CubaPLUS Magazine

The splendid Cuban Macaw (Ara Tricolor) clearly disappeared at the end of the 19th century from the National fauna.If you have seen the photo of a specimen taken from a tourist center, it is one of its Central American relatives, very similar, to illustrate the wonder that we lost due to the extermination by man.

It was an endemic bird of Cuba that the German naturalist Juan Cristóbal Gundlach was able to observe around 1850 in the Ciénaga de Zapata, where it was common. In Christopher Columbus's logbook it appears reflected as an abundant species upon his arrival (1492).

From the Psittacidae family, its common name in English is Cuban Macaw. There was a great trade with them. Due to indiscriminate hunting in order to obtain its showy feathers, and to send it as a luxury gift to European kings, emperors and nobles, it was exterminated. They say that even pirates and buccaneers had the whim of hanging out with them like toys... Today its appearance is remembered with the only specimen of Macaw that is preserved in Cuba, by the way a stuffed specimen kept in the Historical Collection of the Institute of Ecology and Systematics of CITMA.

They were large prey birds (550 mm in length with a 350 mm tail). It had a very striking color where red, yellow, blue-green and purple-blue predominated. Its thick and curved beak of black color stood out. The aborigines called it Cahuey.

The other powerful missing bird is the Royal Woodpecker. For years, the search for the Royal Woodpecker in Cuba has been a challenge and a magnificent demonstration of tenacity not offset by luck. It is one of the most beautiful of the 200 species of its genus.

Many years ago there was talk in expert circles of the traces of the passage of some animal, engraved on tree trunks and nothing else in areas belonging to dense eastern forests. However, no specimen was sighted. And although its extinction has not officially been declared, everything indicates that it is true.

The inquiries ceased, unless they continue to be made by some madman or dreamer. The Royal Woodpecker (Campephilusprincipalis), the largest and most colorful of its kind, is a sort of symbol for environmentalists around the world. It was a bird of national connotation in the United States, a country that lost it in the 40s of the last century, due to man's deforestation activity.

Of course, that influences its absence in the Cuban forest. It was the periodic migratory flows that brought this species to the Island, coming from the northern fringe of the continental lands.

It was valued as an endemic subspecies of Cuba. The first indications of the Royal Woodpecker in Cuba were recorded in the 19th century, in the Ciénaga de Zapata wetland, and the latest findings of hatchlings correspond to the Ojito de Agua area (Sierra Maestra) in 1987. The females show a mottled black and white plumage, an ivory beak and a black tuft, which is red in the males.

They are approximately 50 centimeters long. It pecks loudly and dominates large spaces, which include intramontane valleys and river estuaries, making the search extremely difficult. In the country, the existence of this species takes on the appearance of legend.

The question that remains then is whether it has really disappeared. An experienced specialist called years ago not to lose hope, because the expeditions, although intense, were fragmentary and short-lived. The search must have a long breath. I wish I had been right. The absence seems to be too long not to be final.