Ecologists were concerned over the future of species such as the scarlet macaw, the tapir and the black howler monkey as the project would flood 10 km² of rainforest in Belize.
Carara is home to one of the largest remaining populations of wild Scarlet Macaw in the country.
In Central American the range extends from extreme eastern and southern Mexico and Panama through Guatemala and Belize, the island of Coiba and infrequently on the mainland of Panama, and two isolated regions on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica; the Carara National Park and Peninsula de Osa.
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Several True Parrots from the Ara genus (Great Green Macaw, Blue-throated Macaw, Scarlet Macaw, Military Macaw), are all protected under Appendix 1 of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
It has also been active in breeding the Mexican gray wolf, which is currently extinct in the wild, and cares for and breeds several species of macaw, including the scarlet macaw.
Her struggle was documented in the book The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw: One Woman's Fight to Save the World's Most Beautiful Bird (2008), by Bruce Barcott.