Los Condores del Sur: Return to Amaru

Bioparque Amaru Zoo, Cuenca, Ecuador. 6 June-13 August, 2015.

Welcome to the third round of in-situ National Aviary/Bioparque Amaru collaboration! 

     Following a year's hiatus, we're back at the zoo. A year in vet school proper, we've come back toting a bit more medical equipment than we previously did, and are set up in the first exam room of the wildlife and zoological clinic. We have to thank the National Aviary and all the people who contributed to our Razoo kickstarter back in late 2013 for a place to do our work this summer. The aves (and other animals) at Amaru appreciate it!

     We've come back this summer for a few reasons, but the most prominent is to complete a basic health survey and assessment of all previously confiscated birds in the "quarantine" area of the zoo. That means physical exams, blood draws, exams for gastrointestinal parasites, checking for ectoparasites, nail trims, and more than a little time for adoration from vet students who spent their entire year in windowless classrooms. I am here with my friends and fellow first year veterinary students Walker Roberts (University of Florida) and Tim Beichner (Kansas State), and with our combined bird experience and some excellent mentoring from our vet professors, we've been making our way through fifty-odd parrots, raptors, and even maybe some ramphastids (toucans!). 

     In addition to the zoo birds, we've been working side-by-side with the current zookeepers, watching and listening to their concerns for the animals and brainstorming ideas to improve diets, exhibits, enrichment, and biosecurity, as ever. It's hard to believe Amaru is only in its fourth year as a zoo. So many things have changed in the last year--there's a serpentarium now, for native reptiles, and an expanded Center for Conservation of Amphibians, thanks to the Philadelphia Zoo and Lewis and Clark College. One thing that hasn't changed at Amaru, though, is the need for more workers as the animals keep coming in. The Environmental Ministry continues to confiscate animals to Amaru, and two or three keepers on any given day for several hundred animals means that they're spread very thin. I'll come back to that in a bit.

     Since last year, the National Group Working for the Andean Condor in Ecuador (GNTCAE) has been making progress with wild Condor population monitoring, management and breeding programs for captive Condors, and public education. Ernesto Arbelaez, the director of both Bioparque Amaru and the nascent Ecuadorian Association of Zoos and Aquariums, has been playing his part in developing Condor research in southern Ecuador. With the help of rural communities in the Azuay province and the support of the Neotropical Peregrine Fund under Hernan Vargas, there are now efforts to monitor breeding pairs of condors in the south. Having worked at the Aviary where we have two pairs of Andean Condors, it was a dream for Walker, Tim, and I to see them wild in their natural habitat! The National Aviary's new Condor Court and Conservation center just opened back in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as well, to highlight the birds and the urgent need for their protection in-situ here in Ecuador. You can check out the press release here:

National Aviary's New Condor Court and Conservation Center

I have a lot more to say about what the Ecuadorians are doing for Condors and how those efforts are tied to the fate of wildlife rescue centers, zoos, and the power of the Environmental Ministry to protect Ecuadorian species, but I think it's time to show you guys a few pictures of what we're up to. 

Welcome to Condor Danzana: historically Incan land in the Southern Azuay province of Ecuador.

Ernesto took us out there for a weekend to see the last few wild Andean Condors in the territory. They're breeding down there! We focused on one family group in our observations. 

When your primary experience with Andean Condors is with zoo populations, this is completely mind blowing.

We set up camera traps to get better footage of the Condors directly from one of their perches. 

In order to do that, Ernesto and Jorge Luis (part of the field team) had to clamber down these cliffs to place the cameras! Madness. 

Completely worth it, though. This is Mari, the juvenile female condor in the family group we were observing. Ernesto was the first one to report seeing her in this part of the country in late 2014, and since then, research efforts to monitor their movements and eventually place radio tags on them has been ongoing. 

      Ernesto and the field biologists working on the project have reported tagged Condors from Peru making their way into the area we were exploring. With the radio-tags, biologists have discovered that Condors can fly hundreds of kilometers a day--so it's also possible that many of the Condors tagged in Ecuador are regularly visiting bordering countries like Colombia and Peru as well. All the more reason for a concerted conservation effort not only nationally, but between all the Andean countries (and their partners abroad!).


