The Puerto Rican Parrot

The Puerto Rican parrot, or iguaca, is a bright green parrot with a red forehead and blue-tipped wings, about a foot long. The Puerto Rican parrot is endemic to Puerto Rico and the only native parrot in the United States, and it is one of the world's rarest birds, with its oldest wild flock in El Yunque.

The Puerto Rican parrot is one of the most endangered birds in the world. The wild population hit its low point of about 13 birds, all in El Yunque, in 1973. Decades of captive breeding and releases have brought the species back, but the wild flocks remain small and vulnerable to hurricanes.

Roughly 250 Puerto Rican parrots live in the wild today, spread across three sites: El Yunque, Rio Abajo, and Maricao. As of 2025, El Yunque's wild flock reached at least 75 birds, the highest in the recovery program's history. Several hundred more Puerto Rican parrots live in captive breeding aviaries.

Seeing a Puerto Rican parrot in El Yunque is possible but rare, and you are far more likely to hear one than see one. The parrots live in the higher forest and move fast through the canopy. Treat a sighting as a lucky bonus rather than something to expect on a visit.

The Puerto Rican parrot is called the iguaca because that is the name the indigenous Taino gave the bird, meant to imitate the loud call it makes in flight. The name has outlasted centuries of change, and the aviary in El Yunque that leads the parrot's recovery, the Iguaca Aviary, is named after it.

The Puerto Rican parrot makes a loud, raucous call in flight, the sound the Taino captured in its name, iguaca. In El Yunque that call is usually the first sign a parrot is near, because the birds streak fast through the canopy. Most visitors who encounter one hear it well before seeing a green flash.

The scientific name of the Puerto Rican parrot is Amazona vittata, and the species is also known as the Puerto Rican amazon. In Spanish it is the cotorra puertorriquena, and its oldest name is iguaca, the Taino word that imitates its loud flight call. All four names refer to the same bird.

The Puerto Rican parrot almost went extinct because centuries of deforestation for agriculture erased its habitat. Before European settlement the iguaca numbered in the hundreds of thousands across Puerto Rico, but the cleared land left only a tiny remnant flock in El Yunque. That collapse triggered the recovery program, launched in 1972, that still protects the species.

The Iguaca Aviary is the breeding facility in El Yunque at the center of the Puerto Rican parrot's interagency recovery program. The program's first aviary opened in El Yunque in 1973 to breed birds and release them into the wild. The aviary takes its name from the bird's Taino name, iguaca.

Some Puerto Rican parrots survived Hurricane Maria, though the wild flock was nearly wiped out. The September 2017 storm cut El Yunque's wild population from 56 birds to only a couple of survivors. The captive birds, sheltered in the aviary's storm bunker, came through, and their releases rebuilt the wild flock in the years that followed.

Wild Puerto Rican parrots live at three sites in Puerto Rico: El Yunque, Rio Abajo, and Maricao. El Yunque holds the oldest wild population, and its parrots live in the higher forest, moving fast through the canopy. With several hundred more parrots in captive breeding, the species no longer rests on a single flock.

No El Yunque tour can honestly guarantee seeing a Puerto Rican parrot, because sightings are rare. The rainforest swimming tour travels through the parrot's rainforest range on the forest's south side, at $89 per person or $129 with San Juan hotel pickup. Treat any parrot sighting there as a lucky bonus.