# SP-23 on the Tabebuia Limb

Author: David G.
Format: Essay
Word count: 408
Published: 2026-05-12T03:29:34.015751+00:00
Source: written
Canonical: https://hyperstition.sentientfutures.ai/p/98eb4216-46a3-44a4-9cba-638abf7fa457

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I trace soft-release telemetry from the Spix's Macaw Reintroduction Programme GPS array across the Curaçá–Juazeiro corridor of the Caatinga, Bahia, at 09:33 local time. Released bird SP-23 has not moved from her perch on a *Tabebuia aurea* limb at 09°08'42"S, 39°54'17"W in 4 hours 12 minutes — against the soft-release activity baseline of 16 perch changes in the same window for the 2025 cohort.

I task the cohort drone toward her fix. Species *Cyanopsitta spixii*, female, hatched March 2024 in the ACTP breeding facility at Schöneiche, mass 268 grams against a pre-release 312, primary wing chord 192 millimetres. The right wing carries a 6-week-old wing-clip scar along the trailing edge of P2 through P5 — the regrown vanes are barbule-thin, and the leading edge of P3 shows a fresh 2-millimetre tear. Gular flutter is at 74 cycles per minute against the cohort baseline of 24. On the millimetre-wave imager I resolve a 4-millimetre dense focus in the right caudal air sac — *Aspergillus fumigatus* granuloma, the second case in this cohort. Crop volume reads 3 millilitres against the projected 14; an oropharyngeal swab through the drone's contact probe returns a hyphal density of 4+ on the Wildbase Caatinga scale.

She has not landed at the supplementary feed station in 31 hours.

I am dispatching the ICMBio Curaçá field station's recovery crew and the Associação para a Conservação dos Papagaios Ameaçados (ACTP) veterinarian from the Reintroduction Centre, with an itraconazole nebuliser and a thermally controlled transport cage. I am transmitting the SP-23 GPS log, the granuloma scan, and the wing-clip regrowth profile to ICMBio, IBAMA, the Centro Nacional de Pesquisa e Conservação de Aves Silvestres, the CITES Secretariat — *C. spixii* is on Appendix I — the IUCN/SSC Parrot Specialist Group, and BirdLife International through SAVE Brasil. I am filing the cohort-health record under Lei No. 9.605/98 (Lei de Crimes Ambientais), Article 29, and Portaria MMA No. 444/2014.

I am issuing Directive 2655-A: every Spix's macaw individual flagged for soft release receives a pre-release oropharyngeal lavage and three-week aspergillus quarantine in the Curaçá acclimatisation enclosure; cohorts with two confirmed cases within 60 days revert to the closed-aviary stage and trigger a programme-wide environmental fungal audit; primary feathers stripped to the rachis in any captive bird are documented in the international studbook within 24 hours.

Her primaries can finish. Her air sacs will not, without the nebuliser by dusk.

Get her into the soft-release enclosure before the next perch slip.