Lost and found: Americas
The Americas are home to a host of species which have seemingly vanished. Daniel Branch takes a look at the birds which have been rediscovered and those that might still be missing in action.
The Americas, and South America in particular, are home to a host of species which have seemingly vanished. From Cherry-throated Tanager to Ivory-billed Woodpecker, Daniel Branch takes a look at the birds which have been rediscovered – sometimes spectacularly – and those that might still be missing in action.
It’s 2015, and a Brazilian researcher named Rafael Bessa is conducting an ornithological census in the northeast of Minas Gerais, a large state in the centre of Brazil. Seeking to find a shortcut between census points, he takes a small dirt road that passes through a stunning valley, where the habitat is noticeably different to the rest of the Cerrado he has encountered. Suitably charmed by this new environment, he pulls over and takes some photos. A low hooting call starts emitting from a nearby patch of dense shrubbery – it is completely unfamiliar but certainly interesting. The calls persist, but the source remains hidden and the ornithologist leaves, still turning over the mysterious call inside his head. Frustrated that he was unable to confirm the sound’s identity, he returns the following morning, armed with an audio recorder and ready to solve this puzzle. Once the sound begins, he takes a recording and then plays it back into the bush …
The small bird that waddles out is peachy-orange in colour, with beautiful blue spots on the wings and eyes dazzling like sapphires. Although improbable, there is only one bird it can be – Blue-eyed Ground Dove! This species has not been recorded in more than 75 years and is considered extinct by ornithological authorities. Yet here, in this small patch of Cerrado, the bird has somehow continued to slip under the radar of everyone, living its life in a world blissfully unaware of its continued existence.
The rediscovery of Blue-eyed
Ground Dove was not completely unprecedented, as there had been a handful of undocumented observations in the 75 years between this sighting and the last confirmed observation in 1941, and the species is thought to have always occurred in low densities. Now conservationists are scrambling to save these birds, with a population no larger than 20 individuals, while simultaneously surveying surrounding areas of habitat in the hope that more can be found. The real questions that this rediscovery poses, however, are: What else could be out there? How many more of the Americas’ ‘lost’ birds could still survive in isolated and distant patches of habitat? And is there still a chance to save them?
For many, the wilderness of the Americas evokes images of vast prairies grazed by bison, the lush jungles of the Incas or the wild deserts of Patagonia. While these images are not in themselves inaccurate, the reality can often be very different. Huge swathes of habitat have been lost since the arrival of Western Europeans to the Americas, and with them have also gone many species, especially birds. Species disappear for a variety of reasons, including habitat clearance, competition from invasive species or hunting, but also due to simply not being searched for because of political conflict or the inaccessibility of their range.
The first three reasons are certainly to blame for many of the more recent
extinctions, and that is why there would seem to be such little chance of rediscovery for species such as Alagoas Foliage-gleaner (last seen in 2011) and Cryptic Treehunter (2007) from the forest fragments of the Pernambuco centre of endemism in north-east Brazil, where only 6% forest cover remains, often of very poor quality. Or any of the Hawaiian honeycreepers – Poo-uli (2004) or Kauai Nukupuu (1998) to give two more recent examples – which have suffered from drastic habitat loss, invasive species and avian malaria. Yet for other species there may still be hope.
Lazarus species
The reason hope is held out for many species is because these incredible rediscoveries have happened. Blue-eyed Ground Dove is one member of an elite species group – so-called ‘Lazarus species’ – that have seen themselves declared extinct, only to triumphantly reappear. Another recent example of this is Antioquia Brushfinch, a species formally described in 2007 based on historical specimens from the Andes of Colombia. Although expeditions commenced immediately, it was not until January 2018 that the species was finally rediscovered, when a local birder happened upon the bird while on his way to Sunday Mass. Conservation efforts are now underway, but the species has a known population size of fewer than 50 individuals and remains in grave danger of extinction.
Staying in Colombia, the stunning Blue-bearded Helmetcrest was first collected in 1946, but was not seen again until 2015, despite surveys looking for the bird during the late 20th and early 21st centuries. During this time it had seen its status elevated from a subspecies of the helmetcrest complex to a fully fledged species in its own right, and this development added pressure to those trying to rediscover it. The bird inhabits the open paramo habitat of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in northern Colombia. Due to the inaccessibility of its montane home, it is difficult to gauge an accurate population size. However, it is thought that fewer than 250 individuals may exist, making it one of the rarest hummingbirds in the world.
Returning to Brazil, another welldocumented example of a species’ rediscovery is that of Cherry-throated Tanager. First described from a specimen collected in the mountains of south-east Brazil in 1870, and with only a few unpublished observations in the decades that followed, the species was considered extinct by most ornithologists in the 20th century. Then, in February 1998, it was rediscovered not far from
where the original specimens were collected.
