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First South American Reserve for North American Songbird

The American Bird Conservancy (ABC) and Colombian conservation group Fundación ProAves announce the creation of South America’s first protected area for a songbird that breeds exclusively in North America. The reserve will protect wintering habitat for the cerulean warbler, a striking bright blue and white migratory bird that has experienced significant population decreases in recent years, mainly due to loss of habitat on both its nesting grounds in North America and wintering grounds in South America.

The cerulean warbler nests in the eastern United States and Canada from the lower Great Lakes region, southern Quebec and New England, south to northern Louisiana and northwestern Georgia. Within this area the species breeds primarily in the Ohio and Mississippi River valleys, especially in the upper Ohio River Valley in West Virginia and western Pennsylvania. The species also ranges east to New York, Maryland, and Virginia.

“This cerulean warbler reserve is a ground-breaking step in the conservation of migratory song birds" says Mike Parr, Vice President for Communications at ABC. “This is the first South American preserve designed to protect a bird species that nests solely in the United States and Canada.”

The new reserve currently includes 500 acres of subtropical forest in the Rio Chucurí basin of Santander, Colombia. The area, one of the last natural remnant forest fragments in the region, shelters high populations of wintering cerulean warblers. The reserve also contains three Critically Endangered bird species: the gorgeted wood-quail, Colombian mountain grackle, and chestnut-bellied hummingbird, along with many other threatened and endemic birds.

“The Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act, currently up for reauthorization in Congress, provided critical funding that hepled to show that this region is important to the long-term survival of the cerulean warbler,” notes Parr. “This project and others like it provide a strong justification for the renewal of the Act.”

The reserve in Santander is the focal point for a continuing regional conservation campaign for the warbler. Another key area for wintering ceruleans, southwestern Antioquia, Colombia, has also been targeted by ABC for further conservation efforts.

The purchase was made possible by a major donation from British conservationist Robert Giles and support from other individual donors.