Parque das Aves is a walk-through bird sanctuary a few metres from the Brazilian-side entrance of Iguaçu Falls — 16 hectares of Atlantic Forest housing 150+ species, most of them rescues from wildlife trafficking or conservation-breeding subjects. Three large aviaries let you share the same airspace as toucans, macaws and cotingas; a glass-walled butterfly house and a harpy eagle enclosure round out the visit.
History & Why It Matters
Parque das Aves was founded in October 1994 by British ornithologist Dennis Mayer and his Brazilian wife Anna Mayer, who had previously run a successful bird park in the UK and saw an opportunity to establish a dedicated Atlantic Forest bird sanctuary at Brazil's most-visited national park. Their core concept was ahead of its time: walk-through aviaries where visitors entered the same airspace as the birds, eliminating the psychological barrier of cages and radically improving the visitor-bird interaction. The park opened with 230 birds in 11 aviaries and immediately became a mandatory complement to the Iguaçu Falls visit — but more importantly, it pioneered a conservation-focused model that several other Brazilian bird parks later copied.
The conservation mission has been the park's defining story since the 2000s. The Mata Atlântica (Atlantic Forest) is one of the world's most endangered forest biomes — roughly 7% of its original extent survives after 500 years of colonial and industrial clearance — and the forest holds hundreds of endemic bird species, many critically endangered. Parque das Aves partners with government agency IBAMA and receives confiscated wildlife from trafficking raids across southern Brazil; the park has become one of the largest rehabilitation centres for illegally traded macaws and parrots in South America. The flagship programme is the Red-and-green Macaw reintroduction, begun in partnership with Projeto Arara in the 2010s — captive-bred chicks are raised by the park's veterinary team, taught to fly and forage in large pre-release aviaries, and released into restored Atlantic Forest corridors in Paraná and Mato Grosso do Sul. Over 120 macaws had been released as of 2024.
In 2019 the park was recertified by the American Humane Conservation programme and the Zoological Association of America, and in 2021 it became a founding member of the Brazilian Bird Conservation Action Plan. Today the park holds roughly 1,300 individual birds across 150+ species, including rarities like the critically endangered Alagoas curassow (extinct in the wild), the Lear's macaw, the red-browed Amazon, and a resident pair of harpy eagles — South America's largest raptor. Annual visitors have grown from 80,000 in the late 1990s to over 900,000 per year in 2024, making it one of the most-visited private conservation institutions in South America. The park still runs under the original Anna Mayer-founded governance (she remains director as of 2026), funded roughly 70% by visitor tickets and 30% by donations and grants. Every R$65 entry directly supports the rescue and reintroduction programmes — a rare case where tourism money is demonstrably doing conservation work rather than extracting from it.
Visitor Experience — What It's Actually Like
You cross Avenida das Cataratas at 2pm after a morning at the Brazilian falls, still damp from the Devil's Throat spray walk, and you are at the Parque das Aves entrance in 90 seconds. R$65 at the gate, a map in English, and you step onto the paved one-way trail through a tunnel of Atlantic Forest canopy. Within two minutes of walking, you are inside the first walk-through aviary and a Toco toucan lands on a branch 40 centimetres from your face, tilts its head, and assesses you. The beak — the vast orange-and-black beak that you've seen on a thousand Guinness posters — is right there. A second toucan lands, then a third. A chachalaca wanders across the footpath carrying a pebble in its beak. You spend ten minutes in the aviary before you've moved more than twenty metres.
The rhythm of the visit is encounter after encounter at a pace that feels private even though there are 50 other visitors inside the park. The red-and-green macaw aviary is louder — 30 macaws free-flying with that scissor-wing precision, shrieking a few seconds before you see them. A volunteer handler explains (in excellent English) that most of this flock are trafficking rescues being prepared for release; some have clipped wings that will eventually grow back. The harpy eagle enclosure comes next: a massive bird the size of a small labrador standing on a perch two metres from the viewing window, with the unsettling stare of an apex predator. The butterfly house is a final 20-minute surprise — air conditioned, glass-walled, 200 species in free flight, a blue morpho the size of your open hand landing on a yellow sign explaining how long butterflies live (two weeks, in most cases). You exit the park at 4:15pm with 600 photos on your phone, a new respect for toucan intelligence, and the sense that this was not a zoo.
💡 What surprised me: Parque das Aves is busier with excited children than with serious birdwatchers. Arrive at 9am or 3pm for quieter aviaries and less squealing; the birds are noticeably calmer when fewer humans are in the space.