Speaking of partners abroad...Guambi, Bioparque Amaru's first Andean Condor, is doing well in his exhibit funded by the National Aviary! The Environmental Ministry recently had a meeting in Cuenca and invited members of GNTCAE and all the Ecuadorian AZA zoos to discuss the fate of Ecuadorian wildlife in captivity. Guambi and thousands of other animals could benefit from a more systematic intake system, cooperative breeding programs, and a greater effort for public education to prevent confiscations and hunting of wildlife in the future.

Guambi was confiscated when he was about a year old. His wing had been broken, and he was chained by his leg to a post in someone's front yard. Cases like his are largely the result of ignorance regarding the ecological importance of native species and different cultural attitudes towards wildlife.  

Bath time for Condor! Guambi's exhibit includes two natural bathing pools and many cliff-side perches carved into the hillside of Amaru. It's massive!

     With meetings like the one just held in Cuenca, the five Ecuadorian zoos in the newly formed AZA are beginning to plan for a country-wide effort to optimize the breeding and educational potential of the 19 captive Andean Condors in captivity in Ecuador. The five participating zoos at this point in time are Zuleta, San Martin Zoo in Banos, El Pantanal, Zoo Quito in Guayllabamba, and Parque Nacional Condor. In addition to managing the captive population, these concerned zoos are collaborating to monitor the wild Condor population, research and share data regarding nesting habits and Condor egg incubation techniques, morphology and behavior of juvenile Condors, and health of the birds in captivity. The nation's premier wildlife vet, Dr.Andres Ortega from University of San Francisco Quito's wildlife clinic, Fondo Tueri, completed in this past year a complete health and genetic survey of all captive Ecuadorian Condors. In the years to come, Ecuadorian zoos will be collaborating on in-situ breeding programs with the hopes of releasing chicks bred in captivity to the wild! 

Basic physical exam (and tick check!) for a juvenile female Black-Chested Buzzard Eagle at Amaru. It is important for collaborating zoos and wildlife rescue centers in Ecuador to standardize their methods of intake for confiscated animals, as well as individual identification of animals. These steps would make it easier to have successful organized rehab and release efforts in the county.

     For future releases to happen, though, Ecuador needs more information, experience in rehabilitation and assessment of confiscated animals. Currently, the Environmental Ministry and their few national wildlife vets are the ones who make the calls about animal releases. Their decisions are based on how long the animal has been in captivity, where it came from, the extent of its injuries, and knowledge of appropriate release sites for that species. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has standards about releasing animals, and many countries base their laws off of their protocols, but release is a costly process, and the IUCN gold standard of post-release monitoring is not economically possible for Ecuador. Laws here fall (realistically) short of IUCN standard, but many animals still don't fit all the criteria for release.

Amaru still -does- release animals, though. Like the Black-chested buzzard eagles in the pictures above and below. Here's an older news article in Spanish about releases in a nearby national park, Cajas: Liberation of two Black-chested Buzzard Eagles in Cajas National Park

Juvenile Black-chested Buzzard Eagle. See Cornell:  http://neotropical.birds.cornell.edu/portal/species/overview?p_p_spp=121596

     In order for Ecuadorian Zoos and rescue centers to up their release rates, conferences and meetings involving the greatest conservation minds in the country need to keep happening. On July 7th, 2014, Amaru held the first National Condor Conservation Conference in Cuenca, and rallied all such parties around the goal of protecting not only the Andean Condor, Ecuador's national symbol, but other ecologically irreplaceable species. Collaborations at that conference gave rise to the discussions which would lead to the formation of the Ecuadorian AZA and commitment of the first five zoos under the first president---the same, and one and only, Ernesto Arbelaez.

Dr.Steven Latta represented the National Aviary at this conference, and gave a talk about nest cams and field techniques that are now in the works for field research sites throughout the country. 

It's a pretty amazing to sit in on discussions between the protectors of Ecuador's remaining biodiversity. It's an honor and an inspiration. 

We rode in the back of Ernesto's pickup truck while slowly scanning the field site. The Andes mountains are stunning. 

Ernesto surveying the site where condors were spotted in the south. 

From left to right: Paul Ineson, a Canadian volunteer at Amaru; Jorge Luis, one of the constant field researchers; Ernesto.  They're placing a trap camera and some carrion to draw the condors in. 

Walking out over the windiest of hillsides to get a better glimpse of an Andean Condor roost. 

A female adult Andean Condor, and mother of now-famous juvenile, Mari. 

