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Recruitment of Juvenile, Captive-Reared Eastern Loggerhead Shrikes Lanius Ludovicianus Migrans Into the Wild Population in Canada

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Recruitment of Juvenile, Captive-Reared Eastern Loggerhead Shrikes Lanius Ludovicianus Migrans Into the Wild Population in Canada Recruitment of juvenile, captive-reared eastern loggerhead shrikes Lanius ludovicianus migrans into the wild population in Canada E. L. LAGIOS,K.F.ROBBINS,J.M.LAPIERRE,J.C.STEINER and T . L . I MLAY Abstract High post-release survival, low dispersal and the Falco peregrinus (Tordoff & Redig, 2001) and Mauritius recruitment of captive-reared individuals into the wild kestrel Falco punctatus (Nicoll et al., 2004). Studies inves- population are critical to the success of any reintroduction tigating the reasons for reintroduction success or failure programme. Reintroducing a migratory species poses an have focused typically on post-release dispersal and sur- additional challenge as success also depends on the return vival (Tweed et al., 2003; Lockwood et al., 2005; Parish & of captive-reared individuals to breeding grounds in sub- Sotherton, 2007; Bernardo et al., 2011; Mitchell et al., 2011), sequent years. We investigated the effects of seven hus- which are important factors for successful reintroduction. bandry and management factors on the return rate of However, for migratory species success also depends on the captive-reared eastern loggerhead shrikes Lanius ludovicia- return of captive-reared individuals to breeding grounds nus migrans and documented the recruitment of returning and subsequent recruitment into the wild breeding individuals. During 2004–2010, 564 juveniles were released population (Maxwell & Jamieson, 1997). in Ontario, Canada, as part of a field propagation and re- Although the loggerhead shrike is categorized as Least lease programme and there were 27 confirmed sightings Concern on the IUCN Red List (BirdLife International, of returning birds during 2005–2011. Returning birds were 2012), declines in shrike populations have been reported significantly more likely to have been released in large globally (Yosef, 1994). In Canada the migratory eastern groups of juveniles (9–10 birds) at 5.5 weeks post-fledging subspecies of loggerhead shrike Lanius ludovicianus mi- from the Carden field propagation site. Comparisons of the grans is categorized as Endangered by the Committee on the number of young fledged and survival to 2 weeks post- Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC, fledging revealed similar results for pairs comprising one 2000), with the current population estimated at , 30 breed- captive-reared and one wild-reared individual and pairs ing pairs (Wildlife Preservation Canada, unpubl. data). A comprising two wild individuals. These results highlight captive-breeding programme was initiated in 1997, with the the contribution of captive-reared shrikes to the recovery of recruitment of wild shrike nestlings to establish a safety-net the wild population and the importance of monitoring population (Environment Canada, 2010). Since 2001,juv- outcomes and evaluating techniques. enile captive-reared shrikes have been released into the wild annually as part of an Ontario-based field propagation and Keywords Breeding success, captive breeding, threatened release programme (Nichols et al., 2010). Field propagation species, Lanius ludovicianus migrans, loggerhead shrike, and release involves the breeding of captive adults in field recruitment, reintroduction, return rate enclosures situated in historical breeding habitat, where young birds are parent-raised and subsequently released in situ (Nichols et al., 2010). Over 600 hatch-year birds have Introduction been released to date and the first captive-reared bird re- turned and bred successfully with a wild shrike in 2005 eintroduction programmes are important conservation (Nichols et al., 2010). The mean annual return rate for tools for re-establishing, augmenting or maintaining R captive-reared shrikes released during 2004–2007 was 4.6% wild populations of threatened species by releasing captive- (range 2.0–6.6%, Nichols et al., 2010), which is higher than reared individuals within their historical range (Cade & the documented return rates of wild juvenile shrikes in other Temple, 1995; Wolf et al., 1996; IUCN, 1998). Overall, the migratory North American populations (1.1%, Kridelbaugh, success of reintroductions has been variable (reviewed in 1983; 0%, Brooks & Temple, 1990; 1%, Burton, 1990; 0.8%, Beck et al., 1994; Wolf et al., 1998; Fischer & Lindenmayer, Haas, 1995; 0.85–1.2%, Collister & De Smet, 1997) but similar 2000) but there have been some notable successes, with to the return rates reported for wild juveniles in Ontario the re-establishment of populations of peregrine falcon during 2001–2003 (3–12%, Okines & McCracken, 2003). A study documenting the post-release survival and dispersal of E. L. LAGIOS,K.F.ROBBINS,J.M.LAPIERRE,J.C.STEINER and T. L. IMLAY captive-reared shrikes indicated that survival was higher (Corresponding author) Wildlife Preservation Canada, 5420 Highway 6 North, 76 2010 Guelph, Ontario N1H 6J2, Canada. E-mail [email