North Island,
Seychelles | July 30, 2016, Saturday @ 08:50
University of Reading students
and volunteers from the not-for-profit organisation the Green Islands
Foundation, GIF have kick-started a project aiming to rid North Island of the
invasive Myna. Similar projects which failed to completely eradicate the birds
were implemented in 2005 and 2012. (North Island)
A new project that aims to rid
the Seychelles’ North Island of the invasive Myna bird is
under way, with a secondary goal of boosting the population of an endemic bird
species, conservationists working on the island have said.
The project – the third of its
kind to be implemented on the island -- is a collaboration between a group of
students from the University of Reading in the United Kingdom and
volunteers from the not-for-profit organisation the Green Islands
Foundation, GIF.
Some 200 Mynas have already been
caught through the project, which started a little over two months ago. It is
estimated that over a thousand of these omnivorous, dark brown birds with a
yellow beak --thought to have been introduced in the Seychelles archipelago in
the 19th century -- roam the island.
“We used the birds that we caught
as decoys for other birds but we have also been using baits and over 20 traps
that have been placed around the island,” Sarah Fenn, one of the volunteers,
said to SNA.
North Island is one of many
of the 115 islands of Seychelles -- an archipelago in the western Indian Ocean
-- that have been invaded by these cunning avian invaders originally from
southern Asia.
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