As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Sunday 22 March 2015

Scientists raid mangrove finch nests as they battle to save birds discovered by Charles Darwin from extinction

Camarhynchus heliobates.pngNests built by a species of finch which was discovered by Charles Darwin have been raided in an eleventh-hour bid to save the bird from extinction.

Just 80 mangrove finches are left alive on the Galapagos Islands, the only place in the world where they are found, having declined catastrophically since the arrival of Darwin on HMS Beagle in 1835.
With the birds on the brink of extinction, an international team of scientists decided they needed to take the desperate course of taking the eggs and raising the chicks themselves, rather than leave them with their parents in the wild.

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