The birds depend on old-growth quebracho forests for nesting habitat, which are being lost to logging and overgrazing. During winter, the blue-fronted amazon may cause damage in citrus orchards in northwest Argentina. For that reason, it has legal pest status in several provinces, allowing its unlimited exploitation or destruction.
Population Trend
Decreasing
Sub-national Level
Unknown/not recorded
Additional Details (if available)
Expert opinion of six studied populations indicated that the main threats to the species are agro-industry farming, wood and pulp plantations, agro-industry grazing, capture for the pet trade (local and international), large-scale and selective logging and climate change (Berkunsky et al. 2017a).
Name
Emma Hemmerlé
Scientific Name
Amazona aestiva
Common Name(s)
Blue-fronted Amazon
Turquoise-fronted Amazon
Type of Use
Extractive (i.e., the entire organism or parts of the organism are removed from its environment)
If extractive, for the target species, is this use
Non-Lethal
Does this use involve take/extraction of
The whole entire organism
Details of parts/products taken
Capture of blue-fronted amazons usually involves removal of the entire brood from the nest, destruction of nesting sites, and often felling of trees
Controlling use is practically impossible. The provinces are responsible for wildlife management, but there is no coordination among them or with the federal government. Wildlife agencies do not have enough money, equipment or trained staff, and these problems are aggravated by corruption. Argentina is a signatory to CITES; but weak enforcement of domestic laws makes it difficult to
implement international agreements.
Local people (e.g., individuals, communities, co-operatives)
Is the use part of a strategy to generate conservation incentives, to finance conservation, or to improve tolerance/stewardship?
Unknown/not recorded
Is there evidence that the use is affecting the conservation status of the species? HIDE
Yes – use is negatively affecting the status (e.g., population is declining; extraction effort is increasing)
Is there evidence that the use is affecting natural selection?
Unknown/not recorded
Is there evidence that the use is affecting poaching of illegal wildlife trade?
Unknown/not reported
Is there any evidence that this use of the species is having a knock-on effect on the status of non-target species
Unknown/not recorded
Yes, negative (e.g., it destroys/ degrades it due to over-use)
Additional Details (if available)
The pet trade contributes to forest destruction and loss of nest sites. To obtain
nestlings, campesinos usually make a hole in the trunk, or even fell the tree, which leaves 95% of the cavities unusable for future nesting attempts. This practice is widespread in the Argentine Chaco and is now extending
to the Paraguayan side (Bucher et al. 1993), steadily destroying prime breeding habitat. Preferred nesting trees are also valuable timber species.
Details of assessment carried out
It is obvious from the widespread and prolonged trends of shrinking range, population fragmentation, and loss or degradation of breeding and wintering habitats that current capture rates are unsustainable.
Has a valuation of financial flows from this use at the site/national/international level been recorded
No
Contribution to GDP
Unknown/not recorded
If financial benefits accrue disproportionately toward some actors, please explain why
Buyers in the field ("acopiadores") pay the hunters US$4-US$6 per parrot. The birds are transported to Buenos Aires by road or air and resold to intermediaries for about US$8 each. Blue-fronted amazons can fetch US$400 or more in pet
stores in industrial countries.
Prescott-Allen, Robert, and Prescott-Allen, Christine (Eds.) (1996). Assessing the Sustainability of Uses of Wild Species - Case Studies and Initial Assessment Procedure. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland, and Cambridge, UK. pp. iv + 135.
Capture of blue-fronted amazons in Argentina.
Enrique H. Bucher
it is obvious from the widespread and prolonged trends of shrinking range, population fragmentation, and loss or degradation of breeding and wintering habitats that current capture rates are unsustainable.
Threats/pressures impacting the species at the scale of this record