- In Veracruz, the charismatic Mexican sheartail, one of the 58 hummingbird species in the country, is threatened by habitat loss due to deforestation for agriculture and urbanization.
- Chavarillo, an important spot for migratory birds, located in central Veracruz, has leveraged income gained from birdwatching to create a natural reserve for the Mexican sheartail.
- One local in Chavarillo donated land to establish the Doricha Natural Reserve, which provides the sheartail with much needed habitat and helps promote biodiversity conservation more widely.
- Birdwatchers, local landowners and conservationists have come together here to protect a habitat and ecosystem important for many endemic species.
Nestled in the thorny shrubs of the dry forests of Veracruz in the Gulf of Mexico, a small bird lights a spark for a promising future. After flying under scientists’ radar for many years, the Mexican sheartail (Doricha eliza) is now fighting for its survival with the help of an improbable ally: the expanding birdwatching community in Mexico.
A popular destination for birdwatching, Mexico has more than 1,120 bird species, representing more than 10% of the world’s total number of bird species. Among those, the country is home to around 58 different species of hummingbirds that face growing threats from climate change and deforestation.
Despite its adaptability, the Mexican sheartail relies on the tropical dry forests and savannas of central Veracruz. However, since 2001, 480,000 hectares (1.18 million acres) Veracruz’ forests have been destroyed to make way for urban expansion, citrus and sugar cane plantations, and grasslands for cattle ranching. Losing its habitat remains the biggest threat to the sheartail’s survival.
Due to the species’ unique and awe-inspiring courtship display, in which the male soars high into the sky to then plummet down in a hypnotic dance for its mate, the sheartail requires vast amounts of open wilderness. Its nesting habits are also specific, as females in Veracruz mainly build nests in the Sierra Madre nightshade (Solanum houstonii), a plant with beautiful purple flowers of the nightshade family which only grows in these dry forests.
The loss of habitat of this little-studied species contributes to its vulnerability. With fewer than 2,500 individuals found in only two places in Mexico — Veracruz and the Yucatán peninsula — the Mexican sheartail is classified as vulnerable by the IUCN. Recently, after years of grouping both populations as the same species, Fernando González, head researcher at the Instituto de Ecología (INECOL), found that the Doricha eliza in Veracruz could be a distinct species from the larger Yucatán population. This would make the Veracruz sheartail a more vulnerable and endemic species with much of its ecology remaining a mystery, he told Mongabay. Because of its vulnerability, since 2002, the Mexican sheartail has been considered endangered by the Mexican federal law.
“I’ve been birding for many years, and for most of this time the sheartail remained unknown to many,” said Alexis Jarvio Rodríguez, a birdwatcher in Chavarrillo, central Veracruz. “Once I started posting my sheartail photos online, I got many requests from birdwatchers worldwide that wanted to spot this elusive species.”
Chavarrillo, located in the municipality of Emiliano Zapata, a few miles away from Veracruz’s capital city of Xalapa, is an important spot for thousands of migratory birds flying through during the fall and spring seasons, attracting local as well as foreign bird enthusiasts — some coming from as far as Denmark and Sweden. “As more birdwatchers and researchers showed interest in the sheartail and my sightings, I realized we needed to protect it,” Rodríguez said. “The ecosystem in Chavarrillo was well preserved despite local farmlands, so we needed to take advantage of that.”
Since 2022, Chavarrillo started leveraging revenues brought through birdwatching to establish a natural reserve for hummingbirds. They adopted a community-based conservation model that allows individuals from across Mexico to donate their family or communal farmland in a specific ecosystem for biodiversity conservation without waiting for government action. Recognized at the federal level, these private and community lands hold the same status as state reserves and are often more effective than the latter, which are prone to industrial encroachment.