Today, Cherry-throated Tanagers are known from just two locations, both small fragments of montane Atlantic Forest in the Brazilian state of Espírito Santo. The known population size is currently fewer than 20 individuals at two different locations. Indeed, since the species’ original rediscovery in
1998, it went missing again in 2019, with an entire year passing without observations despite frequent efforts to relocate it. That was until the autumn of 2020, when a nesting pair was found. Continued monitoring of this nest helped the pair successfully raise chicks, and this strategy proved successful again in 2021. Although the future for this species looks bleak, the conservation strategies now being implemented seem to be working, and hopefully there will be more successful breeding seasons in the years ahead.
While South America certainly has more examples of ‘lost and found’ birds, there are still cases from North America as well. Bermuda Petrel, or Cahow, only breeds on small islands off its namesake Bermuda. Before its reappearance in 1951 it had not been recorded in
300 years, and its rediscovery is a remarkable story that unfortunately there is insufficient space to do justice to here. According to reports at the time, historically the petrel was extremely abundant, with an estimated half a million pairs throughout the archipelago, and was a regular food source for Western sailors who visited the island. Sadly the invasive species these sailors brought with them took a heavy toll, clearing the petrel from the largest of Bermuda’s islands. Now, with incredibly dedicated conservation work since its rediscovery, the species has a cautiously optimistic future, although the 134 pairs found in the 2020 breeding season are a far cry from its original population level.
While each rediscovered species has its own remarkable story, there is simply not enough time to go into each and every one in detail here. Among these are: Tachira Antpitta, first collected in 1956 but not recorded again until an expedition in 2016; Cone-billed Tanager, lost for 65 years and known only from a single specimen until 2003, when it was found alive in the Emas National Park in central Brazil; and Kaempfer’s Woodpecker, that was lost for 80 years before its rediscovery in 2006. These are just a few examples of the incredible stories found within the Americas.
Human help
Today, with modern conservation strategies, sometimes total extinction can be prevented before it’s too late. Perhaps the most famous ongoing example in the Americas – excluding the legendary Californian Condor, which now has a re-established wild population following a captive-breeding programme – is that of Spix’s Macaw, which was romanticised in the 2011 film, Rio. This small, blue macaw had a limited range in north-east Brazil, where it was dependent on a specific type of dry forest for nesting. Habitat clearance, combined with pressures from trapping, pushed the species to the brink, but in the last decades of the 20th century the known birds in captivity were assembled and a conservation strategy was drawn up. Sadly, it was too late for the wild population. The species was officially declared Extinct In The Wild by the IUCN in 2019, with the last confirmed wild bird being observed in 2000. Although there was a famous sighting in 2016, this could have involved a captive bird. However, thanks to foresight from conservationists in the 1990s, the captive population has grown from just 15 individuals then to around 130 birds today. Now there are plans to regenerate the species’ habitat and attempt the reintroduction of these birds back into the wild. While never truly lost, had it not been for this preemptive manoeuvre from researchers,
the species would have certainly drifted into extinction.
Are there any other species, currently considered extinct, that could feasibly join this elite group of rediscovered birds? Of course, for almost all species there are those dedicated researchers who still have hope – but some are certainly more realistic than others.
One is Kinglet Calyptura, a tiny canopy species last seen in 1996, having not been seen prior to that for 100 years. It may yet cling on in the forested
Serra dos Órgãos mountains near Rio de Janeiro. Or perhaps Santa Marta Sabrewing, last observed with certainty in 2010 in the Santa Marta mountains of northern Colombia. Or Purplewinged Ground Dove, a nomadic species that roamed the Atlantic Forests of southern Brazil and northern Argentina – a very different lifestyle to its Blue-eyed relative. Despite not being formally observed in almost 20 years, sight records suggest it may still cling on, while a 2021 paper provided new details on its lifestyle that may help lead to its recovery.
Seeking the holy grail
Perhaps the most famous example of a ‘lost’ bird, at least in North America, is the case of Ivory-billed Woodpecker – a species sometimes referred to as ‘the holy grail of ornithology’. One of the largest woodpeckers in the world, it formerly ranged across the southeastern United States with a specific requirement for old-growth forests. As these forests were felled, so the woodpecker retreated until the early 20th century, with the last documented individual being seen in 1944. Despite this, there is still hope in some circles of the ornithological community that the bird endures, and expeditions in the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge in Arkansas in 2004 did yield some tantalising evidence, including a possible video and audio recording, although subsequent investigations have yielded no confirmed sightings. In 2021 the US Fish and Wildlife Service declared the species extinct. Given the high density of active birders in the area, armed with modern optics and cameras, that probably signals the end for the species in the US, although the IUCN still holds out some hope that the Cuban subspecies may persist in the densely forested mountains there.
While this article may recite some of the most well-known cases of rediscovery in the Americas, it is important to remember that many lost species will never be recovered. And as the forests and savannas continue to shrink there are only going to be more species like Ivory-billed Woodpecker, and less like Blue-eyed Ground Dove.
All of the rediscovered birds mentioned here have tiny population sizes, and their future still hangs very much in the balance. The work of the many different conservation groups cannot be applauded enough, and their dedication to these species is starting, in many cases, to yield results for these birds. There are only so many places that species can hide from us, and every year these become less and less, while more and more taxa drift into the void of extinction. The reality is that species shouldn’t have to die and come back to be celebrated – we need to make them our concern now. ■