protected] ( %, Imlay et al., ) than survival estimates for wild juvenile passerines (42%, Anders et al., 1997; 60%, Vega Received 26 November 2012. Revision requested 11 January 2013. Accepted 5 April 2013. First published online 1 May 2014. Rivera et al., 1998; 56–63%, Wells et al., 2007). Oryx, 2015, 49(2), 321–328 © 2014 Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605313000690 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.202.226, on 27 Sep 2021 at 03:31:44, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605313000690 322 E. L. Lagios et al. Pembroke Smiths Falls Manitoulin Dyer’s Bay Carden Napanee Carden LAKE Grey-Bruce HURON Toronto Zoo LAKE ONTARIO African Lion Safari CANADA Ingersoll USA Core areas FIG. 1 Locations of historical core LAKE Breeding & release sites breeding areas for eastern loggerhead ERIE shrikes Lanius ludovicianus migrans in Wintering/breeding facilities Ontario, Canada. The rectangle on the 050 100 200 km inset shows the location of the main map in Canada. Reintroduction programmes can generate large quantities at two locations in southern Ontario, Canada: Dyer’sBay of field data, especially when animals are marked and and Carden (Fig. 1). These locations occur within the his- monitored post-release (Sarrazin & Barbault, 1996; Fischer torical breeding range of the species and consist of annually & Lindenmayer, 2000; Sutherland et al., 2010). For this pro- grazed pastures and short grassland habitat. One of the last gramme, data were collected annually on a variety of man- two remaining breeding populations in the wild is found on agement factors likely to affect the survival and recruitment the Carden Alvar (Fig. 1). of released individuals. Data on the techniques utilized may be relevant to analyses of the conditions experienced by pre- Methods release juveniles (Armstrong & Seddon, 2008; Ballou et al., 2010) and how this may affect their return rates. Several To investigate factors affecting the return rates of juvenile reintroduction studies have noted differences between the captive-reared eastern loggerhead shrikes we examined data reproductive productivity of wild-reared and captive-reared compiled from the field propagation and release programme individuals (Sarrazin et al., 1996; Brown et al., 2006; Roche during 2004–2010 and from the wild population monitoring et al., 2008), and therefore examining productivity following programme during 2005–2011. The Dyer’s Bay and Carden recruitment of captive-reared individuals will provide a field sites contained 12 and 14 outdoor breeding and release better assessment of the capacity of the reintroduction pro- enclosures, respectively. Each year, from late April to early gramme to augment or re-establish an existing population. September, selected pairs of breeding adults were relocated We analysed the effect of seven variables (initial sep- from overwintering facilities at African Lion Safari, Ingersoll aration method, release site, release date, release age, release and the Toronto Zoo to the field enclosures. A detailed group size, sex and body condition) on return rates of description of the field propagation and release programme, captive-reared juvenile eastern loggerhead shrikes. We also including management of breeding adults and juveniles, can compared the breeding success of captive-reared shrikes be found in Nichols et al. (2010). that have returned to breeding grounds and paired with wild Fledged young were separated from their parents at a shrikes with that of an extant population of wild shrikes in mean age of 44.5 ± SD 8.8 days, or 3.5 weeks post-fledging, the Carden area (Fig. 1). approximating when young become independent of adults in the wild (c. 4 weeks post-fledging; Pruitt, 2000; Chabot 2001 fi Study area et al., ). At the eld propagation sites separation oc- curred at 3–9 weeks post-fledging, when young were trans- As part of the field propagation and release programme ferred to a predetermined release enclosure and grouped parent-reared juvenile shrikes were released simultaneously with other birds of approximately the same age. Young Oryx, 2015, 49(2), 321–328 © 2014 Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605313000690 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.202.226, on 27 Sep 2021 at 03:31:44, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605313000690 Recruitment of captive-reared shrikes 323 produced at the Ingersoll facility in 2004 (n 5 6), 2005 TABLE 1 The number of captive-reared eastern loggerhead shrikes (n 5 5) and 2007–2009 (n 5 3, 14 and 5, respectively) were Lanius ludovicianus migrans released during 2004–2010, the transferred at 5–9 weeks post-fledging to one of the field number of these that returned to the breeding site in Ontario, 1 sites for release. Young produced at the Toronto Zoo in 2010 Canada (Fig. ), and the year they returned. (n 5 3) were transferred at 4–5 weeks post-fledging. Age at No. No. of returning Years returned separation varied depending on the availability of release Cohort released individuals (no. of individuals) enclosures, the number of young at separation age among 2004 32 1 2005 (1) different broods, the breeding stage of adults (e.g.
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