Flying back from the brink of extinction

One of the world's rarest parrots - the Spix's macaw - is now ready to start breeding

- Simon Birch

SPIX'S MACAW HAS BEEN RETURNED S to live freely in its native Brazil having been extinct in the wild thanks to a remarkable and pioneering international conservation effort.

Named after the German naturalist Johann Baptist Ritter von Spix who first collected a specimen in 1819, the South American parrot's plight began when its homeland in northeast Brazil was destroyed by overgrazing and clearing.