Compare & Decide
For a non-falls Iguaçu activity, Parque das Aves vs Itaipu Dam vs Marco das Três Fronteiras is the choice:
| Criterion | Parque das Aves | Itaipu Dam | Três Fronteiras | Winner |
|---|
| Entry price | R$ 65 | R$ 70–180 | R$ 50 | Três Fronteiras cheapest |
| Best for | Nature + conservation | Engineering + history | Three-country photo | Aves for wildlife |
| Duration | 2 hours | 2–4 hours | 1 hour | Parque manageable |
| Crowd | Medium | Medium | Low | Três quietest |
| Highlight | Toucan eye-level | Dam turbine room | Brazil-Arg-Paraguay point | Tie |
| Best for families | Excellent | Good | Good | Parque wins |
| Pairs with | Brazilian falls | Half day alone | Sunset | Parque + falls |
If you have just one extra activity beyond the falls, make it Parque das Aves. It genuinely complements the falls (nature experience) rather than duplicating it (another water/engineering attraction).
Quick Facts
- Location: Foz do Iguaçu, 300 m from Brazilian park entrance
- Size: 16 hectares of Atlantic Forest
- Species: 150+ bird species, 1,300+ individuals
- Opening hours: 8:30 am to 5:00 pm (last entry 4:30 pm)
- Trail: one-way, 1.5 km, paved
- Typical visit: 2 hours
- Accessibility: wheelchair-friendly main trail
Tickets & Prices
| Ticket | 2026 Price (BRL) |
|---|
| Adult | R$ 65 |
| Brazilian resident | R$ 52 |
| Child 9–17 | R$ 33 |
| Child under 8 | Free |
| Behind-the-scenes tour | R$ 180 |
| Guided group tour | R$ 30 extra |
Tickets can be bought at the gate (short queues most days) or online to guarantee entry during peak periods. The behind-the-scenes tour includes conservation-breeding facilities and the veterinary clinic — worth it for bird enthusiasts.
🧮
Brazil Trip Cost Calculator
Planning Foz do Iguaçu? Add the bird park, both sides of the falls and hotel into a personalised 2026 budget. USD $1 ≈ R$ 5.00 today
Highlights
- Walk-through toucan aviary — eye-level encounters
- Red-and-green macaw aviary — Brazil's biggest captive flock
- Harpy eagle enclosure — rare apex predator
- Flamingo lagoon
- Butterfly house (air-conditioned) — 200+ species
- Hummingbird garden
- Raptor section with caracaras and hawks
How to Get There
Parque das Aves is on Avenida das Cataratas, 300 metres from the Iguaçu Falls Brazilian-side visitor centre. Any transport heading to the falls will drop you within walking distance.
- From Foz do Iguaçu centre: 25 min taxi (R$ 60–90)
- From Foz airport (IGU): 10 min taxi (R$ 30–50)
- Line 120 public bus: R$ 4.50 from TTU terminal
- On-site parking: free
Best Time
Birds are most active in the cooler morning hours (8:30–11 am) and again from 3 pm onwards. Midday heat drives many into the shade. Arrive at opening or mid-afternoon for the best sightings and easier photography.
💡 The butterfly house is air-conditioned and sits near the end of the one-way trail — a welcome cool-down after the outdoor aviaries on a hot Iguaçu day. Save 20 minutes for it.
What to Bring
- Camera with a fast lens (aviary light is dim)
- Hat and sunscreen for outdoor sections
- Insect repellent — it is Atlantic Forest
- Light raincoat (tropical showers)
- Refillable water bottle
- Patience and quiet voices — loud groups scare birds
Nearby
Most visitors combine Parque das Aves with the Brazilian side of Iguaçu Falls (across the road) into a single full day — falls in the morning when light is better, bird park in the afternoon. The Belmond Hotel das Cataratas just inside the national park serves an excellent afternoon tea buffet for anyone wanting a colonial-era break between the two.
🧮
Brazil Trip Cost Calculator
Want a personalised estimate for your own Brazil trip? Get an instant breakdown by style, season and cities — with live BRL conversion. USD $1 ≈ R$ 5.00 today
People Also Ask
People also ask
Is the harpy eagle always visible at Parque das Aves?+
Usually yes — the resident pair are on public display most days between 9am and 4pm. Occasionally they rotate into behind-the-scenes breeding enclosures; the park posts daily signage at the entrance if any species is unavailable.
Can I buy tickets at the gate or do I need to book?+
Gate purchase is fine most days. Peak holiday weeks (December 26–January 10, Carnaval week, Easter weekend) can see 20-minute entry queues — online booking at parquedasaves.com.br saves time.
How does Parque das Aves fund its conservation work?+
Roughly 70% from visitor tickets, 30% from private donations, corporate sponsorship, and conservation-partner grants. Visiting the park directly funds trafficking rescue and the Red-and-green Macaw reintroduction programme.
⚠️ Do not touch or feed the birds — even the apparently tame toucans can deliver painful bites and carry bacteria. Follow handler instructions on entering and leaving aviaries to prevent escapes.
