a 2003 paper for “The Auk,” a quarterly peer-reviewed scientific journal and Ornithology’s official publication American. Society.
They hypothesized that the Guyana Siskins, separated by about 950 km, with rainforest and tepui mountains in the meantime, from all known Venezuelan populations, extinct or extant. “If we take a surrogate origin, the geographical barriers and geological and vegetative history of northern South America seem to indicate that this new population may have been isolated from known Venezuelan populations for at least 8000–10,000 years.”
Commenting on efforts to help bring the iconic bird back to the brink, the Smithsonian Institute of Biodiversity Genomics explained, “Even with their excitement, the researchers realized how highly valuable these birds could be on the market international black for the pet trade, so they kept the information on finding a close secret as they sought official protection for the red siskin in Guyana. After it was added to the country’s endangered species list and legal protections against trafficking were in place, the scientists were able to publish their findings – without specific location information – to announce the discovery of the Guyana population of red scallions to the ornithological community. ”
The Institute recalled that in the early 1900s, feathers and even whole birds decorated elaborate women’s hats and other clothing items. As a popular caged bird in many countries, thousands have been seized for the pet trade, and even now trapping remains illegal. But the main reason for its catastrophic decline was the early 20th-century fatal obsession to produce red canaries, causing Red Siskin to be caught almost extinct to meet the unwanted demand of birders who hybridized it with domestic canoes.
It may seem hard to believe, but at one point the Red Siskin lined the region’s skies in huge flights across northern Venezuela into Colombia and even the island of Trinidad. But the bird has disappeared in most places, and the few lonely groups in unstable Venezuela may contain only a few hundred individuals, experts warn, with sightings in the wild, increasingly rare.
The IUCN pointed out, the Red Siskin is long gone from Trinidad, “where it was never anything other than rare,” but there were a handful of records up to the 1960s, though the natural origins of those birds were open to question it because of the vast finch trade. A small population remains in Colombia, while another set in Puerto Rico, originating from escaped cage birds, is slipping away. The total world population is rounded to just 1,500-7,000 mature individuals, the IUCN says.
Days ago, there was some welcome news. Several of the native Guyanese who had guided the Smithsonian / University of Kansas expedition came together as concerned friends, shortly after the 2000 discovery, to help reverse the fate of the endangered bird, forming the well-known South Rupununi Conservation Society (SRCS), now led by President, Leroy Ignacio. On March 5, the Society announced on its’ Facebook page, that it had received more critical funding, this time from the prestigious United States National Geographic Society to continue its invaluable work rescuing the Red Siskin.
“The money will be used to implement a Community Conservation Management zone to protect the Red Siskin from threats including trapping and habitat destruction. The project will involve collaborating with local villages to design the zone and will also use locally trained rangers to monitor it. Huge thanks to the National Geographic Society. “
ID longs to see wild Guyanese Red Siskin at the Rupununi, but she has to be content with the Saffron Finches, several Tanagers, Greyish Saltators, garrulous Parrots and even the coming pair of Scarlet Macaws near her home.