The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Parrots Over Puerto Rico: An Illustrated Children’s Book Celebrating the Spirit of Conservation

Most children’s books are full of animals — as protagonists, as pets, as age-old standbys in fairy tales and alphabet primers alike. But, as Jon Mooallem poignantly observed in his bittersweet love letter to wildlife, by the time each generation of children grows up, countless species of animals that roamed Earth during their childhood have gone extinct — today, scientists estimate that one species ceases to exist every twenty minutes. Perhaps whatever chance we have of reversing this tragedy lies in translating our children’s inherent love of animal characters into a tangible grown-up love of animal species, the kind of love that protects them from growing extinct, preserves their natural habitat, and honors the complex dynamics of ecosystems.

That’s precisely what writer Cindy Trumbore and illustrator Susan L. Roth set out to do in Parrots Over Puerto Rico (public library) — a magnificent children’s book that embodies Jane Goodall’s plea for our human responsibility and tells the story of Puerto Rico’s once-abundant iguaca parrots (Amazona vittata), their brush with extinction in the 1960s under the strain of geopolitical and ecological pressures, and their inspiring recovery in the hands of tireless conservation scientists.

Roth’s captivating collage illustrations bring these singular creatures to life with extraordinary vibrancy, the three-dimensional aesthetic imbuing the whimsical realism of Trumbore’s narrative with tactile affection.

Iguaca! Iguaca! the parrots called as they looked for deep nesting holes under the tall trees.

Down below, waves from the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean washed the island’s white-sand beaches. Delicate orchids and wide-spreading ferns, tiny tree frogs, kapok trees bursting with seedpods, and big, scary iguanas covered the land.

These striking birds, about a foot in length and clad in bright green-and-blue plumage, are the only parrot species native to the United States and its territories. Named after their distinctive bugle in flight — Iguaca! Iguaca! — they dwindled from an estimated population of nearly one million at the time Christopher Columbus arrived in Puerto Rico to one of the ten most endangered species in the world today.

The Spanish settlers brought with them black rats, which descended from the ships and spread over the island like a plague, climbing the trees, invading the parrots’ nests, and eating their eggs. When the United States declared war on Spain and fighting broke out across Puerto Rico, the parrots’ precious habitat was threatened further.

In the 1950s, aggressive birds appropriately called pearly-eyed thrashers moved into the rainforest and tried to take over the parrots’ nesting holes. The flock shrank further still, to only 200 birds by 1954.

The iguacas became a true underdog of evolution and geopolitics.

But this is the kind of story where the underdog perseveres: In 1968, the Puerto Rico Parrot Recovery Program — chirpily abbreviated PRPRP — was founded. In the decades since, conservation scientists have labored to undo the iguacas’ dismal destiny by fostering three self-sufficient parrot populations in different parts of the island, thus steadily increasing their chances of survival.

Parrots Over Puerto Rico comes from Lee & Low Books, an independent children’s book publisher celebrating diversity. Complement it with You Are Stardust, a picture-book teaching kids about science and the interconnectedness of the universe in illustrated dioramas.

Images courtesy of Lee & Low


Published August 5, 2014

https://www.themarginalian.org/2014/08/05/parrots-over-puerto-rico/

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