Birds make home on volcanic isle transformed by blast in 2013

By TAKASHI SUGIMOTO/ Staff Writer

September 13, 2019 at 15:05 JST

A wedge-tailed shearwater chick has been spotted for the first time on a Pacific island that was ravaged by a volcanic eruption about six years ago.

An Environment Ministry team studying wildlife and other features on Nishinoshima island about 1,000 kilometers south of Tokyo said Sept. 12 that it found nests made by the birds, along with eggs and a chick.

The island is about 130 kilometers west of Chichijima island in the Ogasawara chain.

Ministry officials, biologists, geologists and other scientists visited the island from Sept. 3 to 5.

What’s unusual about the findings is that plants are typically the first to appear in new ecosystems on land.

“It shows how wildlife takes root on an isolated island,” said Kazuto Kawakami, a senior researcher at the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute who took part in the survey, noting that the study is of global significance.

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Trevor, world's loneliest duck, dies on Pacific island of Niue

Mallard who lived in a roadside puddle is found dead after being attacked by dogs

Australian Associated Press in Wellington

Mon 28 Jan 2019 13.55 GMTLast modified on Mon 28 Jan 2019 17.40 GMT

 Trevor the duck, whose tale of loneliness on the tiny Pacific island nation of Niue made him a local celebrity and captured headlines last year, has died.

He was found dead in the bush after being attacked by dogs, according to a social media page dedicated to the drake.

The mallard is thought to have been blown on to the island during a storm about a year ago. He came to global prominence after an article by the New Zealand Herald that chronicled his life in a roadside puddle due to an absence of wetlands or ponds across Niue.

He was named Trevor, after New Zealand’s parliamentary speaker, Trevor Mallard. “Deepest sympathy to the people of Niue from the parliament of New Zealand,” Mallard posted on social media on Monday.

Rae Findlay, Niue’s chamber of commerce chief, said Trevor’s death would be a loss for the nation. “He captured many hearts and even the rooster, the chicken and the weka were looking a little forlorn today wandering around near the dry puddle,” Findlay told ABC.

The remote Pacific atoll of Niue, a three-and-a-half hour flight from Auckland, has a population of 1,600. Nicknamed the rock of the Pacific, it has no suitable habitats for ducks. Local firefighters topped up Trevor’s puddle after New Zealand’s former high commissioner began feeding him.

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Researchers release endangered crows into the forests of Pacific island

September 28, 2018

Kim Eckart

UW News

For more than 2 million years, the native forests on the Pacific islands of Guam and Rota were home to several thousand crows, members of a species found nowhere else on Earth. But over the last 60 years, the Mariana crow — called the Aga in the Chamorro language — has completely disappeared from the island of Guam and rapidly declined on neighboring Rota. Today there are only about 175 Aga left in the wild.

To ensure the survival of the species, scientists from the University of Washington and San Diego Zoo Global are partnering with the Northern Mariana Islands Department of Lands and Natural Resources and the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service on a bold new project that they hope will stabilize the population of Aga on Rota.

The population got a new start on Sept. 28, when the first cohort of five captive-reared Aga were released on public lands on Rota.

 “Aga are a critical strand in the ecological and cultural web that make up the forests of Guam and Rota. Without drastic measures, we could lose this part of our natural and cultural heritage forever,” said Anthony Benavente, secretary of the Northern Mariana Islands Department of Lands and Natural Resources, or CNMI-DLNR.

An additional five birds will be released into the same area later this year. Researchers will continue to monitor and support the birds for approximately one year after the release to ensure their continued success in the wild.

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Incredible “Incubator Bird” to be saved by rat removal on Pacific island

8 May 2018

Kayangel Atoll is set to become the first inhabited island in the Pacific nation of Palau to be cleared of rats. As well as a healthier ecosystem for fascinating Endangered birds, residents look forward to better livelihoods through increased crop yields.

By Jessica Law

Read the project press release here

The Micronesian Scrubfowl Megapodius laperouse is a genius at inventing ways to keep its eggs warm. Those on the Northern Mariana Islands burrow into volcanic cinder fields or use the geothermal heat beneath the ground to warm their unhatched young. Across the Palau archipelago, they bury their eggs in large mounds of sun-soaked sand in beachside forests. Ingeniously, they incorporate the warmth of rotting vegetation into the construction, adding more to the pile to increase the heat of the nest, or removing it if it becomes too hot.

And that’s not the only remarkable thing about their upbringing, because Micronesian Scrubfowl chicks are super-precocial – meaning they hatch in a more mature condition than almost any other bird species. They emerge as fully-feathered miniature adults, ready to run, pursue prey and, almost uniquely among birds, can even fly on their first day of hatching.

But sadly, it seems they have been no match for rats. Invasive rats have been attacking bird nests and, without the timely intervention of a new project*, the Micronesian Scrubfowl’s extraordinary natural behaviours could have been lost forever. The species is currently classed as Endangered - and these birds aren’t the only ones feeling the devastation.

