The red bird of the disappearance of Venezuela gets a coffee picked
The red bird of the disappearance of Venezuela gets a coffee picked
The images of a small red bird that barely fills the palm of the hand appear everywhere. Venezuela - Printed on money, labels of craft beer bottles and the cover of school books for children.
But the finch-type red siskin is fading away from nature at an alarming rate, falling prey to a century of reduced forests and poachers that charge their bright red feathers, much appreciated worldwide by breeders of exotic birds.
That threat has brought together an international team that includes scientists from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington and poor coffee farmers in the remote mountains of Venezuela, all willing to rescue her from extinction. The plan is to attract farmers to plant organic coffee trees with layers of thick branches that invite songbirds in danger of extinction, which have lost much of their habitat.
"They do not have many years left, unless we do something right now," said Miguel Arvelo, a veterinarian at Provita, a nonprofit organization based in Caracas, one of the leading groups in the effort.
The "Cardenalito" or "Pequeño Cardenal", as it is affectionately called, has a special place in Venezuelan culture, the poster of some 1,400 species of birds, from the Amazon to the Andes, who live in one of the most beautiful landscapes of the world. .
Once they flourished in millions, only 300 remain free in Venezuela, although scientists say it is difficult to estimate their number in the politically turbulent and dangerous country.
The Red Siskin Initiative was launched approximately three years ago with a limited budget of less than $ 100,000 from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and private groups in the United States and Venezuela.
Planting organic groves with thick branches reverses a trend among farmers who increase bean production by thinning the coffee groves to get more sunlight, or cut them completely to plant vegetables that produce a faster benefit.
Farmers who meet the strict project standards will obtain the right to market their beans with "Bird Friendly" labels and take advantage of a gap in Venezuelan law to establish prices for premium products, sometimes five times higher than the established price limits. by the socialist government. Eventually they hope to export coffee.
At the same time, a red siskin breeding center is being built in a private zoo in Venezuela, where 200 birds are expected to hatch next year, in addition to the 25 caged in the Smithsonian Institution, forming a type of Ark of Noah to ensure that the iconic species does not disappear The red siskins from the center will be introduced into the coffee trees.
Although they are still in their early stages, supporters say that the coffee initiative is already showing positive results. Some 40 farmers in the rugged coastal mountains of Carayaca, northwest of the capital, Caracas, have stopped cutting trees, an important first step in creating a robust habitat.
The small bird is prized for its fiery red plumage and jet black hood in males, coveted by breeders who cross them with less colorful canaries to produce orange or red spots.
The protection under Venezuelan law that dates back to the 1940s has not prevented poachers from capturing it to sell it on the international black market. According to scientists, online go for more than $ 300 and demand is still high in Eastern Europe and Asia.
In addition to the challenges, poor families in Venezuela often capture and sell the threatened bird to illegal traffickers. The profit can feed their children for months, said biologist Jhonathan Miranda, a researcher at Provita.
Michael Braun, co-founder of the Red Siskin Initiative and research scientist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, said the deep crisis in Venezuela has also come at a cost.
The oil-rich nation was for decades a coveted destination for naturalists and birders. But recently, a field researcher in a remote mountain range was robbed of his binoculars and then shot by two young men on a motorcycle, Braun said. At least one key member of his research team joined a growing exodus of Venezuelans fleeing the country.
"Every time I tell someone that we have a bird project in danger of extinction in Venezuela, they say: 'Oh, Venezuela, good luck,'" said Braun. "It is a challenge."
The primary range of the red siskin is the Caribbean coastal region of Venezuela, and some have been found in neighboring areas of Colombia and Guyana.
Scientists carefully conceal the location of birds to protect them from poachers, but they allowed The Associated Press to photograph a small herd in a secret location in their natural habitat.
Visiting them required arriving before dawn, hiding motionless and silent in the tall grass and with mosquitoes in the pouring rain. Then the sun broke through and they swooped in, a dozen or more, landing one by one on the tree branches entangled overhead, grooming and singing aloud.
In Carayaca, Simon Then, a 53-year-old blond blue-eyed farmer descended from the first German settlers, walks through his family's coffee plantation surrounded by dozens of leafy shrubs 5 feet tall on a steep slope. His eyes fill with emotion, showing the red cherries that begin to appear without the use of chemicals.
There are still no red siskins on this mountainside, but then he imagines the land covered in dense forests one day, while he and his neighbors join in the effort to restore the endangered bird.
"It's more work," he said of the challenges of organic agriculture, "but it gives us more money."
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AP photographer Fernando Llano and AP writer Scott Smith contributed to this report.
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