Feral cats a problem for rare ground parrot

HALTING THE DECLINE of one of Australia's most threatened birds is proving difficult, say researchers in south-western Australia.

Recent tracking of feral cats - funded by a generous $19,000 donation from the Australian Geographic  Society - may help explain why only 100 western ground parrots (Pezoporus wallicus flaviventris) are believed to remain in the wild.

Ecologist Sarah Comer says cats in the wild are, quite literally, eating into the parrot populations. "They are the ultimate hunting machine," she says.

Sarah, who is coordinating a ground parrot recovery team in the WA Department of Environment and Conservation, says Australian Geographic's donation has enabled the team to collar feral cats and lay baits at Cape Arid National Park, 120km east of Esperance.

"We were surprised how many cats are out there. We collared 20 cats with GPS tags that allow us to follow their movements and see how effective our baits are in ultimately removing cats from the landscape."

Western ground parrot highly vulnerable to extinction

Two areas in Western Australia's coastal southwest are the last known refuge of this Endangered bird: Cape Arid and Fitzgerald River national parks. With numbers reduced to such small known populations, this mottled green and black parrot remains highly vulnerable to being wiped out by events like bushfire.

Recent monitoring of western ground parrots' main haunts has recorded fewer bird calls than five years ago. The parrots call at dusk as they fly back to their night roosts; they can be heard clearly after other bird species have ceased tweeting.

"In some places there used to be a cacophony of parrots, and every now and then you could see them against the dimming light in the sky," says Sarah. "More often, you'd just hear them, up to 300 to 400 metres away."

The drop in recorded calls in several key locations is puzzling, she says. "The parrots have always been fairly sedentary, and a few years ago you would have heard a lot of birds, so we're very worried."

Her colleague Dr Allan Burbidge, a senior DEC researcher, says that a research team, in 2000, surveyed the same part of Fitzgerald River National Park and heard at least 90 calls on some nights. 

"There were times when, in such areas, you might even flush a bird out walking back to your vehicle," he says. "But not now."

Continued:  http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/feral-cats-a-problem-for-rare-ground-parrot.htm

New reserve declared in Guatemala to protect indigenous frogs and Endangered birds

Sierra Caral Amphibian Reserve in Guatemala

May 2012. Conservationists are celebrating the establishment of the new 6,000-acre Sierra Caral Amphibian Reserve in Guatemala, which will protect some of the country's most endangered wildlife. The reserve is home to a dozen globally threatened frogs and salamanders, five found nowhere else in the world, three species of threatened birds, and the recently discovered Merendon Palm-pitviper (Bothriechis thalassinus), an arboreal, blue-toned viper.

Isolated mountain range
Tucked away in the eastern corner of Guatemala near the Caribbean Sea, and running along the Honduran border, the Sierra Caral is an isolated mountain range that is home to numerous rare and endangered animals and plants. 

New species
Exploration of these mountains has yielded several new discoveries of beetles, salamanders, frogs, and snakes over the past two decades.

Threatened birds 
The site will offer protections for many birds including threatened species such as: the Highland Guan, Great Curassow and Keel-billed Motmot. Furthermore, the site is known as a haven for an abundance of migratory birds including the Canada Warbler, Kentucky Warbler, Wood Thrush, Painted Bunting, Worm-eating Warbler, and Louisiana Waterthrush.

Major stop for migratory birds
"The new Sierra Caral Reserve safeguards key stopover habitat for perhaps millions of migrating U.S. birds, making it an invaluable addition to Central America's roster of protected areas and a real benefit to U.S. bird conservation efforts," said Dr. George Fenwick, President of American Bird Conservancy (ABC).

The Sierra Caral forests are especially diverse due to the convergence of floras and faunas from North and South America, as well as many species unique to the region. Only a few Merendon Palm Pit Vipers have been found, most often in a palm native to the Sierra Caral. Guatemalan biologist Carlos Vasquez Almazan, one of the few individuals to find a Merendon Palm-pitviper in the wild, drew international scientific attention to the conservation importance of the Sierra Caral in recent years. He was recently awarded the prestigious Whitley Award for Conservation that recognizes outstanding nature conservationists around the world.

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/guatemala-reserve.html#cr

Giant Mice Kill Rare Sea Bird

(ENDANGERED SPECIES) The extremely remote Gough Island, the world’s only known breeding ground for the endangered Atlantic petrel, is under attack by giant mice. Since being introduced to the island 150 years ago, the mice have grown immensely, both physically and in population size, due to the overwhelming amount of petrel chicks they consume. Each year 1.25 of the 1.6 million endangered chicks are eaten by mice. Read on for more information about the mice massacres on Gough Island. — Global Animal  

The massacre is taking place on Gough Island (map), a British territory almost smack-dab in between the tips of South America and South Africa. The only humans living on the island belong to a small team running a weather station.

Gough Island has long been recognized as an important seabird colony, since it hosts roughly ten million birds of more than 20 species. The island is also thought to be the only breeding ground for the Atlantic petrel—2 million breeding pairs produce 1.6 million chicks a year.

The new study, though, reveals that the petrel chicks are in constant danger from house mice, which have grown to supersize proportions since being introduced to the island 150 years ago.

“The sheer densities of the numbers of birds there—that’s why Gough Island is so special,” said study co-author Ross Wanless, of the University of Cape Town.

“But the mice seem to be chewing away through those”—causing the researchers to fear that the mice could eventually wipe out the Atlantic petrel.

Aside from Gough Island, a second breeding population of Atlantic petrels used to exist on Tristan da Cunha, another island in the South Atlantic. But scientists think that group has vanished in recent years due to predation by black rats.

Continued:  http://www.globalanimal.org/2012/05/22/giant-mice-kill-rare-sea-bird/74737/

Nature rewards farmers who help rare birds

Farmers who are working to help threatened birds on their land are also more likely to have healthy populations of bugs, butterflies, bumblebees and bats, new scientific research based in the South West has revealed.

In two studies, RSPB scientists discovered that all sorts of insects and small mammals were benefiting "by accident" from measures to protect two of the UK's rarest farmland birds – cirl buntings and stone curlews.

Martin Harper, RSPB conservation director, said: "It is great to see that farmers who are working hard to help birds are also providing habitats for many other plants, bees and bugs. We know that these measures are vital if we are to restore lost populations of threatened birds – but now we have confirmation that they are providing real benefits for a range of other beautiful and fascinating species as well.

Scientists compared the diversity and abundance of wildlife with similar farmland which was not involved in bird conservation schemes. Where pastureland had been managed for cirl buntings in Devon, there were five times as many butterflies – and other measures on the same land helped double the number of ground beetles.

And arable land on Salisbury Plain with fallow plots for nesting stone curlews was found to have almost twice as many wild plant species, five times as many butterflies and bumblebees and four times the number of hares as similar land without the plots.

http://www.thisissomerset.co.uk/Nature-rewards-farmers-help-rare-birds/story-16097174-detail/story.html