Another victory appears to be unfolding in the saga to save animals from the brink of extinction!
This time, it’s the Guam kingfisher – a Pacific island bird that’s been extinct in the wild for an astonishing 40 years.
But this story will prove that even when a situation appears hopeless – and it’s taken literal decades to see progress – when we set our mind as a community to fix a problem, we can accomplish amazing things, says the Ocean River Institute.
Also known as the “sihek” in the Chamorro language, Guam kingfishers are beautiful birds with white or cinnamon colouring and blue-green tails with strong, pointed beaks. As their name implies, they are native only to the island of Guam, an American territory and the largest island in the Mariana Island chain located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean between Japan to the north and Papua New Guinea and Australia to the south.
With exploration and commerce came the accidental introduction of non-native species to the island, in particular the brown tree snake, whose population has grown to millions and has wreaked havoc on the kingfisher and virtually every other native bird inhabiting there.
But thanks to countless dedicated activists and conservationists, kingfishers have been kept alive through breeding programmes in the U.S. until a suitable time came to return them to the wild.
While dangerous predators still roam on Guam, the decision was made to grow their population on Palmyra Atoll, a federally-protected land and preserve a few thousand miles away between Samoa and Hawai’i.
Even without natural predators and with plenty of protected habitat, introduction will still be a slow process; first, rearing a cohort of chicks and moving them to aviaries on the island while awaiting release into the wild. From there, the birds will be monitored and new chicks will be introduced into the aviaries and released until they reach 20 breeding pairs. Before we know it, a self-sustaining wild population will be in place!
If the snake problem on Guam can ever be solved is anyone’s guess. So far, nothing has brought their numbers down to meaningful levels, so for now, the Guam kingfisher will make a new home on Palmyra Atoll.