 In 1760, the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson quoted a letter by French writer M. de la Borde, which stated that macaws had become very rare in the Antillean islands because they were hunted for food.By then they could only be found in areas not frequented by humans and were probably extinct soon afterward.Parrots are often among the first species to be exterminated from a given locality, especially islands.