# Macaw — Facts, Threats & Conservation

*Tribe Arini (true macaws) — ~18 species across 6 genera: Ara, Anodorhynchus, Cyanopsitta, Primolius, Orthopsittaca, Diopsittaca (family Psittacidae)*

> Macaws are large, long-tailed tropical parrots native to Central and South America; status varies by species, with several — including the blue-throated and Spix's macaws — Critically Endangered or Extinct in the Wild due to the illegal pet trade and deforestation.

**IUCN status:** Varies by species: Least Concern to Extinct in the Wild (several Critically Endangered)  ·  **WARN range:** Colombia, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru

## Quick facts
| Fact | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Group covered | ~18 macaw species across 6 genera (tribe Arini) |
| Lifespan | ~30–50 yrs wild; 50–60 yrs captivity (exceptionally 70+) |
| Length | ~30 cm (red-shouldered) to ~100 cm (hyacinth, the longest parrot) |
| Weight | Up to ~1.2–1.7 kg (hyacinth, the heaviest flying parrot) |
| Wingspan | Large species up to ~1.1–1.2 m |
| Diet | Seeds, nuts, fruit, flowers; many visit clay licks (geophagy) |
| Reproduction | Cavity nesters; clutch ~2–3 eggs; incubation ~26–28 days; maturity ~3–7 yrs |
| Group name | A flock (also called a 'pandemonium' of parrots) |
| Baby name | Chick |
| CITES | Appendix I or II depending on species |

## Scientific classification
- **Kingdom:** Animalia
- **Phylum:** Chordata
- **Class:** Aves
- **Order:** Psittaciformes
- **Family:** Psittacidae
- **Tribe:** Arini (the true macaws)
- **Genera:** Ara, Anodorhynchus, Cyanopsitta, Primolius, Orthopsittaca, Diopsittaca (6 genera)
- **Species:** ~18 living species; several others (e.g. glaucous macaw) extinct or probably extinct

## Conservation status
- **Status:** Varies by species: Least Concern to Extinct in the Wild (several Critically Endangered)
- **Population:** No single global figure (group spans ~18 species). Hyacinth ~4,700–11,000 mature; Lear's ~2,500 (2024); blue-throated ~200–500; Spix's Extinct in the Wild with captive-bred releases since 2022.
- **Trend:** Decreasing for most threatened species; hyacinth stable; Lear's increasing
- **Assessed:** Per species (e.g. Lear's downlisted to Endangered 2009; Spix's listed Extinct in the Wild 2019)
- **CITES:** Appendix I or II (varies by species)
- Because 'macaw' spans many species with very different statuses, conservation figures must be read per species rather than as a single category.

## Key facts: Macaw
- The Spix's macaw was declared Extinct in the Wild by the IUCN in 2019, after the last known wild bird disappeared at the end of 2000; captive-bred birds have been released into the Caatinga of Bahia, Brazil, since June 2022.
- The hyacinth macaw is the world's largest flying parrot and the longest parrot overall; the IUCN lists it as Vulnerable, with roughly 4,700–11,000 mature individuals (about 4,300 in the headline IUCN estimate) and a stable trend.
- Macaws are taken as chicks from nest cavities in hollow trees — poachers often fell entire trees to reach a single nest.
- Chicks suffer very high mortality in transit: dehydration, stress and disease kill the majority before they reach a buyer.
- Macaws are generally monogamous and long-lived — commonly 30–50 years in the wild and 50–60 in captivity, with exceptional birds older — so illegal possession creates a decades-long welfare burden.
- Range states such as Colombia, Peru, Bolivia and Brazil feature repeatedly as source and transit countries for trafficked macaws.

## How Is the Macaw Trade Organised?
The illegal macaw trade operates in layers. Local poachers in source countries locate nest trees, extract chicks, and sell to regional middlemen. Chicks are transported — often stuffed into PVC tubes, cloth sacks, or hidden in vehicle panels — to urban markets or export hubs. Corrupt officials can facilitate export to demand markets in Europe, North America, and the Middle East. By the time a live bird reaches its buyer, many others have died in transit. The trade is driven by consumer demand for exotic pets and, in some cases, by collectors seeking rare colour variants and the scarcest species.

