Current view: Data table and detailed info
Taxonomic note
Crax fasciolata and C. pinna (del Hoyo and Collar 2014) were previously lumped as Crax fasciolata following Sibley and Monroe (1990, 1993).
Taxonomic source(s)
del Hoyo, J., Collar, N.J., Christie, D.A., Elliott, A. and Fishpool, L.D.C. 2014. HBW and BirdLife International Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World. Volume 1: Non-passerines. Lynx Edicions BirdLife International, Barcelona, Spain and Cambridge, UK.
IUCN Red List criteria met and history
Red List criteria met
Red List history
| Migratory status |
not a migrant |
Forest dependency |
high |
| Land-mass type |
|
Average mass |
2,600 g |
Population justification: Given how infrequently this species has been recorded in the wild, it is likely to be very rare. Despite intensive searches the species went unrecorded between 1978 and November 2013, when four males were detected in Terra Indígena Mãe Maria (Pará) as well as one pair in Terra Indígena Alto Turiaçu (Maranhão) (Alteff et al. 2019). Another male and a female were recorded in Gurupi Biological Reserve (Maranhão) in 2017 (Mendes et al. 2017). More recently two individuals were observed in Gurupi in 2019 (eBird 2023). In 2014 it was considered unlikely that more than 20-30 individuals existed (A. Lees in litt. 2014), and the current wild population is described as 'a few individuals' (Phalan et al. 2020). Despite a formal quantification of the population lacking, the rarity of recent records despite intensive search effort allows estimating a population in the band 10-49 mature individuals. Notably, the sex ratio appears skewed with females being rarer than males as they are specifically targeted by hunters (Alteff et al. 2019, Phalan et al. 2020).
Trend justification: This species has undoubtedly become rarer over the past decades. While during the 1970s reasonable numbers were reported in forests at sites like the Pindaré river (Sick 1997) it became locally extinct in large areas of its range, likely due to high hunting pressure and habitat loss (Alteff et al. 2019, Kirwan et al. 2020).
The rate of population decline has not been directly investigated. Rates of tree cover loss (tree cover of >75%) are very high within the known extant range, equivalent to 30% over the past three generations (25.4 years) and accelerating to 54% over three generations based on rates of loss for 2017-2022 (Global Forest Watch 2023, using Hansen et al. [2013] data and methods disclosed therein). It is projected that the combined effects of climate change and deforestation may lead to an overall loss of habitat of 37-99% between 2017 and 2050 under a worst-case business-as-usual scenario, depending on assumptions on dispersal ability (de Moraes et al. 2020). This equates to a three-generation rate of habitat loss of 30% assuming limited dispersal, of 71% assuming no dispersal, and of 97% assuming unlimited dispersal. In addition to the considerable variation in the values for the rate of habitat loss, there is no quantitative information on the impact of hunting on the population size. Hunting pressure is assumed to be high and therefore may increase the rate of population decline over the rate of habitat loss. Considering the above evidence and in the absence of exact data the rate of population decline is tentatively placed in the band 40-59% over the past three generations, and accelerating to 50-99% over the next three generations.
Country/territory distribution
Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBA)
Recommended citation
BirdLife International (2024) Species factsheet: Belem Curassow Crax pinima. Downloaded from
https://datazone.birdlife.org/species/factsheet/belem-curassow-crax-pinima on 22/11/2024.
Recommended citation for factsheets for more than one species: BirdLife International (2024) IUCN Red List for birds. Downloaded from
https://datazone.birdlife.org/species/search on 22/11/2024.
