Tambopata Macaw Project

 
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Home Project Staff Gabriela Vigo Trauco, Biologist
Gabriela Vigo Trauco, Biologist
Scientific Adviser

Contact
Address:
Lima
PERU

E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Information: Gaby is a Peruvian parrot research that was graduated as biologist at the Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina, in Lima, Peru.

She started to work with the Tambopota Macaw Project since 2003 as a volunteer assistant. Since that, she has helped them in many different positions such as Field Leader and even Project General Coordinator. Nowadays she is part of their Scientific Advisor Staff and is one of the oldest participants of the project.

Her main expertise is Parrot nesting ecology and behavior. Her main investigations are related to the growth and development of macaw chicks in the wild and the use of artificial nest boxes by different species of psitacines. She even went to Brazil in 2006 to help and learn of the Red tailed Amazon Conservation Project under the SPSS organization (Sociedade de pesquisa em vida slavagem) in Curitiba. Another big part of her research is the use of video cameras inside the macaw nest. With this investigation, she is documenting and trying to understand the chick starvation phenomenon and the disputes for the use of nests.

Gaby is also a research assistant in the Schubot Exotic Bird Health Center at Texas A&M University since 2009. Her main activities there are related to the environmental maintenance and enrichment of the psitacine collection (macaw, parrots, cockatiels and parakeets) that the Center owns.

Gaby is also interested in the use of new techniques, such as genetics, in the understanding of natural history and nesting ecology of psictacines. That is one she is doing a PhD in Texas A&M in the Wildlife and Fisheries Department under Dr. Thomas Laucher advice. Her intentions are to mix her previous studies and knowledgement about macaw chick growth, macaw parental care and macaw nesting behavior with genetic analysis to determine family relations and its implications for conservation of the species.