## What Happens to Rescued Macaws?
Macaws seized at ports of entry or rescued from trade networks arrive at reception centres in poor condition — malnourished, dehydrated, and often with wing injuries from clipping or confinement. Triage involves rehydration, medical assessment, and quarantine. Birds with intact flight feathers and no severe imprinting can progress through rehabilitation and, eventually, soft release into protected habitat. Imprinted birds — those raised in prolonged human contact — cannot be released safely and require lifetime aviary care. The shortage of appropriate sanctuary facilities means many confiscated birds have nowhere adequate to go.

## Behaviour, Diet and the Clay Licks
Macaws are intensely social, flying in noisy pairs and flocks and bonding monogamously. Their diet is mainly seeds, nuts, fruit and flowers; the hyacinth macaw specialises on very hard palm nuts, such as acuri and bocaiuva, which its powerful beak can crack. In parts of the western Amazon, macaws and other parrots gather at exposed riverbank clay banks to eat soil — a behaviour called geophagy. The leading explanations are that the clay helps buffer plant toxins and supplies sodium, which is scarce in inland forests. These clay licks are a major draw for ecotourism, which gives local communities a living reason to keep the birds wild.

## Macaw Conservation in Practice
Effective macaw conservation requires simultaneous work on multiple fronts: protecting nesting trees in key forest areas, working with customs authorities to improve detection at borders, building triage and rehabilitation capacity at receiving centres, and running community education programmes in source areas. Nest box programmes have shown strong results for several species — providing alternative nest sites that are easier to monitor and protect than hollow trees. The recovery of Lear's macaw, from about 60 birds in 1983 to more than 2,500 counted in 2024, shows what sustained, coordinated protection can achieve. WARN's in-network focus for this work is Colombia and Brazil; other macaw range states such as Peru and Bolivia feature as wider range and search context.

## Key macaw species at a glance: status, population and range
| Species | IUCN status | Wild population | Range |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Spix's macaw (Cyanopsitta spixii) | Extinct in the Wild (reintroductions from 2022) | Wild-extinct since 2000; captive-bred birds released in Bahia | Caatinga, Bahia, Brazil |
| Blue-throated macaw (Ara glaucogularis) | Critically Endangered | ~200–500 | Beni savannas, northern Bolivia |
| Glaucous macaw (Anodorhynchus glaucus) | Critically Endangered (possibly extinct) | Likely none surviving | Lower Paraná/Uruguay basins, S. America |
| Lear's macaw (Anodorhynchus leari) | Endangered (down from CR in 2009) | ~2,500 (2,548 counted in 2024) | Caatinga, Bahia, Brazil |
| Hyacinth macaw (Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus) | Vulnerable | ~4,700–11,000 mature (stable) | Pantanal, Cerrado & Amazon edge, Brazil/Bolivia |
| Scarlet macaw (Ara macao) | Least Concern | Widespread but locally declining | Mexico through Central America to Amazonia |

## Macaw Species Guide
From the Blue-and-Gold and Scarlet Macaw to the Hyacinth, Military and Blue-Throated Macaw — explore 10 of the world's most searched macaw species with range, temperament, conservation status and care context for owners and researchers.

Full species library (10 guides): https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/macaw#breeds

- **Blue-and-Gold Macaw:** The classic macaw — turquoise, gold and green with a powerful beak and big personality. — https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/macaw/blue-and-gold-macaw
- **Scarlet Macaw:** Scarlet, yellow and blue plumage — a rainforest icon and CITES-regulated species. — https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/macaw/scarlet-macaw
- **Hyacinth Macaw:** The largest flying parrot — cobalt blue with yellow eye rings, Critically Endangered in the wild. — https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/macaw/hyacinth-macaw
- **Green-Winged Macaw:** Deep red with green wing bands — often called a gentler large macaw. — https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/macaw/green-winged-macaw
- **Military Macaw:** Mostly green with red forehead — endangered across fragmented mountain forest. — https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/macaw/military-macaw
- **Red-and-Green Macaw:** Closely related to green-winged macaws — brilliant red, blue and green. — https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/macaw/red-and-green-macaw
- **Blue-Throated Macaw:** Critically Endangered Bolivian endemic with turquoise throat patch. — https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/macaw/blue-throated-macaw
- **Lear's Macaw:** Indigo macaw recovered from near-extinction through intensive conservation. — https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/macaw/lears-macaw
- **Great Green Macaw:** Endangered ally of the mountain almond tree — loud and long-tailed. — https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/macaw/great-green-macaw
- **Chestnut-Fronted Macaw:** A smaller macaw — sometimes called severe macaw — with chestnut brow patch. — https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/macaw/chestnut-fronted-macaw

## What WARN does
WARN's in-network parrot focus is Colombia and Brazil, where it funds partner rescue and rehabilitation centres for triage capacity, aviary infrastructure, and soft-release programmes, and supports customs-detection training to improve interception rates at key border points. Other macaw range states feature as wider search context.

