Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Erik Hirschfeld works in air traffic control management and is a freelance writer, guide, and consultant in ornithology. Andy Swash is managing director of WILDGuides and a professional wildlife photographer, naturalist, author, and guide. Robert Still is an ecologist, widely traveled naturalist, and graphic artist who designs books that encourage people to take a greater interest in the natural world.

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THE WORLD'S RAREST BIRDS

Princeton University Press

Contents

The World's Rarest initiative.............................................................7Introduction to the world's birds.........................................................8The world's rarest birds..................................................................11The threats birds face....................................................................25The need for conservation.................................................................48Threats without borders...................................................................50The Regional Directories(see overleaf for full listing)...................................54Acknowledgements..........................................................................332APPENDIX 1 – Extinct Species........................................................336APPENDIX 2 – The bird families with globally threatened species.....................339Index.....................................................................................347

Chapter One

This book focuses on the 197 Critically Endangered and 389 Endangered bird species listed by BirdLife International on the 2012 IUCN Red List. 'The World's Rarest' should be taken as shorthand for 'the most threatened', noting that some of these species may still be quite abundant, but declining extremely rapidly, and hence qualifying as Critically Endangered or Endangered under the 'A' criterion of The IUCN Red List (see page 13).

Conversely, some rare birds are not globally threatened. The Powerful Owl Ninox strenua, with a global population of 2,200–2,800 mature individuals, is naturally sparsely distributed, with huge home ranges of up to 5,000 hectares in eastern and south-eastern Australia. There are fewer than 10,000 Madeira Laurel Pigeons Columba trocaz within an area of just 160 km², but they have reoccupied all areas of suitable habitat on the island, following a ban on hunting. Both species are currently considered of Least Concern.

Going or gone?

While this book focuses on Critically Endangered and Endangered species – those believed to be on the brink of extinction – at least 130 species are known already to have gone Extinct since 1500. Four more species are Extinct in the Wild (and another is probably so), and now only exist in captivity. A list of the Extinct species and the date each was last recorded is included in Appendix 1 on page 336.

Listing a species as Extinct has significant conservation implications, because conservation funding is, justifiably, not targeted at species that are believed no longer to exist. Conservationists are therefore reluctant to designate a species as Extinct if there is any reasonable possibility that it may still be extant.

For this reason, authorities such as BirdLife International and IUCN take a precautionary approach to classifying extinctions in order to encourage continuing conservation efforts until there is no reasonable doubt that the last individual of a species has died. It also minimizes the danger of 'crying wolf' and reducing confidence in the accuracy of the label Extinct.

However, this approach means that the number of recent extinctions documented on The IUCN Red List is likely to be a significant underestimate. The tags 'Possibly Extinct' and 'Possibly Extinct in the Wild' have therefore been developed to identify those Critically Endangered species that are in all probability already Extinct (or are believed only to exist in captivity), but for which confirmation is required. Fourteen species (see table on page 18) are tagged in this way. Although these species are, on the balance of evidence, likely to be Extinct, they can not be formally listed as such until adequate surveys have failed to find them and local or unconfirmed reports have been investigated and discounted.

For example, the last confirmed record of the near-flightless Alaotra Grebe Tachybaptus rufolavatus, confined to the Lake Alaotra area of Madagascar, was in 1982. After extensive surveys failed to find it, it was described as Possibly Extinct in 2006, and declared extinct in 2010. On the other hand, the Madagascar Pochard Aythya innotata, which had also disappeared from Lake Alaotra, and was also was placed in the new 'Possibly Extinct' category in 2006, was rediscovered later the same year, 300 km north of the lake.

Four species are now Extinct in the Wild but survive as captive populations: Hawaiian Crow Corvus hawaiiensis, Guam Rail Gallirallus owstoni, Alagoas Curassow Mitu mitu and Socorro Dove Zenaida graysoni. They are described as Critically Endangered (Extinct in the Wild). With the disappearance of the last known wild individual in 2000, a fifth species, Spix's Macaw Cyanopsitta spixii, is listed as Critically Endangered (Possibly Extinct in the Wild).

One-third of the Possibly Extinct species have not been recorded for more than 50 years, which is in itself strong evidence that they may well be Extinct. For example, Hooded Seedeater Sporophila melanops is known only from the type specimen collected over 180 years ago. The Turquoise-throated Puffleg Eriocnemis godini has not been seen since 1850, and the habitat at the type-locality has been almost completely destroyed. However, it cannot yet be presumed to be Extinct because there was an unconfirmed record in 1976. Introduced mammalian predators are the prime candidates for the possible extirpation of the Jamaican Pauraque Siphonorhis americana and the Jamaica Petrel Pterodroma caribbaea. Similarly, the Guadalupe Storm-petrel Oceanodroma macrodactyla has not been recorded since 1912 despite several searches, following a severe decline owing to predation by introduced cats and habitat degradation by goats. Only the difficulty of detecting petrels and storm-petrels at their breeding colonies at night, and the continued survival of other petrels and storm-petrels on these islands, keeps alive the hope that these species still survive. Hunting and logging, and deliberate poisoning by timber companies, drove the Imperial Woodpecker Campephilus imperialis to possible extinction, but the possibility that some survive in regenerating forest cannot be ruled out. The once-abundant Eskimo Curlew Numenius borealis declined rapidly more than a century ago because of industrial-scale hunting, followed by destruction of most of its breeding habitat in the Prairies and its wintering grounds in the Pampas. Similarly, Bachman's Warbler Vermivora bachmanii may have gone extinct as a result of habitat destruction on its breeding and wintering grounds, but not all remaining swamp breeding habitat has yet been searched. In the Hawaiian Islands, the Olomao Myadestes lanaiensis, Ou Psittirostra psittacea, Oahu Alauahio Paroreomyza maculata and Nukupuu Hemignathus lucidus were seen for what may have been the last times between 1988 and 1996, and the last known Poo-uli Melamprosops phaeosoma died in captivity in 2004. Not recognised until 2004, the Ua Pou Monarch Pomarea mira was declared extinct in 2006, but an unconfirmed report in 2010 raised hopes...