Ara Manzanillo – Great Green Macaw Sanctuary, Costa Rica

Ara Manzanillo – September 2021

When we were in Tortuguero I saw a poster about a great green macaw project in Limon province, south of Puerto Viejo. If you’ve read the Tortuguero post you’ll know that we fell in love with the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, so the opportunity to volunteer here and help this endangered species was super exciting – we knew we’d be in for a treat! So I emailed Emily at Ara Manzanillo and after a few days we heard our applications were successful!

The “Ara” Project started in 2010 and the sole aim of the project is to help the endangered Great Green Macaw. Since then 45 birds have been successfully released into the wild, bred from previously captive birds. They continue to release Great Greens raised in captivity. They also provide supplementary feeding for the released birds and also rescue macaws in danger and monitor the health of the released birds and their young.

The project is located only 5.5 miles from the border of Panama, in the jungle just a kilometre from the sea. We arrived quite late after a long trip from San Jose, we were dropped right next to the beach in pitch dark and waited for Duaro, the Centre Manager, to come and collect us. We soon saw the headlights of the car approaching and met Duaro – such a great guy! He took us to the field station and showed us around – a simple 2 bedroom house with kitchen and outdoor seating area – it was perfect! At this point we found out we are the only people who live on site, the founders, Emily & Enrique live a bit further down the hill and Duaro lives a few miles away north of Puerto Viejo. We unpacked and went to bed and lay there listening to the jungle!

In the morning we were given a briefing and given a background of the project. The Great Green Macaw’s only exist in one other area of Costa Rica, and this explains why there are so few in the wild. The objective of the project is to establish a self-sustainable population in the region. This group could eventually link up with the remaining wild populations of Great Greens of northern Costa Rica and the wild population of central and northern Panama. The species has declined rapidly due to habitat loss, deforestation and the pet trade (it’s now illegal to keep scarlet and green macaws as pets in Costa Rica). So the project has done amazing work and the numbers have gone up from the 45 birds that have been released since 2010 to 95 individuals today. Around the land owned by the project unique nesting boxes have been erected high up in the trees and these have been really successful. One of our jobs is to learn tree climbing, using ropes and all the proper equipment, so we can go up and check on the nests, sanitise them and also put new ones up! The birds are supplementally fed twice a day, using beach almonds. So day one we jumped on the quad bike and hightailed it down to the beach to collect the best beach almonds! The key is to get ones which are yellow and a bit brown, if overripe or too green the birds will unceremoniously throw them out of the feeders! We collected around 30kgs of almonds and hauled them back to base. We then clean them and cut off any soft bits and refrigerate. Other tasks include helping to build new nest boxes and fix existing ones, guiding daily visitors around and telling them about the project and monitoring the birds twice a day. We also have plenty of time to read, cook and relax so it’s a fantastic balance – what an amazing organisation!