The Stresemann’s Bristlefront will get added protection with the addition of much-needed habitat tracts to the “Songbird Forest Reserve” in eastern Brazil (photo by Ciro Albano).

More than 500 acres of Atlantic Forest, including the area where the rarest bird in the world was rediscovered – the Stresemann’s Bristlefront – will be added to Brazil’s “Songbird Forest Reserve” (Mata do Passarinho Reserva). Last seen during the fall of 2020 prior to the covid pandemic, the single bird was found during searches led by reserve manager Alexander Zaidan in late 2018 on private land just outside of the reserve's boundaries, with support from American Bird Conservancey (ABC) and other groups.

ABC is working with Zaidan to continue searching for more bristlefronts, in the reserve and in newly acquired land, with the hope that new individuals will be found. Certainly, the new reserve expansion will help to conserve and increase the habitat available to support the bristlefront’s fragile population.

Consisting of 2 rare fragments of intact Atlantic Forest, the land was donated to Fundacao Biodiversitas, a partner of ABC. This biome is one of the most threatened in the world, with less than 9 percent of its original area remaining. Fundacao Biodiversitas received the forest tracts as part of a mitigation project required when the local utility company Interligacao Eletrica constructed transmission lines in the area. The company worked closely with Biodiversitas and the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) to secure the land, and it will also help provide management costs.

In 2007, Fundacao Biodiversitas, with support from ABC and other organizations, established the Mata do Passarinho Reserva to safeguard habitat for the Stresemann’s Bristlefront and other rare species, including Banded Cotingas.

You can refer to the original article, published by the American Bird Conservancy, at https://abcbirds.org/article/stresemanns-bristlefront-get-additional-habitat-protection/

To learn more about the American Bird Conservancy – a nonprofit organization dedicated to conserving wild birds and their habitats throughout the Americas for a quarter-century – see https://abcbirds.org/