ABACO PARROTS TO BE RELOCATED?
At a 26th June presentation by Friends of the Environment, one of the measures suggested to preserve the Bahama parrots living on Abaco was to relocate some of the birds to other Bahamian islands. The Bahama parrot once lived on seven island groups, now it exists only on Abaco and Inagua.
According to Caroline Stahala of North Carolina State University, who is studying the Bahama parrots on Abaco, their ground nesting habits lead to predation from feral cats, wild hogs, land crabs and snakes. In addition, forest fires and flooding can kill chicks. A severe hurricane would probably leave the parrots without food for a dangerous length of time.
The Bahama parrot (Amazona leucocephala bahamensis) is monogamous in nature and the females lay two to five eggs which take about 28 days to incubate and a further 58 days to fledge. During this time both the mother and father assist with the care of the chick. The parrots eat fruits and berries from the coppice land but during the breeding season, late spring to late summer, they eat the seeds of pine cones, which are a rich source of protein.
Caroline Stahala will be researching the population of the parrots, their breeding productivity and habitat use. In May 2000 it was estimated there were anywhere from 1,090 to 2,306 parrots on Abaco. When the population gets too low there could be genetic drift and inbreeding. Ms Stahala will also be investigating in which life stage or time of year the birds are most vulnerable and for this purpose she will be studying females and juveniles only.
The presentation started with a general background of endangered species in the Caribbean basin from James W Wiley and ended with a consideration of parrot predators from his wife, Gina Mori. To the previous list of predators she added the red-tailed hawk, the barn owl, rats and - in the future - raccoons. In 1991 Rosemarie Gnam reported that 50% of all nesting females in the 1988 breeding season were killed by feral cats.
A general discussion followed the presentations during which it was acknowledged that if raccoons reached the parrot nesting area a very severe depletion of the parrot population would occur. Various methods of controlling the raccoon population on Abaco were mooted, which included the importation of coon hounds and the establishment of a bounty on raccoon tails.