In 2022, inspired by Rodríguez’s determination, Don Erasmo Ferto, a Chavarrillo local, donated part of his land to create the Doricha Natural Reserve, helping to protect the Mexican sheartail and its habitat for an initial period of 15 years. The status will be renewed as the project progresses. “Thanks to Alexis, I learned we had something very valuable that needed protection,” Don Erasmo told Mongabay. “It was my love for nature that inspired me to support the creation of the Doricha Reserve.”
At the same time, the grassroots movement also created the NatJún Ecotourism Collective — the name referencing the word for hummingbird in the Indigenous Totonac language — led by Chavarrillo community members Alejandra Caldera and Jazmín Contreras. “We wanted to raise awareness about the rich biodiversity surrounding us as well as implement a low-impact ecotourism venture focused on birdwatching and helping students with their scientific research,” Caldera said.
”The … Doricha Reserve not only led to re-discovering species as endemic, but it’s helping in understanding the Mexican sheartail better,” said González. “The sheartail is a very pretty and charismatic species, people care about beautiful creatures more than they do about other wildlife. It’s the perfect flagship species to spark interest in the public.”
Drawn by the movement surrounding the sheartail, Miguel San Martín and Sandra Enríquez, PhD students from INECOL and Universidad Veracruzana, respectively, and avid birdwatchers and filmmakers, started producing a documentary film to further support the community’s efforts. San Martín and Enríquez both agree that “even though further research needs to be done regarding the sheartail’s population, there’s no doubt that areas like the Doricha Reserve can aid populations to recover.”
“The Chavarillo community is invested in protecting the sheartail. Not only did they establish the reserve, they have kept it clean alongside authorities, as the area was previously used as a cemetery for farm animals,” said San Martín.
These community-based conservation initiatives are supported by the Emiliano Zapata municipal authorities that donated a vacant building in the town for the NatJún collective and environmental education activities, as well as Solanum houstonii plants and seeds. These plants and seeds were grown in their Colibrí ecological greenhouse, named after the sheartail. According to González, around 500 of these plants were reforested in a 2-hectare (5-acre) surface around the reserve and inside citrus farmlands.
Many farmers in Chavarrillo are also allowing native plants to grow alongside crops on their farmlands, which contributes to the resilience of the ecosystem and the Doricha Reserve by enhancing biodiversity in the area. These efforts have also led to the rediscovery of the Veracruz wren (Campylorhynchus rufinucha), another dweller of the dry forests, as an endemic species to central Veracruz.
Another community-based conservation area providing a haven for the sheartail in Veracruz is the Xocotitla Reserve in Paso de Ovejas, east of Chavarrillo. Xocotitla was established by birdwatcher Aurelio Molina, following a movement where 605 private and community-owned areas in Mexico were volunteered for reserves.
These two places are helping to strengthen the shift in conservation policy led by communities and individuals by contributing to the conservation of native and endemic biodiversity in Mexico. “Because the administrations’ terms are short in Mexico, these community projects are key to ensuring long-lasting results for the future of nature and wildlife in the country,” said Judith Gonzalez, director of Emiliano Zapata’s Environmental and Agricultural Authorities.
According to Rafael Villegas, director of the highly specialized professional services unit within INECOL, a department that supports decision-making for sustainably managing natural resources, “losing even a single species can result in a series of events that could degrade and, in time, end a whole ecosystem. As local ecosystems are more resilient to change when they contain more species, protecting most of the local biodiversity is essential for maintaining ecological stability.”
Rodriguez’s sightings of the sheartail and other endemic species have been increasing. But González warns that “we have to continue pushing authorities to act in favor of biodiversity by following the example of Alexis and the Chavarrillo community and authorities. This is only the beginning.”
Banner image: A male Mexican Sheartail (Doricha eliza) photographed in the savannas of Miradores, in the municipality of Emiliano Zapata in Veracruz, México. Image by Tamara Blazquez Haik.
FEEDBACK: Use this form to send a message to the author of this post. If you want to post a public comment, you can do that at the bottom of the page.
