The race to save Santa Cruz Ground-dove

[Michael Szabo]

When 100 endangered Santa Cruz Ground-doves that had been illegally captured from the wild in the Solomon Islands were discovered in boxes en route for Qatar, conservationists rushed to liberate them. But where do you release an endemic bird when its last natural wild refuge is a dangerous active volcano?

The Santa Cruz Ground-dove (Vakavakatia) is endemic to the western Pacific Ocean (Solomon Islands and northern Vanuatu), taking its name from the place where it was first found: the Santa Cruz Islands, part of the far-flung south-eastern Solomons. Within these islands, it is known to inhabit Utapua, where it is now probably extinct owing to deforestation and invasive predators, and Tinakula: a tiny, uninhabited, predator-free oceanic volcanic cone. It has also been found about 400 km to the south on Santo, the largest island in the Vanuatu archipelago, but reports there have only ever been of one or two birds – and introduced rats, cats, pigs and dogs are widespread. Tinakula is therefore a crucial final stronghold for the species.

Rick had just seen an appeal on Facebook by Chris Bone of OceansWatch, a contractee of the Rainforest Trust. Although legally protected in the Solomons, a large number of Santa Cruz Ground-doves had been trapped on Tinakula for export to the Middle East, but the shipment had been blocked at Honiara, the national capital on Guadalcanal. The conditions in which they were being kept were dangerously unhealthy, so Chris and Australia-based environmental consultant Ray Pierce were urgently seeking someone with bird-keeping skills to fly out to the Solomons and take care of them.

Read the full story here: https://www.birdlife.org/worldwide/news ... 5360ae1847