Getting to know the Cotorra Margariteña

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Fundación La Tortuga had a wonderful visit with Provita’s friends in the Macanao Peninsula and its Margarita Parakeet Conservation Project. This successful work has been carried out on Margarita Island since 1989, where the community has made important contributions to the protection of these species both nationally and internationally.

Fundación La Tortuga had a wonderful visit with Provita’s friends in the Macanao Peninsula and its Margarita Parakeet Conservation Project. This successful work has been carried out on Margarita Island since 1989, where the community has made important contributions to the protection of these species both nationally and internationally.

The Parrot Conservation Program of this environmental organization counts with the help of biologist José Manuel Briceño Linares as project coordinator and a large group of volunteers such as the well-known popular artist, Pablo Antonio Millán...

The yellow-headed parakeet (Amazona barbadencis) is an endangered, nearly endemic bird that is adapted to live in xerophytic environments, where cacti, thorny bushes, and dry forest trees predominate. Normally these forests are undervalued due to the belief that they lack economic value, being quite the opposite since they constitute areas of special value due to their biodiversity. They often suffer from deforestation for urban development, agriculture, goat ranching, and mining extraction.

The problems surrounding this bird range from the disappearance of its habitat to the extraction of its chicks to supply the illegal pet market locally, nationally, and internationally. The figures are frightening: for every parrot in captivity, at least four died during extraction from the nest, malnutrition, mistreatment, overcrowding, disease, or stress during the collection and sale process.

Their general characteristics include a lighter and brighter green color; dark feather edges to give them a scaly appearance; ivory-colored beak; white feathers on the forehead; yellow feathers on the face, head, shoulders, and legs; among others.

Its diet is mainly composed of seeds, it is a social bird that pairs up for life, always staying next to each other cleaning each other, and feeding together. They reproduce once a year and prefer the natural crevices or cavities of living or dead trees, having from one to a maximum of five eggs that will hatch in approximately 26 days. Both parents care for and feed the chicks, which are ready to fly at two months. They will remain with their parents for some time and reach sexual maturity between three and five years of age.