As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Saturday 24 November 2012

Major push to try to save Pacific birds


The Pacific has more threatened bird species per unit of land area, or per person, than any other region in the world and is home to around a quarter of the world's globally threatened bird species.

To try to stop more bird species becoming extinct two major conservation organisations are getting together to try to eradicate rats and feral cats that a major threat to bird life.
In the new year Island Conservation, a California based organisation will work with BirdLife International's Pacific office in Fiji in a series of programs across the Pacific.

Presenter: Geraldine Coutts
Speaker: Ray Nias, south western Pacific regional director, Island Conservation

NIAS: The islands are particularly susceptible to threats from invasive species like feral cats and rats. Essentially what happened is this is a problem that's been occurring over the course of history. Some of the species were moved around from island to island very early on, hundreds of years ago, in fact in some cases thousands of years ago. Up until very recently where for example the brown tree snake was allowed to get out of Solomon Islands and is now a major pest species in many parts of the Pacific. People just move animals around for different reasons, both deliberate and accidental. Shipwrecks result in rats getting onto islands all of the time, even now.

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