Costa Rica’s Cubujuquí Interurban Biological Corridor recorded 2,366 birds from 183 species during its first bird census of 2026, confirming the area as one of the richest urban conservation corridors in the country. The monitoring took place on April 25 along 15 routes across Heredia and Alajuela.
The Cubujuquí corridor spans 10 cantons and forms part of Costa Rica’s effort to connect fragmented ecosystems, natural areas, landscapes and micro-watersheds inside urban and semi-urban areas. These corridors are designed to give wildlife safer movement between green spaces while also bringing conservation closer to communities.
The strongest results came from Roble Alto in San José de la Montaña, the Benjamín Núñez campus of the National University in Lagunilla de Heredia, and Hacienda Barvak in Barva. The three sites recorded 65, 60 and 57 bird species, respectively.
Hacienda Barvak joined the official monitoring routes for the first time this year and recorded 327 individual birds. The count there included three endemic species, two aquatic species linked to nearby bodies of water, and two species listed as threatened under Costa Rica’s Wildlife Conservation Law.
The estate’s participation adds a new private-sector conservation site to the Cubujuquí monitoring network. Its reforestation program is focused on recovering forest cover in an area once shaped by coffee plantations, with tree planting and water protection forming part of its biodiversity work.
The bird count at Hacienda Barvak was carried out by 13 volunteers, guided by conservation and wildlife management specialist Hellen Solís and birding expert Federico Oviedo. Participants registered observations through eBird, the platform used to consolidate records from Costa Rica’s eight interurban biological corridors.
Among the most abundant species reported at the site were Pygochelidon cyanoleuca, a small blue-and-white swallow, and Sturnella magna, known locally for its yellow breast and associated with healthy open areas with little pesticide pressure. At the national level, the April monitoring of interurban biological corridors recorded 11,976 birds from 329 species. The corridors with the greatest species richness were Cobri Surac, with 211 species; Cubujuquí, with 183; and Bicentenario Tiribí, with 168.
The Cubujuquí corridor is part of the National Biological Corridors Program under SINAC. Its local monitoring committee includes representatives from the National University, government institutions, nongovernmental organizations, municipalities and civil society. The broader effort is supported by the Transition to a Green Urban Economy project of the Organization for Tropical Studies, promoted by the United Nations Development Programme.
For Costa Rica, the results show the role that urban and peri-urban green spaces can still play in protecting wildlife. In densely populated areas of the Central Valley, corridors such as Cubujuquí offer a practical model for linking conservation, education and community participation without removing people from the picture.
