 Seychelles Magpie-robin on Aride (Adrian Skerrett) The fight to save the fragile Seychelles Magpie-robin (SMR) population on Aride has received a huge boost with the donation of £7,500 from the Noble Caledonia Trust. Funds will be used to implement an action plan that has been developed by SMR Office Licia Calabrese and approved by the ICS Science Committee.
The main objective of the plan is to identify the factors most likely to have contributed to the decline of the SMR population on Aride, and undertake both immediate and longer term actions to address these and reverse this trend. Despite Aride being identified as a suitable island for the translocation of SMR, the population is prone to higher mortality rates compared to the source population and to other islands where transfers occurred and where populations are now thriving. There could be numerous causes of population decline and the aim of this project is to identify them and their impact on the Aride SMR population. In particular during the period 2013-2016 when the population went from 32 individuals in 5 territories to 9 individuals in 3 territories. Management measures to prevent any further loss and to increase the number of birds will also be investigated and put into place in order to bring the Aride SMR population back from the brink of extinction. More details of the SMR story, published on Noble Caledonia's own website, can be found here: Saving the Seychelles Magpie-robin on Aride Island
2 Comments
|
