Seabird species face extinction as invaders storm empire's last outcrops

RSPB warns Foreign Office of threat to wildlife without tenfold increase in spending 

They are more exotic than the gulls, gannets and terns of Britain's home coastlines, but many of the fascinating and charismatic species of birds on the remote shores of UK overseas territories are now close to extinction. In a report to the government, the RSPB warns 33 species of birds, including penguins, parrots and albatrosses, are now critically endangered across the remnants of the empire. And that means we have a duty to fulfil.

"Our overseas territories hold more threatened bird species than the entire European continent," said RSPB official Graham Madge. "Yet only £1.4m a year is spent by the government protecting habitats that provide homes for these endangered creatures. We need to spend 10 times that amount to save them."

The society's report is part of a series of submissions to the Foreign Office, which is preparing a white paper on Britain's strategy regarding its 14 overseas territories, including Montserrat, Bermuda, the Falklands, Tristan da Cunha and the atolls of the British Indian Ocean Territories as well Gibraltar and a chunk of the Antarctic. The white paper will propose economic and political changes in policies for running these areas and will outline ways to use them more actively to bolster Britain's defences.

The key concern for environment groups such as the RSPB is the need to improve care of the alarming number of threatened and endangered animals now found in these territories. "The overseas territories hold 85%of the threatened biodiversity for which the UK is responsible," said Jonathan Glenn-Hall of the RSPB. A typical example is the Tristan albatross, which breeds almost exclusively on Gough Island, part of the Tristan da Cunha archipelago.

The albatross's numbers have been destroyed by invasive species that have been brought to the island, in particular, rats, cats and pigs which eat albatross chicks. These invaders were eradicated several years ago in a campaign that only triggered a new threat to the Tristan albatross: mice. Without predators, mice on Gough Island have thrived and now grow to three times their normal mainland size. They burrow into the flesh of nesting chicks so that the birds bleed to death. Then the mice eat them. About 1,000 Tristan albatross chicks are thought to be killed each year this way. One recent survey has shown that, in 2008 numbers of Tristan albatross chicks that have managed to fledge is five times lower than normal.

Read on:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/mar/18/seabirds-british-overseas-territories-extinction

Robin McKie, The Observer,

Critically Endangered Miller bird released onto Hawaiian island – After 100 year absence

It is thrilling to see millerbirds on Laysan once more'
September 2011: Critically endangered Nihoa millerbirds are now living on the Hawaiian island of Laysan for the first time in nearly a century, thanks to a historic and collaborative conservation effort.

The bid to save the insect-eating songbird from extinction, which involved releasing 24 of the birds on Laysan Island in Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, was the result of many years of research and detailed planning by biologists and resource managers, led by a partnership between the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and American Bird Conservancy (ABC).

Millerbirds have been absent from Laysan for nearly 100 years after a closely related subspecies went extinct in the early 20th Century. As part of a decades-long restoration effort, this translocation restores this insect-eating songbird to Laysan's ecosystem.

This is a potential turning point for the birds' recovery‘This project will reduce the chances that catastrophic events such as hurricanes or the introduction of invasive predators will wipe out the species, since there will be independent populations of Millerbirds on two islands, 650 miles apart,' said Loyal Mehrhoff, field supervisor for the Pacific Islands Fish and Wildlife Office.

‘It is thrilling to see Millerbirds back on Laysan once more, not simply because they have been a missing piece of the island's native ecosystem for so long, but also because this marks a potential turning point in the recovery of the species,' said George Wallace, ABC's Vice President for Oceans and Islands.

‘It is hard to imagine a project of this complexity going any more smoothly. From the capture of birds on Nihoa, the three-day trip to Laysan, and finally the release of birds. We have subsequently resighted all of the radiotagged birds on Laysan and several of the others; all are looking healthy and behaving normally - a very encouraging sign for the future,' he said.

Biologists tracking their progressBiologists from FWS and ABC, avian husbandry experts, and a wildlife veterinarian took special care to ensure the safe transport and arrival of the millerbirds at Laysan after their three-day voyage from Nihoa.

The birds were kept in specially designed cages for six days between their capture on Nihoa and their release on Laysan. Each bird carries a unique combination of coloured leg bands to allow identification in the field, and half the birds were fitted with temporary radio transmitters so that their locations can be determined during their first three weeks in their new home.

Biologists will remain on Laysan for the next year to monitor the birds' movements and behaviors, including, the team hopes, their first nesting attempts.