{"id":3521,"date":"2019-03-04T16:59:29","date_gmt":"2019-03-04T16:59:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/?p=3521"},"modified":"2019-03-04T17:00:50","modified_gmt":"2019-03-04T17:00:50","slug":"crucial-milestone-for-critically-endangered-bird","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/2019\/03\/04\/crucial-milestone-for-critically-endangered-bird\/","title":{"rendered":"Crucial milestone for critically endangered bird"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A team led by a Kent conservation biologist has successfully relocated threatened Seychelles paradise flycatchers (<em>Terpsiphone corvina<\/em>) to a different island to help prevent their extinction.<\/p>\n<p>Four females and two males\u00a0were caught on Denis Island\u00a0and taken to Curieuse Island, where they joined 11 males and nine females who were moved there from La Digue Island at the end of last year. Four weeks after that release, the first birds had nested, with the\u00a0first chick recently fledged.<\/p>\n<p>The project was led by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kent.ac.uk\/anthropology-conservation\/people\/482\/groombridge-jim\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Jim Groombridge<\/a>, Professor of Biodiversity Conservation and Head of\u00a0School.\u00a0Dr Rachel Bristol, who completed her PhD at the <a href=\"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/dice\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology<\/a> (DICE), managed the project in partnership with the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.snpa.gov.sc\/\">Seychelles National Parks Authority<\/a>. It was financed by the UK Government\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.darwininitiative.org.uk\/\">Darwin Initiative<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The move required the team to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>catch the birds using\u00a0mist nets<\/li>\n<li>delicately mark their tails\u00a0so they are individually identifiable until their next moult<\/li>\n<li>take\u00a0blood samples<\/li>\n<li>put them in\u00a0transfer boxes\u00a0(recycled\u00a0cardboard\u00a0boxes &#8211; modified to ensure air and with a\u00a0branch placed inside for\u00a0the birds to perch on)<\/li>\n<li>transfer them by plane\u00a0to Praslin, then\u00a0by boat trip\u00a0to Curieuse<\/li>\n<li>give them\u00a0rehydration and energy fluid before\u00a0releasing them\u00a0from the hand<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Seychelles paradise flycatcher is currently\u00a0\u2018Critically Endangered\u2019\u00a0on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.iucnredlist.org\/\">IUCN) red list<\/a>\u00a0of endangered species and conservationists hope that successfully establishing this additional population on Curieuse Island\u00a0could mean they are down-listed to a\u00a0less endangered category.<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0first ever conservation introduction of the Seychelles paradise flycatcher<strong>,<\/strong>\u00a0from La Digue to Denis Island, was undertaken by the team in 2008. It was\u00a0so successful that the population there has grown considerably\u00a0from the 23 translocated individuals to the current estimate of over 85 birds. It is from this population that\u00a0the conservation team were then able to source some of the birds\u00a0for this second conservation introduction to Curieuse Island, the rest coming from the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Relict_(biology)\">relict\u00a0<\/a>population on La Digue Island.<\/p>\n<p>Professor Groombridge\u00a0said, &#8220;This is such a\u00a0positive start for this new population. The translocation is a\u00a0crucial milestone in the successful recovery of this critically endangered bird, and represents a highly successful long-term international collaboration between the Government of Seychelles, local conservation partners and DICE at the University of Kent, and will hopefully lead to a more\u00a0secure future for this beautiful bird. Successes like this are part of what I teach to our\u00a0Wildlife Conservation BSc\u00a0students, as these cases require\u00a0a real understanding\u00a0of how to bring species back from the\u00a0brink of extinction.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Kent\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kent.ac.uk\/courses\/undergraduate\/30\/wildlife-conservation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Wildlife Conservation BSc<\/a>\u00a0aims to\u00a0find innovations\u00a0to address the\u00a0multiple causes of animal and plant extinction\u00a0whether through habitat loss, over-exploitation, pollution, disease, invasive species or global climate change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A team led by a Kent conservation biologist has successfully relocated threatened Seychelles paradise flycatchers (Terpsiphone corvina) to a different island to help prevent their &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/2019\/03\/04\/crucial-milestone-for-critically-endangered-bird\/\">Read&nbsp;more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40284,"featured_media":3522,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[159353,6599,124,70,6600],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3521"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40284"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3521"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3525,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3521\/revisions\/3525"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}