Temporary Captive Population and Rapid Population Recovery of an Endemic flightless Rail After a Rodent Eradication Operation Using Aerially Distributed Poison Bait
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Pitcairn Islands
Pitcairn Islands M. de L. Brooke Mitsuaki Iwago/Minden Pictures/FLPA Mitsuaki Iwago/Minden Bristle-thighed Curlews General introduction The Pitcairn Islands lie in the central South Pacific, about one of the UK’s Overseas Territories. In practice this means 300 miles to the south-east of the Gambier Islands of French that local decisions are taken by the 10-strong Island Council. Polynesia. The group comprises four islands: Pitcairn itself, Decisions about what might be termed foreign affairs are Henderson, Oeno and Ducie. Only Pitcairn, a rugged but handled by the British Administration in consultation with the small volcanic island (2 square miles/5 square km), is Island Council. A commissioner based in Auckland, New inhabited. The World Heritage Site of Henderson (14 Zealand, is responsible for arranging much of the island’s square miles/37 square km) is a raised coral island to the supplies and for philatelic issues, an important source of north-east of Pitcairn, while Oeno and Ducie are tiny, low income. The Governor of the Pitcairn Islands is based in atolls to the north and east respectively. Further details are Wellington where his principal role is as British High supplied in the site accounts of the four islands. Commissioner to New Zealand. There is also an officer in the Overseas Territory Department of the Foreign and The group is chiefly renowned for its association with the Commonwealth Office in London with responsibility for Bounty mutineers who arrived on Pitcairn in January 1790. Pitcairn matters. Since that time, and apart from two interruptions during the 19th century, the island has been continuously occupied Broadly the population grew during the 19th century and by the mutineers and their descendants. -
Adoption of Retrospective Statements of Outstanding Universal Value
World Heritage 38 COM WHC-14/38.COM/8E Paris, 30 April 2014 Original: English / French UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL, SCIENTIFIC AND CULTURAL ORGANIZATION CONVENTION CONCERNING THE PROTECTION OF THE WORLD CULTURAL AND NATURAL HERITAGE WORLD HERITAGE COMMITTEE Thirty-eighth session Doha, Qatar 15 – 25 June 2014 Item 8 of the Provisional Agenda: Establishment of the World Heritage List and of the List of World Heritage in Danger 8E: Adoption of Retrospective Statements of Outstanding Universal Value SUMMARY This Document presents a Draft Decision concerning the adoption of 127 retrospective Statements of Outstanding Universal Value submitted by 50 States Parties for properties which had no Statement of Outstanding Universal Value approved at the time of their inscription on the World Heritage List. The annex contains the full text of the retrospective Statements of Outstanding Universal Value concerned in the original language submitted. Draft Decision: 38 COM 8E, see Point II. I. BACKGROUND 1. The concept of Statement of Outstanding Universal Value as an essential requirement for the inscription of a property on the World Heritage List was introduced in the Operational Guidelines in 2005. All properties inscribed since 2007 present such a Statement. 2. In 2007, the World Heritage Committee in its Decision 31 COM 11D.1 requested that Statements of Outstanding Universal Value be drafted and approved retrospectively for all World Heritage properties inscribed between 1978 and 2006, prior to the launch of the Second Cycle of Periodic Reporting in each region. 3. As a consequence, in the framework of the Periodic Reporting exercise, States Parties are drafting retrospective Statements of Outstanding Universal Value for World Heritage properties located within their territories which are afterwards reviewed by the relevant Advisory Bodies. -
Schnaitman, Rachel.Pdf
A REVIEW OF THREATS TO ISLAND ENDEMIC RAILS by Rachel Schnaitman A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the University of Delaware in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Science in Wildlife Conservation with Distinction. Spring 2010 Copyright 2010 Rachel Schnaitman All Rights Reserved A REVIEW OF THREATS TO ISLAND ENDEMIC RAILS by Rachel Schnaitman Approved:______________________________________________________________ W.Gregory Shriver, Ph.D. Professor in charge of the thesis on behalf of the Advisory Committee Approved:______________________________________________________________ Jacob L. Bowman, Ph.D. Committee member from the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology Approved: _____________________________________________________________ K. Kniel, Ph.D. Committee member from the Board of Senior Thesis Readers Approved:_____________________________________________________________ Ismat Shah, Ph.D. Chair of the University Committee on Student and Faculty Honors ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank the Undergraduate Research Program for allowing me to be involved with the research program. I would also like to thank my advisor, Dr. Greg Shriver for supporting me and guiding me through this process. Furthermore I would like to thank my committee, Dr. J. Bowman and Dr. K. Kniel. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................... vi LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................... -