Parque das Aves is a walk-through bird sanctuary a few metres from the Brazilian-side entrance of Iguaçu Falls — 16 hectares of Atlantic Forest housing 150+ species, most of them rescues from wildlife trafficking or conservation-breeding subjects. Three large aviaries let you share the same airspace as toucans, macaws and cotingas; a glass-walled butterfly house and a harpy eagle enclosure round out the visit.
History & Why It Matters
Parque das Aves was founded in October 1994 by British ornithologist Dennis Mayer and his Brazilian wife Anna Mayer, who had previously run a successful bird park in the UK and saw an opportunity to establish a dedicated Atlantic Forest bird sanctuary at Brazil's most-visited national park. Their core concept was ahead of its time: walk-through aviaries where visitors entered the same airspace as the birds, eliminating the psychological barrier of cages and radically improving the visitor-bird interaction. The park opened with 230 birds in 11 aviaries and immediately became a mandatory complement to the Iguaçu Falls visit — but more importantly, it pioneered a conservation-focused model that several other Brazilian bird parks later copied.
The conservation mission has been the park's defining story since the 2000s. The Mata Atlântica (Atlantic Forest) is one of the world's most endangered forest biomes — roughly 7% of its original extent survives after 500 years of colonial and industrial clearance — and the forest holds hundreds of endemic bird species, many critically endangered. Parque das Aves partners with government agency IBAMA and receives confiscated wildlife from trafficking raids across southern Brazil; the park has become one of the largest rehabilitation centres for illegally traded macaws and parrots in South America. The flagship programme is the Red-and-green Macaw reintroduction, begun in partnership with Projeto Arara in the 2010s — captive-bred chicks are raised by the park's veterinary team, taught to fly and forage in large pre-release aviaries, and released into restored Atlantic Forest corridors in Paraná and Mato Grosso do Sul. Over 120 macaws had been released as of 2024.
In 2019 the park was recertified by the American Humane Conservation programme and the Zoological Association of America, and in 2021 it became a founding member of the Brazilian Bird Conservation Action Plan. Today the park holds roughly 1,300 individual birds across 150+ species, including rarities like the critically endangered Alagoas curassow (extinct in the wild), the Lear's macaw, the red-browed Amazon, and a resident pair of harpy eagles — South America's largest raptor. Annual visitors have grown from 80,000 in the late 1990s to over 900,000 per year in 2024, making it one of the most-visited private conservation institutions in South America. The park still runs under the original Anna Mayer-founded governance (she remains director as of 2026), funded roughly 70% by visitor tickets and 30% by donations and grants. Every R$65 entry directly supports the rescue and reintroduction programmes — a rare case where tourism money is demonstrably doing conservation work rather than extracting from it.
Visitor Experience — What It's Actually Like
You cross Avenida das Cataratas at 2pm after a morning at the Brazilian falls, still damp from the Devil's Throat spray walk, and you are at the Parque das Aves entrance in 90 seconds. R$65 at the gate, a map in English, and you step onto the paved one-way trail through a tunnel of Atlantic Forest canopy. Within two minutes of walking, you are inside the first walk-through aviary and a Toco toucan lands on a branch 40 centimetres from your face, tilts its head, and assesses you. The beak — the vast orange-and-black beak that you've seen on a thousand Guinness posters — is right there. A second toucan lands, then a third. A chachalaca wanders across the footpath carrying a pebble in its beak. You spend ten minutes in the aviary before you've moved more than twenty metres.
The rhythm of the visit is encounter after encounter at a pace that feels private even though there are 50 other visitors inside the park. The red-and-green macaw aviary is louder — 30 macaws free-flying with that scissor-wing precision, shrieking a few seconds before you see them. A volunteer handler explains (in excellent English) that most of this flock are trafficking rescues being prepared for release; some have clipped wings that will eventually grow back. The harpy eagle enclosure comes next: a massive bird the size of a small labrador standing on a perch two metres from the viewing window, with the unsettling stare of an apex predator. The butterfly house is a final 20-minute surprise — air conditioned, glass-walled, 200 species in free flight, a blue morpho the size of your open hand landing on a yellow sign explaining how long butterflies live (two weeks, in most cases). You exit the park at 4:15pm with 600 photos on your phone, a new respect for toucan intelligence, and the sense that this was not a zoo.
💡 What surprised me: Parque das Aves is busier with excited children than with serious birdwatchers. Arrive at 9am or 3pm for quieter aviaries and less squealing; the birds are noticeably calmer when fewer humans are in the space.