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How we're going to save the little paradise in the Pacific

1 Aug 2017

The rare native wildlife of a remote island has retreated to a precarious existence on vertical cliffs. An urgent project supported by the 2017 Birdfair is leading the counter-attack against invasive species to save the “little planet” of Rapa Iti

By Shaun Hurrell

"Rapa is extremely isolated, even by Pacific standards”, says Steve Cranwell, BirdLife’s Invasive Alien Species Programme Manager. This, coming from a man who knows a thing or two about restoring remote Pacific islands, accustomed to locating coral atolls or tiny rare seabirds, both specks in an endless ocean, before helicopter fuel runs out or a tropical storm hits. Saving Rapa’s native wildlife is his next urgent challenge.

About four million years ago, midway between South America and Australia, a volcano erupted beneath the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean, bringing into existence the beginnings of a unique new world. A four-thousand-hectare island, Rapa Iti (“little Rapa”, named to distinguish it from the distant, larger Rapa Nui or Easter Island) is one of the Bass Islands in the southernmost reaches of French Polynesia, where access for the island’s 500 inhabitants is provided only by monthly supply boat.

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A quarter of threatened bird species thought to be in the Pacific

7:49 am on 8 August 2016 

The conservation agency Birdlife says about a quarter of the world's globally threatened bird species are in the Pacific.

The agency says the threat is particularly great in Vanuatu and it wants to help turn this around.

Birdlife says Vanuatu is home to nine globally endangered bird species plus another nine that are endemic to the country.

The agency says there are several factors causing the decline, including environmental degradation and natural disasters such as Cyclone Pam, which caused widespread destruction across the country last year.

Another factor is people living in rural communities hunting the birds.

Birdlife says it wants to form partnerships with them in communities to try and bring this hunting within sustainable levels.

It says for conservation to work it has to be driven by the people who are directly affected by it.

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Will 2016 be the year the nesting sites of the enigmatic Fiji and Beck’s petrels are found?

Lost then found species capture the imagination of people everywhere. They make the news and their discovery is celebrated. There is every expectation that once `found’ the lost species will now join the list of living species, rather than the ghosts of species lost.

But that is not a certainty as most `lost’ species are extremely rare and endangered. And unless conservation action can be taken to secure them for habitat threats and predators that are responsible for their `loss’ in the first place, these new sightings may only be a glimpse before they are gone once again, this time for forever. The biggest danger for most sea bird species is the time they spend ashore nesting and to their eggs and fledglings. Knowing exactly where these `lost’ birds nest is essential to ensuring they have a future.

Beck’s petrel is one of the `lost’ seabirds of the Pacific. Lost for 75 years after its initial discovery and recording, it was only spotted again in 2007 offshore of the Papua New Guinean islands of New Britain and New Ireland. Despite increased reporting of Beck’s Petrel sightings for southern New Ireland there is no knowledge of precisely where they breed and the search area remain vast. It is rated as Critically Endangered. 

Fiji Petrel is another `lost but found’ bird that is also Critically Endangered. Lost for over 100 years apart from a few tantalising glimpses, it was rediscovered when one was captured in in 1984. It is currently believed that fewer than 50 pairs survive, breeding in 52 square kilometres in rugged forest on the island of Gau, Fiji, but its nesting grounds have yet to be located. It has to be assumed that the existing meagre population of Fiji Petrel is declining. We know that cats are on the high ridgelines as are Pacific Rats Brown and Black rats are also on the island but their distribution is not known. Feral pigs are also a major treat. But until the location of the nests is known no practical conservation measures to secure the remaining nests and start the recovery cannot happen. Finding where they nest is the single most urgent and important conservation action required now to save the species from extinction. BirdLife wants to make 2016 the year we gave both these birds a secure future.

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Rare Bird Discovered in Pacific, Euthanized for ‘Collection’

Mon, 10/12/2015 - 10:59am

Seth Augenstein, Digital Reporter

Researchers were traveling through the dense forest of the Pacific island of Guadalcanal. They heard a familiar call, and they saw a bird with a blue and gold plumage. It was a bird Chris Filardi and his team had been searching for, for 20 years.

The scientists set up a net, trapping the Moustached Kingfisher – a “gorgeous, strong and raucous male.” They photographed it. Then they killed it – to “collect” it as a specimen.

In the days since the announcement of the discovery of the bird – the first-ever sighting of a male variety of the bird – there has been an outcry about the euthanizing of the bird. The response has been so intense that Filardi has responded at length to justify his collection of the “specimen,” through an Audubon Society publication.

“This was not a ‘trophy hunt,’” wrote Filardi, director of Pacific Programs for the American Museum of Natural History’s Center for Biodiversity and Conservation. “Collecting the kingfisher and other biological specimens were team decisions made in the broader context of this work. Nonetheless, I feel it is important for me to personally articulate why I collected this particular specimen.”

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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.

Listen here:  http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/radio/program/pacific-beat/major-push-to-try-to-save-pacific-birds/1048738