Endangered
Thick-billed Parrot
Rhynchopsitta pachyrhyncha
The thick-billed parrot is a medium-sized parrot endemic to Mexico that formerly ranged into the southwestern United States.
Appearance
The thick-billed parrot is a medium-sized, bright green parrot with a large black bill and red forecrown, shoulder and thighs. Adult eyes are amber, while juveniles have brown eyes. The rest of the bird is bright green.
It is 38 cm (15 in) long and weighs 315–370 g (11.1–13.1 oz).
Published measurements include mass about 325.
Range and habitat
The thick-billed parrot lives in temperate conifer, pine, mature pine-oak and fir forests at elevation of 1200–3600 meters. Its former range included the United States among them Arizona and New Mexico. Even so, these accounts co-occurred with heavy shooting, logging, and development that extirpated the thick-billed parrot from its US range.
NatureServe considers the species to be "Critically Imperiled".
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
The species is strongly dependent on the supply of conifer cones, breeding at the peak of pine seed production. To a much lesser extent, they also feed upon acorns and pine buds.
In crisis
Classified internationally as Endangered through IUCN, the thick-billed parrot's decline has been central to multiple controversies over wildlife management. In 2018, the estimated wild population in Mexico was 1,700. Principal threats to the thick-billed parrot are illegal pet trade, habitat loss principally due to logging, climate change (hotter temperatures that raise the snow line and increasing fire threats), and predators especially hawks and owls.
The species is listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and is on Appendix I of CITES meaning that commercial international trade is prohibited. It is also listed as endangered by the U.S.
Thick-billed Parrot is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Thick-billed Parrot, Wikidata item Q555163. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
