Pigeon Shoot
Conservationists eliminate pigeons from the Galápagos
Conservationists don’t often brag about driving a population to extinction. But the case of invasive pigeons in the Galapagos is an exception. A new report reveals how air-gun wielding researchers carried out their pigeon-icide, which they say is one of the most successful efforts of its kind.
Rock pigeons (Columba livia) — the same birds that clutter cities worldwide – arrived in the Galapagos in the early 1970s, when four pet flyers were brought to the islands from mainland Ecuador. Like a plot straight out of a Hitchcock film, the birds soon spread like a plague. By the mid-1980s, close to 200 pigeons fluttered around four islands.
They posed a risk to more than just statues, say Bran Phillips of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque and colleagues. Pigeons are notorious disease carriers, capable of hosting more than 40 pathogens that can infect people, including the bacteria responsible for the disease toxoplasmosis. They’re equally deadly to other birds and may have sickened native Galápagos doves, the researchers report.
The birds needed to go, Phillips and his colleagues reasoned. It was easier said than done. Many Ecuadorians feed and shelter pigeons in rooftop enclosures. The team launched an information campaign to curb pigeon-harboring and even gave people money to hand over their birds. Although the group laid out traps to nab the animals, the most effective tools against pigeons were air-powered rifles, deadly to birds but safe to humans. Assassins sniped birds roosting on roofs or on power lines, shooting close to 1300 birds from the early-to-late 2000s.
It worked. During their seven year campaign, the team completely wiped pigeons out of the Galápagos, Phillips and colleagues report in Biological Conservation. They can be excused for patting themselves on the backs, too. Although conservationists have succeeded in killing off rodents and feral cats on islands, birds are trickier to wipe out.
But the air gun strategy may not work for every invasive bird species, the researchers suggest. Unlike pigeons, for example, common mynas (Acridotheres tristis) on Fregate Island in the Indian Ocean learned quickly to flee humans carrying guns. – Daniel Strain | February 12, 2012
Source: Phillips RB, et al. (2012) Eradication of rock pigeons, Columba livia, from the Galápagos Islands. Biological Conservation. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320712000262. DOI: doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2012.01.013
Image © Natuska106 | Dreamstime.com
Nice article