Ernesto watching one of two nests in the south. Eight Andean Condors have now been recorded at this one site: two pairs of parents with their respective chicks, and two Condors that have flown in from Peru. "Chunka"(meaning "ten" in Quechua) is the name of one of these Condors, because it is marked with a wing tag, #10, thanks to Peruvian ornithologists. 

So...that's Condors! All those pictures were from a two day excursion south. Walker, Tim, and I spend most of our time working alongside and with the six zookeepers at Amaru, taking care of the birds in the holding and quarantine areas. We've been able to give basic treatments in addition to the nail trims, basic physical exams, hematology, and gastrointestinal content exams for parasite eggs. Here are a few of our new bird friends.

This Macaw reigns over four silkie chickens and 12 Amazon parrots in one of the four larger aviaries in holding. 

A mixed muscovy duck hatched four ducklings while we were here! We've been weighing them every day to make sure they're going up in weight. They are. Also, they're adorable. 

This parakeet is one of many pets left at the entrance gate to the zoo in off-hours. Currently, Amaru takes anything that walks in the door, even acting as an informal dog and cat adoptive service. We treated him for potential mites and respiratory issues, and he looks MUCH better now. I should have an "after" photo! 

This Gray-cheeked parakeet is another confiscated pet. Unfortunately, it doesn't socialize well with other birds of its genus that we have at Amaru, but it does enjoy some preening from us every once in a while. 

We don't have favorite birds, but if we did, this bird would probably be our favorite. 

So far the birds in holding have been fairly healthy, given that they're kept outdoors and have unknown or highly varied origins. What's more encouraging is that confiscations have dropped significantly with the advent of public anti-trafficking advertisements and widespread coverage of the case of a Condor killed in early 2013: the first time a person had been seriously prosecuted for wildlife crime in the history of the country. You can read more about that case here:

The Andean Condor and Wildlife Law in Ecuador

Many fewer birds have arrived in this month than in previous months I've spent at Amaru, and virtually none have died. Things here definitely have a long way to go, but they've gotten way better. If they weren't limited by lack of resources, they would leap forward even faster.

Which brings me to my final plug of this post.

Walker feeding one of the four Galapagos tortoises now housed at Amaru. There was only one when I was here a year ago. Confiscations of charismatic species are still very common here. 

What Amaru needs more than anything at this point in time is hands. More volunteers, more specialists, more zookeepers, and definitely a full-time veterinarian. 

One of the 17 Orange-winged Amazon parrots in holding. 

It's hard on the Arbelaez family to feed hundreds of animals, keep accepting animals from the Environmental Ministry to keep their support, and pay the salaries of workers: their solution thus far has been to search for dedicated people who will work long hours for less. They've gotten this far. 

To increase the quality of life for animals already at Amaru and the potential rehab capacity for confiscated animals that arrive, they desperately need more help.  

We're around this summer to help make suggestions and offer our ideas for improvement, especially for the birds, but we can't stick around forever. Amaru needs support for more keepers, or more constant volunteers. It's not as common in Ecuador for people to volunteer regularly; if a job doesn't pay, it doesn't really happen.

Tim, me, and Ernesto's dog Negra in front of the mostly-finished Amaru Vet clinic, started with a Razoo fundraiser in 2013, and further supported by the National Aviary. We've been working in the first finished exam room for our birds this summer.  

They work with some really incredible animals here. We'd like to see more of them live happier lives, or even better, return to the wild.

A peregrine falcon that arrived on the 8th of July to the zoo. 

We'll talk more about a support-a-zookeeper at Amaru effort in the future, I'm sure! Stay tuned.

Jhonny, a mammal keeper and head of educational falconry training at Amaru. 

Rommel, a bird and quarantine keeper for Amaru. 

Tim explaining a blood draw to Ernesto and our vet friend from the environmental ministry, Marco Chico. 

From left to right: Rommel, Jhonny with Elandris (falconry eagle at the zoo), and Jose, a reptile keeper from Venezuela. 

Jhonny and Elandris. 

Apologies as ever for the extensive writeup!

As stated above, stay tuned for more updates from us at Amaru! Dr.Fish, a vet from the National Aviary and one of our greatest mentors, will be coming to work at the zoo for two weeks come Monday. Additionally, Amaru will be interviewing and giving a trial period to a vet from Venezuela who may end up staying full time.

Until the next time.

All the birds,
The Summer 2015 Aviary Team at Amaru