How a team of biologists is taking on an infestation and saving a species from extinction

October 31, 2018, Morris Animal Foundation

Eggs hatching. Larvae burrowing under the skin and feeding on surrounding tissue. It's like a scene from a horror movie. Only this isn't a movie—it's happening in real life to an extremely endangered bird species, the Ridgway's hawk. The culprit is a botfly in the genus Philornis that is so aggressive it's eating hawk nestlings from the inside out.

Native to the Dominican Republic, around 300 Ridgway's hawks remain in the wild and researchers have been working diligently to save them. Botfly infestations are jeopardizing conservation efforts of not only Ridgway's hawks, but potentially other island raptors as well.

The story, though, is taking a turn for the better, thanks to Morris Animal Foundation-funded researchers at The Peregrine Fund. Dr. David Anderson and his team found a way to take on the Philornis botfly—and they're winning. The biologists are taking the fight to the botfly, scaling trees to reach Ridgway's hawk nests high in the canopy to apply an insecticide product. The findings and successes of their work recently were published in Animal Conservation.

"Peregrine Fund biologists found that botflies in the genus Philornis were practically wiping out all the hawk's nestlings," said Dr. David Anderson, Program Director at The Peregrine Fund. "We devised a solution—spraying nestlings with the chemical fipronil, the same chemical we use on our pets to get rid of fleas and ticks—and it seemed to work."

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Critically Endangered hawks thrive following translocation

Species translocation - capturing animals in one place and releasing them in another—is a widely used conservation method for establishing or reestablishing populations of threatened species. However, translocation projects often fail when the transplanted animals fail to thrive in their new home. A new study from The Condor: Ornithological Applications demonstrates how close monitoring of the animals being released into a new area is helping wildlife managers gauge the success of their effort to save the Ridgway’s Hawk of Hispaniola.

Ridgway’s Hawk is a critically endangered raptor endemic to the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. Since 2009, the Peregrine Fund has translocated 104 nestlings from the species’ stronghold in a national park to a protected resort area called Punta Cana 130 kilometers away. They monitored the birds after their release, tracking their survival and breeding success, as well as collecting the same data on 36–110 breeding pairs per year in the original national park population. Survival rates were high in both locations, and more young hawks began breeding on the resort property, probably because more territories were available due to the birds’ low numbers.

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Translocated hawks thrive in Hispaniola

Date:  October 25, 2017

Source:  American Ornithological Society Publications Office

Species translocation -- capturing animals in one place and releasing them in another -- is a widely used conservation method for establishing or reestablishing populations of threatened species. However, translocation projects often fail when the transplanted animals fail to thrive in their new home. A new study from The Condor: Ornithological Applications demonstrates how close monitoring of the animals being released into a new area is helping wildlife managers gauge the success of their effort to save the Ridgway's Hawk of Hispaniola.

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