I tend to think of birds and trees as opposites — one free to roam the skies, the other rooted in earth. But in tropical forests, the Great Green Macaw and the Almendro Amarillo tree, or yellow almond, are deeply intertwined.
The macaw can live for a century — if it can find almendro trees, which provide it with critical resources. Their large seeds make up most of the birds’ diet. And the tree has a habit of shedding its huge branches, creating deep hollows where macaws can securely nest, keeping them safe from terrestrial predators. Smaller hollows provide the birds with watering holes.
But both species face steep decline. Fewer than 3,500 Great Green Macaws remain. As with many other tropical animals, the drivers of those losses have been logging, land clearing and capture for the pet trade.
But this particular situation brings in a different factor. For a long time, the almendro’s dense wood, treasured because of its resistance to insects and rot — was so tough that it broke ordinary chainsaw blades. But in the 1980s, new tungsten carbide blades made it easy to cut these trees, bringing almendros to the market.
Listed as endangered in 2015, the almendro’s plight has inspired action from groups like Costa Rica’s Ara Project. Their teams reintroduce rescued macaws and run breeding programs. All of this is helping to restore the partnership between birds and trees, whose survival depends on each other.
