Thick-billed Parrots

The Thick-billed Parrot, sometimes called the Snow Parrot for its preference of high elevations, used to reside in the southwestern United States, in the Chiricahua Mountains. Today, their range is limited to Northern Mexico in the Sierra Madre Mountains.

Thanks to the efforts of many conservation groups such as Pronatura, The Wildlands Project, and EcologyFund there is a much hope for the future of this unique, high-altitude bird.

By replacing the logging income with eco-tourism related to the parrots and old growth forest, the hope is that this will permanently save the species from extinction and allow their reintroduction to their former range in the “Sky Islands” (isolated mountain ranges surrounded by desert) in the American Southwest. –EcologyFund.com

In the 1980s, there were attempts made to re-introduce the Thick-billed Parrot to its native home in the Chiricahua Mountains. Unfortunately, due to habitat loss and predation, it was not successful.

According to another leader in the efforts to save the Thick-billed Parrot, The Phoenix Zoo gives us hope for re-introduction to the Chiricahua Mountains in their ConSci Newsletter:

Recent recovery of thick billed parrots in the high sierra of Chihuahua has led to the possibility of a release in the Eastern Chiricahua Mountains in the fall of 2008.

To see them back in more of their native range would be wonderful, but the most important thing is that a successful re-introduction would help improve their populations even more.