Brazil Races to Bring Blue-Eyed Doves Back from Oblivion

In the dry grasslands of Brazil’s Cerrado, only 17 wild blue-eyed ground doves are known to sing at dawn. But six chicks hatched in a faraway aviary have sparked hope that captive breeding can rescue one of the world’s rarest birds—before it vanishes forever.

From Ghost Bird to Global Obsession

For 75 years, the blue-eyed ground dove was considered extinct. Five faded skins in museums—two in Rio, two in São Paulo, and one in Chicago—were all that remained of a species last seen in 1941. Then, in July 2015, something miraculous happened.

While conducting a bird survey in the grasslands of Minas Gerais, biologist Rafael Bessa heard a trill he didn’t recognize. He lifted his camera, and the images he captured would stun the global conservation community.

“It was like seeing a dinosaur alive,” Bessa told EFE then.

His discovery, confirmed by scientists and published in Revista Brasileira de Ornitologia, reignited a global effort to protect what had been lost. The Cerrado location is one of Earth’s most biodiverse regions—home to 5% of all known species. But it’s also under siege, losing its native habitat faster than the Amazon.

Within a year, the nonprofit Save Brasil (BirdLife International’s partner) bought nearly 1,500 acres near the tiny town of Botumirim and fenced off a sanctuary: the Rolinha-do-Planalto Reserve. At first, researchers counted just 12 birds. By 2023, that number had grown to 15. But a new wet season survey brought sobering news—only 11 were found. Many had likely retreated into deeper scrub, pushed by drought and wandering cattle.

With the wild population slipping again, attention turned 1,170 miles south—to an aviary built for something Brazil has never done before.

Building an Ark in the Shadow of Iguaçu Falls

Most visitors visit the Parque das Aves in Foz do Iguaçu to see the showy scarlet macaws. Few realize behind the scenes the park runs the largest bird conservation lab in South America.

In 2019, the park brought together experts from 15 institutions—including the Smithsonian’s avian genetics lab and São Paulo State University’s veterinary school—and made a quiet but urgent decision: the blue-eyed ground dove needed a backup population, far from the uncertainty of the Cerrado.

Transporting adult birds was too risky. Instead, researchers collected two freshly laid eggs in 2023, two more in 2024, and two just this April. They were flown south in temperature-controlled containers and incubated by hand.

Amazingly, all six hatched. “We got three males and three females. That’s statistically miraculous,” said veterinarian Paloma Bosso, cradling a four-month-old chick no bigger than a sparrow.

Still, raising a critically endangered species in captivity is never as simple as warming eggs and feeding chicks.

The Romance and Science of Survival

Inside the lab, scientists are trying to recreate the Cerrado in miniature.

The blue-eyed ground dove’s unique cobalt eye ring isn’t just for show—it comes from specific carotenoids found in local grass seeds. So Bosso’s team consulted with agronomists from the Federal University of Goiás, blending up a diet that mimics what the birds would find in the wild. Provitamin A is added to ensure the bright blue pigment stays vibrant.

Behavior is more challenging to engineer.

The doves are monogamous, but only loosely. Courtship rituals involve exaggerated struts and wing displays on red soil clearings. To set the mood, keepers built a flight cage with laterite-rich soil, scattered branches from cagaiteira trees, and installed hidden cameras to watch for love sparks.

So far, there have been no eggs. But Bosso has her hopes pinned on a couple: a 2024-hatched male and a 2023 female who’ve started eating side by side. “They need time,” she says, smiling. They’re figuring each other out.”

Once the first egg comes, it’ll be pulled for incubation, increasing its odds of survival from 60% to over 90%. “Captivity gives us the luxury of patience,” she says. “In the wild, they don’t have that anymore.”

A Countdown with No Guarantees

Saving a species is one thing. Putting it back into a shrinking world is another.

A 2022 study by the University of Brasília warns that, at current deforestation rates, the Cerrado could lose half its remaining native vegetation by 2050—mainly to soybean fields. Without enough intact habitat, released birds will starve or fall prey to caracaras, the region’s predatory birds.

So Bosso’s team is preparing their young doves for battle. Before any reintroduction, birds will go through a sort of avian boot camp: health screenings, predator-recognition drills using cardboard hawk silhouettes, and practice flights in a semi-wild enclosure where they’ll learn how to forage for seeds in native soil.

“We’re not just breeding numbers,” Bosso says. “We’re breeding behavior.”

Still, some scientists argue that the dove can serve a bigger purpose even if the wild population is lost. Gláucia Drummond, an ornithologist at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, believes flagship species like this can anchor conservation movements. In a recent article for The Wilson Journal of Ornithology, she wrote: “If the blue-eyed ground dove survives, so might dozens of little-known Cerrado reptiles, orchids, and native pollinators.”

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The six young birds flit between branches in their flight cage, unaware of how much rides on their tiny shoulders. As the sun fades over Iguaçu, Bosso watches them settle.

“We hope to hear their song in Botumirim again,” she says quietly. “Because silence would mean we failed—twice.”