Eight beautiful bird species, including the blue macaw that inspired the creation of movie Rio, are now officially extinct due to deforestation and illegal hunting among other reasons.
Spix’s macaw, also known as the bright blue macaw, is a popular Brazilian parrot species featured in movie Rio.
According to a recent analysis of endangered animals, this species joined seven other bird species that became extinct in the wild throughout this decade.
As the main reason for their extinction, scientists blame deforestation. Additionally, illegal hunting presents a major concern as small-island species can easily be wiped out due to poaching.
Furthermore, the report pointed out that five of eight bird species extinctions occurred in South America.
Doctor Stuart Butchart, the chief scientist of BirdLife International, a conservation NGO which carried out the statistical analysis, said:
“People think of extinctions and think of the dodo but our analysis shows that extinctions are continuing and accelerating today.
“Historically 90 percent of bird extinctions have been small populations on remote islands.
“Our evidence shows there is a growing wave of extinctions washing over the continent driven by habitat loss from unsustainable agriculture, drainage, and logging.”
As of right now, over 26,000 species are threatened or endangered according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. As plenty of conservationists warned, humans are on a good way to drive the planet toward its sixth big extinction event.
According to Dr. Butchart, we know more than enough about endangered bird species to keep them away from extinction. He now hopes that these shocking results will be enough to make people more responsible in the future.
“Because we know birds better than any other taxonomic class we know which other species are most at risk,” he expressed.
“We hope this study will inspire a redoubling of efforts to prevent other extinctions.”
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