The Fuertes’s Parrot (Hapalopsittaca fuertesi), also known as Indigo-winged Parrot, is a critically endangered parrot which has a highly restricted range on the west slope of the Central Andes of Colombia.The Fuertes’s Parrot is about 24 cm longand is green with indigo wing feathers, red shoulders, and a blue crown. The bird’s pale ivory bill has chestnut feathers at the base. It was rediscovered in 2002 after an absence of 91 years on the slopes of a volcano in Colombia.
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HELP THIS PARROT
For over 90 years, the Fuertes’s Parrot was thought to be extinct; it was the cause of great celebration when in 2002 a team of Colombian conservationists from Fundación ProAves, a WLT partner, rediscovered a small colony of 15 individuals clinging to existence on a small and highly fragmented patch of cloud forest habitat located above the town of Cajamarca in Central Colombia.
ProAves has worked tirelessly since then to save the species and in 2009 established the 361 acre Giles-Fuertes Nature Reserve to protect one of only two tiny surviving populations of parrot, as well as many other threatened birds and mammals that are dependent on these cloud forests.
It is now vitally important to protect a further 363 acres alongside Giles-Fuertes Nature Reserve. While the parrot’s core breeding colony is protected, the encroachment of pasturelands into the sensitive cloud forests surrounding the reserve threatens further fragmentation and destruction of key foraging and nesting areas for this magnificent parrot.
