Abstract
The majority of the Yellow-naped Amazon parrots being sold on the international market have been smug- gled from the south coast region of Guatemala. The wild populations of these birds are still being depleted by poaching because of the demand in the United States and Europe. Yellow- naped Amazons are one of the most popular psittacines in aviculture today. They cannot legally be exported from Guatemala and thereare very few successful Yellow-Naped
Amazon breeding programs in the
States. Whether due to carelessness,
greed, ignorance or blind trust of the
proprietor who claims they were
hatched domestically, people are still
buying smuggled napes. Considering
the demand for these parrots and the
poverty and desperation of the Guatemalan
campesino (native), it is easy to
see why Yellow-naped Amazons are
still disappearing from their native
habitats and reappearing in living
rooms around the world.
Young Yellow-naped Amazons are
taken from the nest in Guatemala to
be smuggled into Mexico and from
there to the U.S. Tiny and still featherless,
they are very fragile at this age. It
is estimated that they suffer losses of
40 percent during capture and transport
alone. The smuggler knows this
and compensates by buying five to ten
times more live chicks than they
expect to sell. The World Wildlife
Fund study on international parrot
trade estimates that 150,000 live parrots
enter the U.S. from Mexico each
year. Considering the ones that die
during capture and transport, that
translates to about one million parrots
taken from the wild in Latin America
yearly. One wonders how long wild
parrot populations can sustain themselves,
suffering this degree of decimation.
The Military Macaw (Ara
mi/itaris), once a resident of the highlands
of Guatemala, has completely
disappeared in a relatively short
period of time. This is an example of
just one species of bird that has disappeared
from Guatemala.
Despite the drastic reduction in
numbers of Yellow-naped Amazons observed in their native coastal habitat in Guatemala in the past few years, they are still being smuggled out of the country in large numbers to meet the demand abroad. I have had the experience of seeing thousands ofYellow-naped Amazons on the borders of Mexico and Guatemala destined for the U.S. market for the past eight years. During this time I havebeenawitnesstothisreduction.
The Scenario
Chiquimulilla, Santa Rosa is 30 miles
from the El Salvadoran border.
December rolls around, marking the
end of the rainy season, and there's
not much for the campesino to look
forward to. His corn and beans have
been planted and harvested and he
now searches for work to sustain him
through the dry season. For some,
working for the large land owners or
companies will relieve some of their
financial burdens, while most will
tighten their belts and wait for the
rains to return. Still other campesinos
will begin keeping a closer eye on the
paired Yellow-naped Amazons that
begin their search for a suitable nesting
site. They're not difficult to find
since they tend to stake out certain
territories and the same nest year after
year. Unfortunately, these days,
Yellow-naped Amazons are often
forced to seek new nesting sites
because their home tree was cut,
many times by a novice poacher who
seeks to make a quick buck and
doesn't care if the pair returns.
However, the experienced poacher
knows that if he disturbs the nest as
little as possible, the pair will return
the following year or may even
double clutch.
And So The Harvest Begins
Bird poachers have devised countless
ways to rob a nest. It's dangerous
work climbing the tall trees with only
a thin nylon rope and a machete. But
empty stomachs and plenty of imagination
will get the chicks out of the
nest. From there, their future is uncertain.
Once the poacher has the chicks,
he wants to unload them as quickly as
possible. They are worthless dead and
he cannot afford to use his cornmeal
as bird food. There are options at
hand. The campesino can go directly
into the larger cities along the south
coast and sell the chicks to the dealer
in the central markets. These dealers
are not hard to find. They are usually
draped in gold jewelry and they sell
domestic animals along with a myriad
of odds and ends, all a cover for the
thousands of endangered birds and
other wildlife that pass through their
hands. The other option for the
poacher is to sit tight for the middle
man to come directly to the source in
search of a better deal.
There are several ways for the smuggler
to bring the birds into the United
States. Some birds are smuggled into
El Salvador, where restrictions on bird
smuggling are not so strict. There they
are sold to nationals or to the "gringo"
who buys birds for pets. They are
smuggled into the States by claiming
their origins are from other countries.
Others are laundered through Honduras,
as Honduran Yellow-napes.
They are a different subspecies, but
are not too distinguishable from the
Guatemalan species when young. The
easiest and most common smuggling
route is through Mexico, a large country
with as many ways to get the birds
into the States as there are smugglers
and imaginations.
Tapachula, Mexico, in the State of
Chiapas, is a large city on the pacific
coast bordering Guatemala. It has
nice, clean streets and handsome people
... in general, very prosperous.
One would never suspect this to be a
place where you can buy any kind of
exotic animal no matter how endangered
it is. This area is notroious for
exotic bird trafficking if the price is
right, and if you know where to look.
And here is where I have been given
the rare opportunity to see 1,500 baby
Yellow-nape chicks (as well as Scarlet
Macaws, howler and spider monkeys,
baby jaguars and a slew of reptiles) in
one person's home awaiting export to
the United States. This was no small
operation and I was later to learn that
a plane was coming in to fly these
animals to Tijuana, Mexico.