Endangered Status Planned for Five Birds

WASHINGTON (CN) - The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposes to list as endangered four species of birds from Colombia, and one from Ecuador, under the Endangered Species Act. The South American birds are the blue-billed curassow, the brown-banded antpitta, the Cauca guan, the gorgeted wood-quail and the Esmeraldas woodstar.

The agency will accept comments until Sept. 8.

Although these birds have faced habitat destruction and loss, forest fragmentation, livestock grazing, fire, hunting, and encroachment from other human activities, and requests were made to list them in the 1980s and 1990s, they have remained off the list. At the time, the USFWS determined that listing the birds as endangered was warranted but precluded by higher-priority listing actions. In 2007 the five species were designated with listing priority number 2, which means that the subject species face imminent threats of high magnitude. This action followed, two years later.

Protecting foreign species under the Endangered Species Act regulates the importation of the animal or its parts, and is meant to help heighten awareness of the need for conserving these species among foreign governments, conservation organizations, and members of the public.

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