National treasure
The sisserou is one of two endemic parrots found on Dominica, a small independent nation that lies halfway between Puerto Rico and Trinidad.

The other, the Jaco (Amazona arausiaca), also endangered, is a smaller, greener Amazon that lives at lower elevations.

With its habitat limited to a total of 289 square miles, about the size of four times Washington, D.C., the sisserou at its height may have numbered two thousand birds. Some islanders hunted it for food until 1950.

But the sisserou has been lucky compared with other Caribbean parrots, says Reillo. Endemic Amazons on the neighboring French islands of Guadalupe, where a sisserou lookalike once lived, and Martinique were extinct by 1800.

The sisserou, whose name means parrot in the carib language, owes its survival so far to two things, says Reillo: Plenty of remaining habitat on Dominica--60 percent of the island is still covered in rainforest--and national devotion.

"You’ll find no greater sense of pride in a parrot than in Dominica," says Reillo. "It’s in the center of their flag."

Few but fast-growing chicks
On the downside, Dominica’s mountainous, spottily mapped terrain has thwarted close study of the sisserou. Tourists who hike the flat, mile-long Syndicate Nature Trail in the northern reserve can catch a glimpse of the bird easily enough if they’re patient. Getting close enough to learn the Amazon’s habits is another matter.

Helped by time-lapse video surveillance, biologists have determined the bird lives off shoots, buds and fruit from some 30 rainforest trees.

Reproduction is excruciatingly slow, with pairs appearing to raise one chick high in the rainforest trees every couple of years.

However, young sisserous mature extremely fast, says Reillo. He still marvels at a female sisserou rescued last year that at only eight weeks weighed 600 grams, close to its full size.

Once fledged, juveniles travel with their parents for up to a year, unusual behavior for an Amazon parrot, but a good tactic for ensuring the singleton baby's survival, says Reillo.

"Their strategy is to compress raising the chick in the nest, then teach it over a long juvenile period how to be successful in the wild. ‘Let’s get you big and fat and out of the nest.’"

With a sisserou pair now housed at the Parrot Conservation and Research Centre at the Botanical Gardens in the Dominican capital city of Roseau--a nine-year-old male joined by the one-year-old rescued female--captive breeding is a possibility, says Reillo.

"We’re hoping the disparity in age is just about right," he says, referring to most male parrots’ lag in sexual maturity.

Reillo also hopes that providing Dominican rangers with GPS equipment will make it easier to track and document both sisserou and jaco.

Last year, the U.S. government lifted selective availability, a protective error factor built into global positioning satellites to thwart hostile military action. Now it’s possible to pinpoint locations on Dominica to within three feet, instead of an eighth of a mile.

"Our goal is to get staff comfortable and able to describe what they see and where. Then bring that information back and load it into a computer database. They can describe topography and biological aspects--trees, how big they are, the distribution of wildlife, including insects. The goal is to build an archive of natural history information."

Storms on the horizon
Finding the sisserou back in its old stomping grounds of Morne Trois Piton National Park last year was reassuring.

However, it’s tempered by the reality that there is still much to do if the big Amazon is to survive, says Reillo.

Next on the agenda: research into additional areas that may be suitable as national park space, and a TV and radio blitz to promote environmental stewardship to Dominica’s population of 74,000.

Even with these efforts, another bad hurricane season could snuff out the sisserou once and for all.

"We’re engaged in a race against time," says Reillo. "Dominica could be clobbered by five storms in one year, we never know. And when storms aren’t a threat, then the parrots are more at risk from increased human encroachment."

He chuckles wryly. "Just when the hurricanes are letting up, that’s when the little human termites go to work, whittling away on their environment."

All photographs in this story courtesy of Paul Reillo.

ParrotChronicles.com

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Interested in helping Dominica protect the sisserou? The Rare Species Conservatory Foundation needs monetary and equipment donations to continue its work preserving rare species of animals in Dominica and elsewhere.

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