Rare "Barking" Bird Spurs Conservation Effort in Ecuador

John Roach
for National Geographic News

March 3, 2006

To protect some of the rarest birds in the world, a private foundation
is creating new nature reserves spanning thousands of acres of South
American bird habitat.

The seed for this unique conservation effort was the surprise 1997 discovery of a new bird species in southern Ecuador (see map).

To date, more than 5,500 acres (about 2,200 hectares) of cloud forest have been set aside to protect nearly the entire known range of the Jocotoco antpitta, the ground-dwelling antbird that started the movement.

An additional six reserves encompassing more than 14,000 acres (5,600 hectares) have been established in other parts of the country.

These reserves protect several rare and threatened birds, including the entire known global populations of the pale headed brush finch and the black breasted puffleg, a rare hummingbird (wallpaper: hummingbird in a cloud forest).

The program sets aside essential habitat that would otherwise be logged and turned to agricultural fields.

"We have taken it upon [ourselves] to try to protect those species that are not protected in national parks," said Niels Krabbe, a bird expert at the Zoological Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Model Mission

Krabbe is a cofounder of the Ecuador-based Jocotoco Foundation, which was established in 1998. The foundation plans to create two more reserves within the next two years.

All of the reserves are relatively small compared to the vast swathes of forest locked up in national parks. But each parcel of land serves to protect at least one rare bird whose survival would otherwise be in question, according to Krabbe.

Greg Butcher, the director of conservation science for the National Audubon Society in Washington, D.C., said the Jocotoco Foundation was inspiration for the recently formed Alliance for Zero Extinction.

(Read "Extinction 'Hotspots' Revealed in New Study.")

"We face a situation where people are playing triage with endangered species, saying there are some we are going to lose no mater what we do," Butcher said.

"A bunch of us got together and said, We're not willing to do that … Jocotoco is on the front edge of that" idea.

All of the areas where the Jocotoco Foundation works, Butcher added, are on the frontiers of human settlement. Without the reserves, the habitats would be doomed by logging and agriculture.

Barking Bird

The Jocotoco project began when Robert Ridgley, now vice president for endangered bird conservation with the American Bird Conservancy, discovered the Jocotoco antpitta on a field expedition in Ecuador.

Ridgley and a fellow birder were recording bird calls in the dank, mossy underbrush of the cloud forest just outside Podocarpus National Park. Suddenly they heard a strange noise similar to a dog's bark.

Forty-five minutes later they heard it again, made a recording, and played it back.

Birders use the playback technique to lure birds out of the brush. The birds think the recorded call is an intruder and charge after it to defend their territory, Ridgley explained.

The technique worked: A pair of antpittas bounded after the scientists for over half an hour, giving them a detailed look at a species never before seen by western scientists.

"It's got very long stilt legs," Ridgley said in a Pulse of the Planet radio program broadcast today.

(This series and the Pulse of the Planet radio program are sponsored in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation.)

"They're blue-gray in color, and [it has] a very short tail, so it can either run very fast or hop. It actually hops kangaroolike at times. And it's about 10 inches [25 centimeters] long."

In 1998 Krabbe scientifically described the species and named it Grallaria ridgelyi.

He added that, while the antpitta's song sounds like a barking dog, its call sounds like its common name, Jocotoco.

The Jocotoco antpitta is more colorful than other antpittas, Krabbe said. A white patch on the cheek contrasts with the species' white head.

"And it is extremely rare and vocalizes very little, so it's very difficult to find," he said.

Silent Type?

As of September 2005, scientists had identified just 12 territories where the species lives. All but two are in the foundation's Tapichalaca Reserve.

The global population may be less than 30 individuals.

Scientists believe the bird also resides inside the adjacent Podocarpus National Park, though none have been sighted there.

"We're not really sure exactly if it's extremely rare or, because it vocalizes so little, it's hard to find. I suspect the latter; others suspect the former," Krabbe said.

According to Krabbe, most of the Jocotoco antpitta's known habitat would have been cut down if the foundation hadn't started buying land.

The foundation continues to work at purchasing the bird's remaining intact habitat adjacent to the Podocarpus National Park.

Most of the reserves include lodging facilities open to bird-watching tours, though tourism is an afterthought, Krabbe said.

"We are worried we'll get too many visitors," he said. "We dont want visitors to these areas to actually have an impact on the nature there.

"It is primarily to protect birds that we purchased these areas. Tourism comes in second."

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