24/7 Surveillance of Scarlet Macaw Nest Cavities with Continuous Video Recording




To answer the mystery...
Why are the chicks disappearing?

El Peru, Guatemala March 2008


Chick and parents in nest cavity- 1 minute segment (in B/W as it is recorded with an infrared light source)



Click below for short slide show of WCS-Guatemala Installation
WCS-Guatemala Scarlet Macaw Camera Installation

Link to WCS-Guatemala

The Scarlet Macaw is classified as a CITES Appendix I species - CITES's most endangered and threatened with extinction classification.

This project is in a region in Guatemala where the nesting success of scarlet macaws had been high, but in recent years has dropped to near zero. It was not known why. The chicks would seem healthy then just vanish. Humans are not the only suspect, because in the past when chicks have been poached, scars from the poacher's climbing spikes have been seen on the trees. But it is also thought that the chick poachers may have adapted to using climbing ropes - just as the researchers do - and not leave telltale scars on the trees. The chicks typically disappear when they are 50-60 days old - an age when they are "ripe" for poachers. The prime non-human suspect now seems to be forest falcons which have been seen in the region in greater numbers - due to a compression of their habitat from human settlement moving into the park .

In order to find out for sure the real cause of the loss of chicks, we are installing miniature, very low-light sensitive video cameras and IR light sources in 10 nest cavities. These cameras are recording continuously to a high capacity, low power 160GB hard disk video recorders located on the ground. The hard disks will have to be swapped out when full - only every 12 days. By the end of the nesting season, it will be known what is happening to the chicks. If it is found that it is forest falcons, WCS-Guatemala has designed a falcon-resistant two-chambered artificial nesting box which should also be adaptable to real nest cavities.

Long duration video is a valuable new tool anti-poaching - complementing TrailGuards. Adding video or still imaging into the system can enhance the effectiveness of TrailGuards. Even with an immediate alarm of a possible poacher using TrailGuards, there is often the lack of any kind of effective ranger team to respond quickly enough . Capturing their images might enable their subsequent arrest and prosecution. And be a more effective deterrent than detection alarms alone.

In this case, if we determine that humans are the cause of the chicks disappearance, we plan, in the future, to protect the nest sites with a poacher alarm system. Here, once humans are detected at a nest site by means of the TrailGuard sensors a very loud alarm will go off - similar to a car-burglar alarm. But just before the alarm goes off, a concealed camera will record images of the poachers -as well as immediately sending a satellite or cell phone alarm to ranger patrols. It is unlikely the poachers would risk ascending the tree to steal the chicks or waste time searching for the concealed alarm. Instead they would most likely flee the area - saving the chicks.



UPDATE: Scarlet Macaw chick predation by forest falcon recorded March 27,2008

1min 35sec

Click here for the entire attack sequence (2min 22sec)



The forest falcon is now clearly identified as a predator of young scarlet macaw chicks. But it is very unlikely that it is the predator responsible for taking the 50-60 day old chicks - as chicks of that age are bigger than the falcon. And the falcon must be able to fly out of the nest cavity as they are not equipped to climb out.



The use of very long duration video recording is a novel method for wildlife protection as well as general wildlife monitoring and behavioral research which should find many uses in the future. Here, we will be archiving continuous behavioral data on macaw nesting as a "by-product" of the chick disappearance investigation.

The use of very-long duration, highly concealable remote video recording should have many important surveillance/monitoring applications in areas such as bushmeat markets, ports of entry, marine reserves - any situation where an event of interest is likely or possible to occur but is so infrequent and unpredictable as to make other means of detection very difficult. Suitable software exists for both automatically and manually rapidly scanning video files for events of interest.

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A second nest cavity was also hit by a forest falcon







click for a BBC video on WCS-Guatemala's Scarlet Macaw Project



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