With experienced field team leaders, you'll hike in a tropical rainforest, with towering, 50-meter-tall trees, lianas, and epiphytes. To get to some research sites, you will travel by riverboat. At the sites, you will observe scarlet, blue and gold, and red and green macaws at clay licks, and record their daily behavior and reactions to visiting tourists. You will also observe macaw nesting sites to record data on when the parents are present, what kind of foods they bring their chicks, and activity in the nests. The information you collect will help Matsufuji mitigate the impacts of ecotourism and ensure the long-term conservation of macaws and their habitats. In your free time, there's great birdwatching to be had or you can enjoy the monkeys and other large mammals that frequent the research area.
Meals and Accommodations
On this expedition, you'll stay at two different places: Tambopata Research Center and the Refugio Amazonas. Both have shared rooms, flush toilets, and unheated showers. Professional cooks will prepare three buffet meals a day. Tambopata is one of the richest rainforests in the world, with more than 500 recorded species of birds.
On this expedition, you'll stay at two different places: Tambopata Research Center and the Refugio Amazonas. Both have shared rooms, flush toilets, and unheated showers. Professional cooks will prepare three buffet meals a day. Tambopata is one of the richest rainforests in the world, with more than 500 recorded species of birds.
Research Summary
Tambopata Research Center, Madre de Dios, Peru — Macaws, the brilliant, long-tailed parrots of neotropical forests, are seriously threatened both by forest clearing and by poaching for the pet trade. Young macaws fetch thousands of dollars, if they survive. To catch them, poachers cut down their nesting trees for chicks and lurk at clay licks, where macaws and parrots congregate by the hundreds. Although increased ecotourism focused on watching macaws has helped reduce poaching, it may be causing its own problems by disturbing the birds that require century-old trees for nesting and have a slow reproductive rate. Join Alan Lee and Daphne Matsufuji, lead by Dr. Donald Brightsmith, in collecting data that will help these magnificent birds from being loved to extinction.
Tambopata Research Center, Madre de Dios, Peru — Macaws, the brilliant, long-tailed parrots of neotropical forests, are seriously threatened both by forest clearing and by poaching for the pet trade. Young macaws fetch thousands of dollars, if they survive. To catch them, poachers cut down their nesting trees for chicks and lurk at clay licks, where macaws and parrots congregate by the hundreds. Although increased ecotourism focused on watching macaws has helped reduce poaching, it may be causing its own problems by disturbing the birds that require century-old trees for nesting and have a slow reproductive rate. Join Alan Lee and Daphne Matsufuji, lead by Dr. Donald Brightsmith, in collecting data that will help these magnificent birds from being loved to extinction.
MEET THE SCIENTISTS
Dr. Donald Brightsmith
Duke University
Welcome to the Peruvian Amazon! This area holds the world record for the most species of birds, frogs, butterflies and tiger beetles, and has among the highest tree diversity as well (over 200 species per hectare). Our field site is right next to the world's largest clay lick, where up to 15 species of parrots and macaws come to eat clay every morning. During this trip you will get ample opportunity to observe and enjoy this wonderful biodiversity and do your part to help preserve it.
Mr. Alan Lee
Manhester Metropolitan Univ.
Alan Lee joined the Tambopata Macaw Project under Don as a volunteer in 2002. AftTambopata Reserve Society for 2 years (TReeS), he decided to get the most of his Peruvian experience and join Don working on the project with the aim of completing his er working on a research project for the MPhil / PhD. Alan directed research at Posada and Refugio during 2006 and 2007 to this end and is now based between the UK and Peru. Alan loves snakes
Donald Brightsmith was engaged elsewhere, so Alan Lee stepped in to lead this last group of Earthwatchers for the season. Alan’s website and his own macaw research can be found at http://www.macawmonitoring.com Many of the photos I’ve included in my expedition booklet are from Alan’s site or from other Earthwatchers. I have given credit with each of these photos.
Donald Brightsmith was engaged elsewhere, so Alan Lee stepped in to lead this last group of Earthwatchers for the season. Alan’s website and his own macaw research can be found at http://www.macawmonitoring.com Many of the photos I’ve included in my expedition booklet are from Alan’s site or from other Earthwatchers. I have given credit with each of these photos.
Daphne Matsufuji
Lima
Peruvian researcher Daphne Matsufuji, under the direction of Dr. Donald Brightsmith, is collecting data that will help these magnificent birds from being loved to extinction.
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