The Pitcairn Islands
The Pitcairn Islands Environment Management Plan 2008 Foreign & Commonwealth Office Complied by N. Smyth Edited by S. Waldren, P. Perrin, J. Martin & N. Kingston Figure 1. Location of the Pitcairn Islands Group Acknowledgements It is ith great pleasure that I finally rite the ackno ledgements to this the final draft of the Pitcairn Environmental Management Plan (PEMP). This pro)ect has taken longer than initially anticipated ith lots of personal life changes and )ob moves for me along the ay, so apologies for the long gestation period. I hope this long drafting period has contributed in additional kno ledge and a areness of environmental matters on Pitcairn. I ould like to thank the Pitcairn Islanders and other non-governmental and governmental stakeholder groups contacted ho responded to the initial survey. The document has hopefully included all the vie s received from stakeholders and the superb and patient editorial team have also corrected drafts many times any remaining errors or omissions are entirely my o n. I ish to thank most sincerely ,r. Mike -rooke of .ambridge /niversity ho made many suggestions and amendments to the initial draft, they have I feel improved the content, 0uality and layout of this the final draft. To the people of Pitcairn Island the custodians and guardians of a special place, and a very uni0ue group of Islands, e hope this document aids in guiding the future direction of development on the island, to the ultimate benefit of the islanders and islands. This environmental assessment ould not have been possible ithout the financial support of the 1verseas Territories Environment Programme (1TEP) and the ,epartment for International ,evelopment (,2I,). -
Henderson Island Michael Brooke
Important Bird Areas Henderson Island Michael Brooke Abstract Subtropical Henderson Island is one of the Pitcairn Islands in the central South Pacific. Although over 600 years of Polynesian occupation have left an ecological mark, not least the continuing presence of Polynesian Rats Rattus exulans, the 37-km2 island is the Pacific’s best example of an ecologically intact raised coral island. For this reason it was designated a World Heritage Site in 1988. Four landbirds occur, all endemic to the island, of which the most distinctive is the flightless Henderson Crake Porzana atra. The others are a lorikeet, a fruit dove and a warbler. Seabirds abound. These comprise a mix of widespread tropical species such as boobies and noddies, and species with more restricted Pacific distributions, notably Pterodroma petrels. For one of these, the Henderson Petrel P. atrata, Henderson is the only known nesting station. However, fieldwork has established that the rats are devastating predators of petrel chicks. To benefit petrels and to achieve wider ecosystem restoration, rat eradication is now being actively planned. If successful, it would be easily the largest rat eradication achieved on British territory. enderson Island is a name that is Remote does not imply unwelcoming. perversely uninformative. It neither Mean monthly temperatures vary from Hgenerates an instant association with around 23°C (February) to 16°C (June), one of the giants of exploration, like the Ross while annual rainfall, about 1,600mm, is Sea, nor smacks of fire and brimstone, like plentiful but not excessive (Spencer 1995). Tierra del Fuego, nor smells of frangipani Trade winds from an easterly or southeasterly wafting across the South Seas, like Tahiti. -
Dense Sampling of Bird Diversity Increases Power of Comparative Genomics
UC Santa Cruz UC Santa Cruz Previously Published Works Title Dense sampling of bird diversity increases power of comparative genomics. Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6bz492wj Journal Nature, 587(7833) ISSN 0028-0836 Authors Feng, Shaohong Stiller, Josefin Deng, Yuan et al. Publication Date 2020-11-11 DOI 10.1038/s41586-020-2873-9 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Article Dense sampling of bird diversity increases power of comparative genomics https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2873-9 A list of authors and affiliations appears at the end of the paper. Received: 9 August 2019 Whole-genome sequencing projects are increasingly populating the tree of life and Accepted: 27 July 2020 characterizing biodiversity1–4. Sparse taxon sampling has previously been proposed Published online: 11 November 2020 to confound phylogenetic inference5, and captures only a fraction of the genomic Open access diversity. Here we report a substantial step towards the dense representation of avian phylogenetic and molecular diversity, by analysing 363 genomes from 92.4% of bird Check for updates families—including 267 newly sequenced genomes produced for phase II of the Bird 10,000 Genomes (B10K) Project. We use this comparative genome dataset in combination with a pipeline that leverages a reference-free whole-genome alignment to identify orthologous regions in greater numbers than has previously been possible and to recognize genomic novelties in particular bird lineages. The densely sampled alignment provides a single-base-pair map of selection, has more than doubled the fraction of bases that are confdently predicted to be under conservation and reveals extensive patterns of weak selection in predominantly non-coding DNA. -
Polynesia-Micronesia Final Evaluation Conference, 2013 English Pdf 1.47
Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund Final Evaluation Conference for the Polynesia‐Micronesia Hotspot April 15-18, 2013 Suva - Fiji Mark O’Brien, Birdlife International Pacific Partnership Secretariat, Suva, Fiji. Contents Final Statement. ...................................................................................................................................... 4 Statement from the Participants at the Final Assessment of the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund’s Investment in Polynesia Micronesia Pacific Theological College Conference Room, Suva Fiji. ............................................................................................................................................................ 4 Introduction to Meeting. .................................................................................................................... 6 Goals of the Conference ..................................................................................................................... 6 Objectives of the Conference: ............................................................................................................ 6 Final Outcome of the Workshop and Round table meeting: .............................................................. 7 Day 1: Monday, April 15th 2013. ............................................................................................................. 8 Session 1. THEME: Introduction ......................................................................................................... 8 1.1 -
2017 Conservation Outlook Assessment (Archived)
IUCN World Heritage Outlook: https://worldheritageoutlook.iucn.org/ Henderson Island - 2017 Conservation Outlook Assessment (archived) IUCN Conservation Outlook Assessment 2017 (archived) Finalised on 08 November 2017 Please note: this is an archived Conservation Outlook Assessment for Henderson Island. To access the most up-to-date Conservation Outlook Assessment for this site, please visit https://www.worldheritageoutlook.iucn.org. Henderson Island SITE INFORMATION Country: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK) Inscribed in: 1988 Criteria: (vii) (x) Site description: Henderson Island, which lies in the eastern South Pacific, is one of the few atolls in the world whose ecology has been practically untouched by a human presence. Its isolated location provides the ideal context for studying the dynamics of insular evolution and natural selection. It is particularly notable for the 10 plants and four land birds that are endemic to the island. © UNESCO IUCN World Heritage Outlook: https://worldheritageoutlook.iucn.org/ Henderson Island - 2017 Conservation Outlook Assessment (archived) SUMMARY 2017 Conservation Outlook Significant concern The remote and uninhabited Henderson Island has so far been relatively well preserved, primarily because of the limited anthropogenic pressure. However, the biodiversity values of the island remain very highly threatened by rat predation and competition. The impact of rat predation on petrel chick mortality is extremely high. Other endemic land bird and invertebrate populations are also likely suppressed by rat predation, and the composition of native flora may be substantially altered due to rat predation of seeds and seedlings. Rat predation is likely to be responsible for a decrease of petrel abundance from an estimated >1 million pairs on the island before rat arrival to just 40,000 pairs today (Brooke et al. -
Henderson Island World Heritage Site
Henderson Island World Heritage Site Management Plan 2004–2009 Conserving a unique site M de L Brooke, I Hepburn and RJ Trevelyan Henderson Island World Heritage Site Management Plan 2004 - 2009 M. de L. Brooke, I. Hepburn and R.J. Trevelyan Published 2004 by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London, in conjunction with the Pitcairn Islands Administration and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. This management plan is available to interested persons for a small charge to cover costs. Copies are available via the Pitcairn Island Administration, PO Box 105696, Auckland, New Zealand. [email protected] It is also available on the website of the UK Overseas Territories Conservation Forum: www.ukotcf.org Foreword The Rt Hon Jack Straw MP, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and The Rt Hon Tessa Jowell MP, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. We are delighted to present this Management Plan for the Henderson Island World Heritage Site. Henderson Island, one of the Pitcairn Islands in the central South Pacific, is an exceptionally undisturbed raised coral island. The island’s geology, combining indicators of sea level change and corals dating back over half a million years, provides a unique opportunity for documenting climate change. Its animals and plants include many unique species, and its archaeological interest, deriving from a long period of Polynesian occupation, is high. Isolation has undoubtedly been an important reason why the island has retained so much that is special, but, as more places become accessible to more people, there is no guarantee that Henderson’s isolation will continue to provide adequate long-term protection - hence the need for this Management Plan. -
Dense Sampling of Bird Diversity Increases Power of Comparative Genomics
Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons Faculty Publications Department of Biological Sciences 11-12-2020 Dense sampling of bird diversity increases power of comparative genomics Shaohong Feng China National Genebank Josefin Stiller Københavns Universitet Yuan Deng China National Genebank Joel Armstrong University of California, Santa Cruz Qi Fang China National Genebank See next page for additional authors Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/biosci_pubs Recommended Citation Feng, S., Stiller, J., Deng, Y., Armstrong, J., Fang, Q., Reeve, A., Xie, D., Chen, G., Guo, C., Faircloth, B., Petersen, B., Wang, Z., Zhou, Q., Diekhans, M., Chen, W., Andreu-Sánchez, S., Margaryan, A., Howard, J., Parent, C., Pacheco, G., Sinding, M., Puetz, L., Cavill, E., Ribeiro, Â., Eckhart, L., Fjeldså, J., Hosner, P., Brumfield, R., Christidis, L., Bertelsen, M., Sicheritz-Ponten, T., Tietze, D., Robertson, B., & Song, G. (2020). Dense sampling of bird diversity increases power of comparative genomics. Nature, 587 (7833), 252-257. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2873-9 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Biological Sciences at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Authors Shaohong Feng, Josefin Stiller, Yuan Deng, Joel Armstrong, Qi Fang, Andrew Hart Reeve, Duo Xie, Guangji Chen, Chunxue Guo, Brant C. Faircloth, Bent Petersen, Zongji Wang, Qi Zhou, Mark Diekhans, Wanjun Chen, Sergio Andreu-Sánchez, Ashot Margaryan, Jason Travis Howard, Carole Parent, George Pacheco, Mikkel Holger S. Sinding, Lara Puetz, Emily Cavill, Ângela M. -
Henderson Island Expedition Report: May-November 2015
Henderson Island expedition report: May-November 2015 Research Report 57 June 2016 Jennifer L. Lavers, Gregory T.W. McClelland, Lorna MacKinnon, Alexander L. Bond, Steffen Oppel, Angus H. Donaldson, Neil D. Duffield, Alice K. Forrest, Sarah J. Havery, Sue O’Keefe, Andy Skinner, Nick Torr, and Pawl Warren 1 RSPB Centre for Conservation Science, RSPB, The Lodge, Sandy, Bedfordshire, SG19 2DL, UK This report should be cited as: Lavers, J.L., McClelland, G.T.W., MacKinnon, L., Bond, A.L., Oppel, S., Donaldson, A.H., Duffield, N.D., Forrest, A.K., Havery, S.J, O’Keefe, S., Skinner, A., Torr, N., and Warren, P. 2016. Henderson Island expedition report: May-November 2015. RSPB Research Report 57. RSPB Centre for Conservation Science, RSPB, The Lodge, Sandy, Bedfordshire, SG19 2DL. ISBN: 978-1-905601-51-6 Published by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. © 2016 RSPB Centre for Conservation Science, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, The Lodge, Sandy, Bedfordshire SG19 2DL, United Kingdom All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the Society. ISBN 978-1-905601-51-6 Recommended citation: Lavers, J.L., McClelland, G.T.W., MacKinnon, L., Bond, A.L., Oppel, S., Donaldson, A.H., Duffield, N.D., Forrest, A.K., Havery, S.J, O’Keefe, S., Skinner, A., Torr, N., and Warren, P. 2016. Henderson Island expedition report: May-November 2015. RSPB Research Report 57. RSPB Centre for Conservation Science, RSPB, The Lodge, Sandy, Bedfordshire, SG19 2DL For further information, please contact: Dr Alex Bond ([email protected]) or Dr Steffen Oppel ([email protected]) 1 Table of Contents Executive summary ................................................................................................................. -
Issue 16, January 2021
UKOTCF Southern Oceans Working Group (SOWG) e-Newsletter January 2021 Number 16 Inside This Issue: Welcome everyone to this special edition of the SOWG e- 1. Welcome Note Newsletter. Invasive animal and plant species are among the largest 2-5. Ascension Island → Ascension Island Biosecurity threats to biodiversity, and are a conservation issue commonly faced Strategy across the territories. As such, and inspired by a good deal of → Two major historical influences: Rats and Ecosystem Engineering interest from SOWG members, this issue will focus exclusively on → Invasive predator research by the Army Ornithological Society some of the threats posed by, and efforts to combat, invasive species throughout the Southern Ocean territories. These topics will 5. British Antarctic Territory → Arctic Peninsula region at risk arise too in UKOTCF’s forthcoming online conference (https:// from 13 species www.ukotcf.org.uk/our-conferences/onlineconference2021/). 5-7. British Indian Ocean Territory → Boosting the biodiversity of the I hope you find these guest articles and their summaries interesting, Chagos Archipelago through and as always if you have any queries or suggestions for the next rewilding edition, please do send them to [email protected]. 7. Falkland Islands → Biosecurity Detector Dog 2020 Catriona Porter & the UKOTCF Team Updates 8. Pitcairn → Henderson Crake 8-9. St Helena → Restoring St Helena’s Cloud Forest 9-11. South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands → Fieldwork summary: eradicating rats and mice on South Georgia → Biosecurity Detector Dog Pro- gramme 11-12. Tristan da Cunha → Invasive Species Challenges in Tristan da Cunha Photo: South Georgia Heritage Trust Contact Information: - [email protected] Helicopter used for large scale baiting is re supplied before continuing its efforts to cover large areas with poison in order to eradicate rats from South Georgia and restore habitat for native species such as the South Georgia pipit - in the foreground some of the native fauna, a group of king penguins.