Compare & Decide
For a non-falls Iguaçu activity, Parque das Aves vs Itaipu Dam vs Marco das Três Fronteiras is the choice:
| Criterion | Parque das Aves | Itaipu Dam | Três Fronteiras | Winner |
|---|
| Entry price | R$ 65 | R$ 70–180 | R$ 50 | Três Fronteiras cheapest |
| Best for | Nature + conservation | Engineering + history | Three-country photo | Aves for wildlife |
| Duration | 2 hours | 2–4 hours | 1 hour | Parque manageable |
| Crowd | Medium | Medium | Low | Três quietest |
| Highlight | Toucan eye-level | Dam turbine room | Brazil-Arg-Paraguay point | Tie |
| Best for families | Excellent | Good | Good | Parque wins |
| Pairs with | Brazilian falls | Half day alone | Sunset | Parque + falls |
If you have just one extra activity beyond the falls, make it Parque das Aves. It genuinely complements the falls (nature experience) rather than duplicating it (another water/engineering attraction).
Quick Facts
- Location: Foz do Iguaçu, 300 m from Brazilian park entrance
- Size: 16 hectares of Atlantic Forest
- Species: 150+ bird species, 1,300+ individuals
- Opening hours: 8:30 am to 5:00 pm (last entry 4:30 pm)
- Trail: one-way, 1.5 km, paved
- Typical visit: 2 hours
- Accessibility: wheelchair-friendly main trail
Tickets & Prices
| Ticket | 2026 Price (BRL) |
|---|
| Adult | R$ 65 |
| Brazilian resident | R$ 52 |
| Child 9–17 | R$ 33 |
| Child under 8 | Free |
| Behind-the-scenes tour | R$ 180 |
| Guided group tour | R$ 30 extra |
Tickets can be bought at the gate (short queues most days) or online to guarantee entry during peak periods. The behind-the-scenes tour includes conservation-breeding facilities and the veterinary clinic — worth it for bird enthusiasts.
🧮
Brazil Trip Cost Calculator
Planning Foz do Iguaçu? Add the bird park, both sides of the falls and hotel into a personalised 2026 budget. USD $1 ≈ R$ 5.00 today
Highlights
- Walk-through toucan aviary — eye-level encounters
- Red-and-green macaw aviary — Brazil's biggest captive flock
- Harpy eagle enclosure — rare apex predator
- Flamingo lagoon
- Butterfly house (air-conditioned) — 200+ species
- Hummingbird garden
- Raptor section with caracaras and hawks
How to Get There
Parque das Aves is on Avenida das Cataratas, 300 metres from the Iguaçu Falls Brazilian-side visitor centre. Any transport heading to the falls will drop you within walking distance.
- From Foz do Iguaçu centre: 25 min taxi (R$ 60–90)
- From Foz airport (IGU): 10 min taxi (R$ 30–50)
- Line 120 public bus: R$ 4.50 from TTU terminal
- On-site parking: free
Best Time
Birds are most active in the cooler morning hours (8:30–11 am) and again from 3 pm onwards. Midday heat drives many into the shade. Arrive at opening or mid-afternoon for the best sightings and easier photography.
💡 The butterfly house is air-conditioned and sits near the end of the one-way trail — a welcome cool-down after the outdoor aviaries on a hot Iguaçu day. Save 20 minutes for it.
What to Bring
- Camera with a fast lens (aviary light is dim)
- Hat and sunscreen for outdoor sections
- Insect repellent — it is Atlantic Forest
- Light raincoat (tropical showers)
- Refillable water bottle
- Patience and quiet voices — loud groups scare birds
Nearby
Most visitors combine Parque das Aves with the Brazilian side of Iguaçu Falls (across the road) into a single full day — falls in the morning when light is better, bird park in the afternoon. The Belmond Hotel das Cataratas just inside the national park serves an excellent afternoon tea buffet for anyone wanting a colonial-era break between the two.
🧮
Brazil Trip Cost Calculator
Want a personalised estimate for your own Brazil trip? Get an instant breakdown by style, season and cities — with live BRL conversion. USD $1 ≈ R$ 5.00 today
People Also Ask
People also ask
Is the harpy eagle always visible at Parque das Aves?+
Usually yes — the resident pair are on public display most days between 9am and 4pm. Occasionally they rotate into behind-the-scenes breeding enclosures; the park posts daily signage at the entrance if any species is unavailable.
Can I buy tickets at the gate or do I need to book?+
Gate purchase is fine most days. Peak holiday weeks (December 26–January 10, Carnaval week, Easter weekend) can see 20-minute entry queues — online booking at parquedasaves.com.br saves time.
How does Parque das Aves fund its conservation work?+
Roughly 70% from visitor tickets, 30% from private donations, corporate sponsorship, and conservation-partner grants. Visiting the park directly funds trafficking rescue and the Red-and-green Macaw reintroduction programme.
⚠️ Do not touch or feed the birds — even the apparently tame toucans can deliver painful bites and carry bacteria. Follow handler instructions on entering and leaving aviaries to prevent escapes.