The Silent Caribbean Island, Loss of Amazons

The Cat 5 Hurricanes of 2017 have places heavy pressure on the already extensive loss of the Caribbean Island Amazons in their paths. Although there are a few stories of efforts to save selective populations on some of the larger Islands. The smaller Island Nations had little in the way of plans or facilities to safe guard /shelter their already small populations of Amazons.

It will be several months before counts can be taken, but the silent day time have already been noted by those who survived and the first responders who have made their way to the Island Nations. Like comments have been head in parts of Texas and Florida.

Yes, Human suffering has been and continues to be very high on those Island Nations with some smaller island's found devoid of any structures or plant live.

The good news is that we are on the backside of the the 2017 Hurricane season.

If anything, this year has and continues to support the need to have at the ready; a plan and pre-packed supplies to allow you to move to safety or shelter safely in place for seven to ten days.

YEP, this sucks, however mother nature tak-eth away but also giv-ith. The only time things really get screwed up is when humans think we are wiser and introduce invasive species and stuff.

So long as we don't get any bright ideas I'm sure the ecosystem will re-stabilize. Those islands and those birds and those hurricanes have been around millions of years before we were even a thought.

People could evacuate, at least some could.
How can you do that with the parrots.
Very sad.

perhaps ones in captivity can be bread for eventual release back into the wild (Like the Spix Macaw)

Its super sad and living in florida..i thought about that alot..i like helping people but love helping animals but when you cant help..its an empty feeling.

When CITIES conducts the Island counts in January, that is when we will learn what has been lost and what has shifted to yet another Island. At this point, its a waiting game.

Terribly sad when "mother nature" imposed a heavy toll on sentient creatures. Hope their avian instincts prompted them to take whatever cover was available.

Scott said:

Terribly sad when "mother nature" imposed a heavy toll on sentient creatures. Hope their avian instincts prompted them to take whatever cover was available.

Click to expand...

Or better yet, got to a different more sheltered island

When you hear things like birds flying south for winter, animals detecting earthquakes in advance...I have to hope, reason, imagine, that those birds knew about the hurricane before our Doppler radar and satellite images, and they flew off to vacation with their inlaws for a bit. This is not pseudoscience...a drop in air pressure before the front....I can see them figuring it out. They made it this far for thousands/millions of years.

I'm sure large hurricanes have been hitting these islands for thousands of years. As others have mentioned, it is only logical the native wildlife on them will have evolved some kind of strategy to survive such natural weather events.\

Update!

Regional CITES staff have visited over forty micro to small, low-lying Islands, in which small numbers of Parrots and other birds had been found in years past. All but one Island had be found devoid of any land animals, birds and only a few had any trees or plants beyond grasses. At this point, the visits have stopped and changed from on-site visits, too the remaining micro and small, low-lying Island as fly-over using small aircraft.

Staff visitation have started on mid-sized Islands, some of which are low-lying and others that have enough height that would limit over-washing of heavy wave actions. Findings should be available next month.

On the larger Islands, government sources are reporting limited sightings of some Parrots and birds with various reports of Parrots and birds not seem prior to the storms early this year.

CITES has hopes that Cuba may have also received some number of displaced Parrots and birds. As of earlier this week, Cuba has not responded to CITES request to evaluate the effects on the Parrot and Bird population and whether other species have found safety on Cuba.

CITES has moved 'all' Island Amazons to Class I status with official documents following in January 2018.

More updates as they become available.

I just read an article about poachers in INDIA..the caught some bad people smuggling Ekkie's...showed 150 males,stuck in plastic drainage tubes,with the ends roped off so they couldn't escape..half of them didn't survive!

= disbelief.





Jim

Sad news for the species native to these islands

I do hold out hope larger birds like amazons went somewhere else and have not yet made their way back.

AmyMyBlueFront said:

I just read an article about poachers in INDIA..the caught some bad people smuggling Ekkie's...showed 150 males,stuck in plastic drainage tubes,with the ends roped off so they couldn't escape..half of them didn't survive!

= disbelief.





Jim

Click to expand...

I frequently wish to voluntarily renounce my membership in the human species

I don’t think nature can recover from human-itis in any meaningful time frame. Maybe once upon a time a hurricane would wipe out an island’s worth of parrots, and they would repopulate - because the mainland was a giant jungle full of trees and birds and critters. But when the massive forests are gone, and what remains has been poached of all the valuable birds, where are the repopulators to come from? We accidentally put so much greenhouse gas in the breathing stuff that the weather got wonky. Now the droughts, storms, floods and fires are way more intense. We like African Grey parrots in cages and elephant heads on the wall and Even Bigger Macs and voila. Parrots and elephants do the vanishing act along with so many others.

Not politics, just facts. If people who love parrots don’t do anything to help save them, who will?

AmyMyBlueFront said:

I just read an article about poachers in INDIA..the caught some bad people smuggling Ekkie's...showed 150 males,stuck in plastic drainage tubes,with the ends roped off so they couldn't escape..half of them didn't survive!

= disbelief.





Jim

Click to expand...

Disgusting to the point of retching. What sort of despicable people could do this? How much profit would be lost by at least smuggling them more humanely?

Not going anywhere with this other then to say: Any discussion of the Weather (climate) must first begin with the Sun, its cycles, and than the Earth's Orbital variations (cycles) around the Sun. The foundations of climate.

How the Island Amazon came to populate those many Islands have long been debated. One of the possibilities is the thing that can kill, Hurricanes themselves.



Just bring a bit of Humor to all of this:

- There is a common belief within the Amazon Inland species, that Amazons, in fact, created Rum and after some of the longer lasting gathering, a few got lost and bumped into an uninhabited Island and claim it as theirs!

- Then there is the World Organization that assigns birds as part of specific species, sliding the Island Amazons into the large Amazona family. The story goes that when the Island Representatives showed-up to make their case. They had brought a shipping container of Rum with them. Later that week, a motion was raised by the Island Representatives to include Island Amazons as part of the Amazons of the Americas. The motion was past without discussion, nor a single vote against it.

SailBoat said:

Not going anywhere with this other then to say: Any discussion of the Weather (climate) must first begin with the Sun, its cycles, and than the Earth's Orbital variations (cycles) around the Sun. The foundations of climate.

How the Island Amazon came to populate those many Islands have long been debated. One of the possibilities is the thing that can kill, Hurricanes themselves.

Click to expand...

I totally understand what you are saying here and I agree. TOTALLY AGREE! but lets not turn this into a debate on here....no one wins....but I'm on your side!

That sucks.