Project description

The Wattled Curassow (Crax globulosa) is a neotropical frugivorous turkey-sized bird, that inhabits exclusively in humid várzea forests (seasonally flooded forest along white-water rivers). Like other members of the Family Cracidae, these birds play an important ecological role in the forest they inhabit. A small number of remaining fragmented populations of this endangered species persist in Colombia, Brazil, Peru and Bolivia, within the upper Amazon basin, each generally limited to less than 250 individuals. The causes of the population’s decline in number are overhunting, and loss and degradation of habitat since várzea forests are preferred areas for human settlement and agriculture in the region. Of these populations, it appears that Brazilian could be the biggest (estimated in nearly 1000 individuals), although there is no available updated precise information about their current status. Because of this, there is an urgency to understand the ecological requirements of the species and the conservation status in its theoretical distribution area.

To improve this knowledge, since 2012 this project is undertaking several conservation actions in-situ in a Brazilian protected area, the Piagaçu Purus Sustainable Development Reserve (RDS-PP), where local people partake on management decisions. Observations and interviews recently conducted in the RDS-PP communities (Bertsch, C. et al., 2013) indicate that this may be a globally important site for C. globulosa, since it contains one of the largest remaining protected continuous várzea habitat in the south of the Amazon River. 

 Objectives of our project are: 

1. to assess current status of Wattled Curassow populations, using standardized line-transect census methodology and camera-trap surveys in várzea habitat;

2. to study ecological aspects of the species, including home-range and habitat use trough GPS satellite telemetry, as well as diet and reproduction;


3. to asses the subsistence hunting pressure on the species, trough a communitarian-based hunting monitoring program;

4.  to enhance conservation local capacity by training local people (mainly hunters) to survey curassows populations and to monitor hunting activities in their own communities; 

5.  to promote awareness in várzea communities of the reserve, through educational speeches and printed materials for schools about the key importance of this threatened bird and its habitat. 

Information gathered will be of prime value to define regional conservation strategies for the species and to supply baseline data for long-term communitarian monitoring of Wattled Curassow population trends. 

Due that in the study area there is another simpatric curassow species, the Razor-billed Curassow, Mitu (Pauxi) tuberosa, another very important species for local communities, we are accomplishing the same actions for this species as well.


For more details about these two curassow species, please see the section "About the species" of this site.