Lear’s Macaw Corn Subsidy Project

Death by farmer has become a very real threat to the survival of the highly endangered Lear's Macaw.

In 2006 the Lear’s Macaw was listed as “critically endangered”, the highest designation before “extinct”.

In early 2006 Parrots International partnered with the Lymington Foundation to initiate funding on a pilot program to reimburse the local indigent subsistence farmers in Canudos and Jeremoabo, Brazil, for damage to their crops from the marauding Lear's Macaws. Although 95% of the Lear's Macaw diet consists of the meat of the Lucuri Palm nut, the Lear's have also grown fond of the sweet corn from the fields of the local subsistence farmers within the macaws' habitat.

In April 2006 Parrots International partnered with the Lymington Foundation to purchase corn, in 60 kilogram sacks, and to dispense the corn as compensation to the local farmers based on the severity of the attacks on their plantations. The assessment and dispensing of corn was managed and supervised by Joaquim Neto, of CEMAVE, with the assistance of Monalyssa Comandaroba (whose salary was paid by ProAves, Brazil, during the pilot subsidy).

In the course of feeding on a farmers' corn crops, the Lear's Macaws will often break the ears off of the corn stalk, fly to an adjacent sentinel tree, and then begin to eat the ear, dropping and wasting more than they consume. For these farmers cultivation of any crop is a struggle, They grow only enough to feed their families and goats. They do not have the modern advantages of irrigation, nor fertilizer, nor farm tractors.

Therefore, the farmers see the Lear's Macaws as pests, taking food from the mouths of their children and family. The result is that “death by farmer” has become a very real threat to the Macaws....perhaps a greater threat than poaching and habitat loss.