January 2011 conservation highlights

1^st March 2011

Durrell leads conservation efforts at its wildlife park, through field programmes in priority regions around the world and through the activities of the International Training Centre to save species from extinction. Our Conservation Programme focuses on regions containing highly threatened species and habitats, and is separated into two priority themes:

‘Islands at Risk’
programmes for Madagascar & Comoros, Mascarene Islands, Caribbean Islands, Channel Islands, and Pacific Islands.

‘Critical Species’
programmes for Critically Endangered amphibians, globally threatened primates and threatened birds of South East Asia.

Below is the summary of activities across the programme during the past month.

Madagascar and the Comoros - Islands at Risk 

Alaotra – Andrea Wallace, Imperial College PhD student, finished her fieldwork on the lake fisheries. Initial results show a very positive attitude towards Durrell’s work, but also dissatisfaction with the current no-take zones, which are not being respected anyway.

Ampijoroa – the process for integrating the management of the captive programmes in Ampijoroa with our animal management practices in Jersey are moving forward. We have applied for an EEP and studbook for ploughshares and we will put new monitoring and reporting practices in place as a result.

Ploughshare tortoise – Six ploughshare nests (18 eggs) were laid in January, bringing the total to nine nests (27 eggs) so far this season.

Madagascar pochard – Counts on 25th January showed a total number of 19 individuals of which five were at Lake Andriakanala, eight at Matsaborimena and six at Matsaborimaitso.

Our bimonthly partner meeting (Durrell-Asity-Peregrine Fund) was held on 27th January. General discussions and updates of each partner’s progress were shared, followed by a detailed presentation by Jacques-Live Rajaonarison (Asity) of the two year plan for the Environmental Education programme. The next step is for us to prioritize the proposed activities to fit under the existing budget from Darwin.

Tsanta Fiderana Rakotonanahary, who supports the veterinary work will come to Jersey to take part in the DESMAN course and to receive veterinary training.

Side-necked turtles – Seven of 11 rere nests monitored at Antsilomba have hatched. Fourteen hatchlings at Ampijoroa awaiting hatching of other 4 nests prior to translocation to Ankomakoma. Draft report written on results of Rere and fish surveys in Ampataka and Andranomiditra. Water levels very low compared to last survey in 2005, due to silting. Number of Rere declined in some sites, endemic fish declines dramatic throughout.

Nosivolo – Our team contributed to a CI led development workshop in the region and have identified the members of the village patrol teams (105 members). Also preparations are underway for World Wetlands Day in February.

Mascarene Islands - Islands at Risk 

Ile aux Aigrettes – 96 Telfairs skinks, including several that had not been seen since their release in May 2010, were caught and weighed. 29 Guenther’s geckos were found and 10 hatchlings observed.

Some interesting observations have been made on Ile aux Aigrettes: Mynah birds and shrews have been seen to predate upon the introduced agamid lizard, indicating their potential threat to young Telfair’s skinks. However, a Telfair’s skink was also observed and filmed predating an adult agamid lizard. An introduced wolf snake was captured on the island, this represents the third snake seen on the island since 2007 and whilst still present they continue to occur at a very low density than prior to the release of the Telfair’s skink.

Ile aux Fouquets – a major fire broke out on the island, burning about 20% of the grassland. Remains of seabirds and reintroduced skinks were found (the fire was in the release area for this species). There were additional smaller fires around the island and a lot of rubbish left by people. This has allowed the invasive fire ant to become the dominant invertebrate, which is well known to cause major problems to ecosystems.

St Brandon – Nik has supported the development of estimates of abundance for 5 seabird species, which have been submitted to Birdlife South Africa for the 5th edition of the Conservation Status of Migratory Waterbirds. These estimates together with the turtle track counts and invasive species observations are bing written up for publication.

Jersey – While with the Herp Dept in Jersey, Nik weighed and measured the 107 Nactus geckos that will be transferred back to Mauritius in March/April. All are in good condition and ready to be released.

Caribbean Islands - Islands at Risk

Montserrat

Mountain chickens – January saw the transfer of 63 mountain chickens back to Montserrat to augment the remaining wild population, which has been drastically reduced due to the fungal disease chytridiomycosis. The objective was to assess whether captive bred frogs could be successfully released and whether it is possible to maintain a population in the wild. Gerardo Garcia and Javier Lopez, joined our field team led by Matthew Morton and Sarah-Louise Smith to release the frogs. This was a major undertaking, which went extremely well. Frogs were released in a series of waves over 4 nights. They quickly acclimatised to being released and started to forage and call soon after. Thirty-four of the frogs were radio-tracked and the team is monitoring these animals closely to understand how they disperse and use their habitat. This is going to yield a huge amount of information for the project.

Dominican Republic

Solenodon – the team is still sampling field sites for locations of solenodon and hutia. This month they covered 10 locations in two national parks. They have also been providing training to field team and teaching students at Punta Cana International School.

Pacific Islands - Islands at Risk

Floreana mockingbirds – Luis has been on Floreana taking part in the baseline biodiversity assessments. He is leading the bird and mammal surveys. No mockingbirds were seen on Floreana, but several sightings of Medium-tree finches were recorded, mostly in the highlands of Floreana,near orchards.

Luis visited Gardner island and found 42 un-ringed mockingbirds, which were ringed and measured. They also observed the birds feeding behaviour. They were feeding mostly on Opuntia nectar, taking also fruits of Cordia lutea, spiders and other invertebrates such as Galápagos centipedes.

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