When a trafficked macaw is intercepted at a Colombian or Brazilian port, the hard part has only just begun — weeks of rehydration, quarantine and flight reconditioning before any bird can be assessed for soft-release, plus permanent aviary care for imprinted birds that can never go home. WARN funds the partner reception centres in macaw range countries that do exactly this work, so a gift helps keep a triage place open for the next confiscation.

## Frequently asked questions: Macaw
### What is the most trafficked bird in the world?
Parrots — including macaws — collectively make up the most heavily trafficked group of birds in the illegal wildlife trade, with tens of thousands entering trade each year according to CITES and trade-monitoring data. Among individual species, the African grey parrot and various macaws and Amazon parrots consistently appear at the top of seizure statistics.

### Why do so many macaws die in the illegal trade?
Poachers extract young chicks before they can fly, when they are most vulnerable, then transport them in cramped, dark, poorly ventilated conditions without food or water. Dehydration, stress-induced immune collapse and injury mean the majority of trafficked chicks die before reaching their destination — parrot-trade studies commonly cite mortality of well over half, and figures around 75% are frequently quoted for parrots overall.

### Can confiscated macaws be returned to the wild?
It depends on the individual bird's history and condition. Birds seized young, before extensive human contact, with intact flight feathers can sometimes be rehabilitated and soft-released. Most adult birds confiscated after years of captivity cannot be released safely — they lack foraging skills, predator awareness, and flock integration, and require lifetime aviary care.

### Is it legal to own a macaw?
In many countries it is legal to own captive-bred macaws, but rules vary by species and jurisdiction. Macaws are listed on CITES Appendix I or II, which restricts or prohibits commercial international trade in wild-caught birds. The core enforcement problem is that wild-caught birds are routinely laundered as captive-bred, which is difficult to detect without DNA or stable-isotope testing.

### Which macaw species are most at risk?
The Spix's macaw is Extinct in the Wild, with captive-bred reintroductions in Brazil since 2022. The blue-throated macaw, restricted to the Beni savannas of Bolivia, is Critically Endangered with roughly 200–500 birds in the wild. The glaucous macaw is Critically Endangered and possibly already extinct. Lear's macaw was downlisted to Endangered in 2009 and has recovered to about 2,500 birds, while the hyacinth macaw — the largest flying parrot — is Vulnerable, with roughly 4,700–11,000 mature individuals.

### What is the largest macaw, and the largest parrot, in the world?
The hyacinth macaw (Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus) is the largest macaw and the longest parrot in the world, reaching about one metre from bill to tail tip. It is also the heaviest flying parrot at up to roughly 1.7 kg; only the flightless kakapo is heavier overall.

### How long do macaws live?
Large macaws are long-lived. In the wild they typically reach about 30–50 years; in captivity 50–60 years is common, with exceptional individuals recorded at 70 or more. This longevity is one reason illegally kept birds create a welfare burden that can last decades.

### Why do macaws gather at clay licks?
In parts of the western Amazon, macaws and other parrots congregate at exposed clay banks to eat soil, a behaviour called geophagy. The leading explanations are that the clay helps buffer toxins in the seeds and unripe fruit they eat, and that it supplies sodium, a mineral that is scarce in inland tropical forests.

## Sources
- [IUCN Red List — Spix's macaw (Cyanopsitta spixii)](https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/22685527/153022824)
- [IUCN Red List — Hyacinth macaw (Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus)](https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/22685516/93077457)
- [BirdLife DataZone — Hyacinth Macaw factsheet](https://datazone.birdlife.org/species/factsheet/hyacinth-macaw-anodorhynchus-hyacinthinus)
- [Wikipedia — Lear's macaw (ICMBio census data)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lear's_macaw)
- [Wikipedia — Macaw (taxonomy and genera)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macaw)
- [Encyclopaedia Britannica — Macaw](https://www.britannica.com/animal/macaw)
- [Animal Diversity Web — Ara macao (scarlet macaw)](https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Ara_macao/)

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Full guide: https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/macaw