This ambitious macaw reintroduction project has been generously supported with a three-year grant from Joe and Cornelia Bruderer-Schwab. The Bruderer-Schwabs, a San Diego couple who recently developed an intimate luxury ecolodge—La Cocotera Resort and Ecolodge—in our project area, are involved in a number of conservation and education initiatives in the region. They sponsor an ongoing sea turtle conservation program which raises and liberates thousands of Olive Ridleys each year, and they supported facility construction and program development of upper-level grades in a local school.

We are currently designing an educational exhibit at La Cocotera which will describe the reintroduction project, the splendor of psittacines and their conservation, and which will feature 2-3 non-releasable Scarlet Macaws obtained from the national wildlife rescue center. La Cocotera is tucked between a picturesque Pacific Ocean beach and the Yellow-naped Parrots’ mangrove forest. The resort was built and operates based on the “green leaf” system for certified sustainable tourism; it utilizes solar energy, biological waste water recycling, and ionization swimming pool filtration, among other environmentally-friendly practices. La Cocotera was featured in the March issue of Rainforest Alliance’s Eco-Index of Sustainable Tourism.

Check http://www.lacocoteraresort.com/ for more information.

Additional funding is sought for ecological studies of the reintroduced macaws in El Salvador, as well as the nearest extant, but highly endangered, Scarlet Macaw population in the Cosigüina Peninsula of northwestern Nicaragua. These studies will include radio and satellite tracking of free-flying macaws. Support is also needed to continue our conservation research component on Yellow-naped Parrots, a long-term environmental education program, and a reforestation program to provide economic incentives to communities for conservation while restoring rare habitat.

Robin Bjork is a Senior Scientist for SalvaNATURA, a non-profit non-governmental environmental organization in El Salvador. She holds a doctorate in wildlife science and a master’s degree in coastal ecology. Her past research has focused on documenting spatial patterns of regional migrant tropical birds with a goal of providing guidance to regional conservation planning. Robin began working with wild psittacines in 1994 when she directed development of the first radio tracking device to withstand the force of macaw bills and used the device to track the movements of Great Green Macaws in Costa Rica. Her dissertation research identified the migration of Mealy Parrots across Guatemalan lowlands, the first detailed documentation of such a pattern in psittacines. She continues conservation research with wild parrots and macaws in addition to directing this program to reintroduce Scarlet Macaws to El Salvador.