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November 2010 conservation highlights

23rd December 2010

Ploughshare tortoise GGuida

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:

  1. ‘Islands at Risk’ with programmes for Madagascar & Comoros, Mascarene Islands, Caribbean Islands, Channel Islands, and Pacific Islands.
  2. ‘Critical Species’ with programme for Critically Endangered amphibians, globally threatened primates and endangered birds of South East Asia.

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

Islands at Risk

Madagascar and the Comoros

  • In Menabe, our team surveyed 6 transects (144km) to look at forest pressures in both the core protected area and the surrounding areas which are managed for conservation by the communities. Illegal cutting of trees was highest in the core protected area. While this shows that the community management is working, it also highlights the need to increase support to areas managed by the government. There was also an increase in the number of active jumping rat burrows found (one transect had 24 active burrows).
  • One of the challenges soon to impact Alaotra is the potential distribution of mosquito nets in the region. There is plenty of evidence from other regions, and we have reports from local communities, that these will be turned into fishing nets. The small mesh size means that they will catch all fish and therefore could have a major impact on the already depleted fish stocks.
  • Preparations are underway for the release of ploughshares next year. The release animals identified and health-screening samples taken.
  • At Ampijoroa, 11 ploughshares hatched and 1 flat-tailed tortoise, which is a really positive increase on last year. While in the wild in Baly Bay, we have been monitoring released ploughshares for signs of breeding – two attempted copulations observed as well as sparring between males, which are positive signs.
  • Henri, one of our field team in Baly Bay, has now found 39 of the 40 previously released animals; all have been engraved and injected with new microchips.
  • Congratulations to Angelo Ramy who won a bursary to attend the Cambridge Student Conference Conservation and to spend 1 month at the University of Reading for research training and to conduct data analysis for the ploughshare tortoise conservation project.
  • Earlier in 2010, we had two Imperial College MSc students embedded within our Madagascar and Comoros programme conducting their thesis research on Anjouan scops owls and rice cultivation in Lac Alaotra. Their project reports have now been published online:

Mascarenes

  • Following last month’s observations of gravid Guenther’s geckos, 17 nest sites have been found with a total of 36 eggs – a great start to their first breeding season. Many female Telfair’s skinks have recently laid eggs and burrows have been found. Metal fencing that permits the passage of skinks has been placed over the ground where skinks have nested in areas that are frequently walked over to disperse the weight and minimise the pressure on the burrow and eggs.
  • Nik Cole led a 10 day monitoring trip to Gunner’s Quion. A record number of 204 captures were made of 199 individual Telfair’s skinks, which included new 83 juveniles, 87 new adults that were PIT tagged, seven recaptures of skinks tagged previously on the island and 22 that were originally released from Round Island. All locations were recorded, body conditions scored and dietary samples taken. A very quick and basic mark-recapture analysis demonstrates that the Telfair’s skink population growth is following the predicted population model and on target for the release of the keel-scaled boa in 2012. Data also collected on orange-tailed skinks, Bouton’s skink, Bojer’s skink and ornate day gecko.
  • The Round Island Boa was an IUCN Species of the Day in November http://www.iucnredlist.org/sotdfiles/casarea-dussumieri.pdf
  • The ISM10 course (8th to 13th) was well received and attended by 33 participants, which included staff from MWF (Mauritius and Rodrigues), NPCS, Forestry Service, Bel Ombre Sugar Estate, Casela Bird Park, Commission for Agriculture – Rodrigues, Mauritius Revenue Authority, Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Agro-Industry, National Plant Protection Office, University of Mauritius, Vallee de Ferney Conservation Trust, Vallee d’Osterlog Endemic Garden Foundation, Veterinary Services Division, Francois Leguat Ltd. (Rodrigues), Mauritius Police Force (National Coast Guard) and UNDP.

Critical Species

Primates
A key focal area within the Primates programme is the Callitrichid group of tamarins and marmosets. Dom Wormell has developed three core proposals for how we can engage with the conservation of pied and white-footed tamarins, in particular, using the expertise we have within the Mammal Dept at the wildlife park. These proposals will be further discussed and developed and will hopefully form the first actions within this programme in 2011.

SE Asian Birds
At the start of the month, the Bird Department and the ITC jointly ran our first avian egg incubation workshop. Four staff and eight external participants from as far as Canada, Guam and Dubai spent four days here learning the theory and practice of artificial egg incubation techniques and the stages of embryo development. A sound grasp of these techniques is crucial to many bird recovery programmes. The teaching was led by Susie Kasielke of Los Angeles Zoo and Pat Witman of San Diego Zoo. These two are renowned experts in their field, and have played a leading role in, amongst other things, the recovery of the California condor through captive breeding and in-situ management, one of the highest profile species recovery projects.

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