Hostname: page-component-77f85d65b8-lfk5g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-04-19T21:00:17.742Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Status of the volcanically threatened Montserrat Oriole Icterus oberi and other forest birds in Montserrat, West Indies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2010

W. J. Arendt ,
D. W. Gibbons  and
G. Gray
W. J. Arendt
Affiliation:
USDA Forest Service, International Institute of Tropical Forestry, Sabana Field Research Station, PO Box 490, Palmer, Puerto Rico 00721 E-mail: wjarendt@coqui.net.
D. W. Gibbons
Affiliation:
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, The Lodge, Sandy, Bedfordshire, SG19 2DL, U.K. E-mail: david.gibbons@rspb.org.
G. Gray
Affiliation:
Ministry of Agriculture, Trade and Environment/WWF-UK, Montserrat, West Indies E-mail: gerard@comfile.com.
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the 'Save PDF' action button.

The Montserrat Oriole Icterus oberi is endemic to the Caribbean island of Montserrat where, prior to 1995, it was widely distributed across the island's three main interior mountain ranges: the Centre, Soufriere and South Soufriere Hills. In July 1995, a long-dormant volcano on Chances Peak in the Soufriere Hills began to erupt. Since then the forest habitat of the oriole on the Soufriere and South Soufriere Hills has been devastated by pyroclastic flows and surges, heavy ash eruptions and rock falls. The Montserrat Oriole populations that inhabited these two mountain ranges have probably been lost. In December 1997, a census of the remaining Centre Hills population was undertaken to assess its status in the face of the heavy ash fall that occurred earlier the same year. To do this, a systematic grid of 140 sample points was overlaid on an area of 1,437.5 n a encompassing the Centre Hills, and a 10-minute count of all bird species was undertaken at 137 of these points during an eight-day survey period. The distance from the point to each oriole detected was measured and records of all other species were allocated to one of five distance bands radiating out from the point. Distance sampling was used to model densities, and thus to estimate population sizes, of eight bird species in the study area. It was estimated that 4,000 (95% CIs 1,500–7,800) Montserrat Orioles remain in the Centre Hills and thus the world. Although the probability of pyroclastic flows and surges overrunning the Centre Hills is considered rerrtote, it is recommended that the Montserrat Oriole be classified as Globally Threatened (Endangered) under the revised IUCN threat categories because of its loss of breeding habitat since 1995.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Bird Conservation International , Volume 9 , Issue 4 , December 1999 , pp. 351 - 372
Copyright
Copyright © Birdlife International 1999

References

American Ornithologists’ Union. (1983) Checklist of North American birds, sixth edition. Washington, D.C.: American Ornithologists’ Union.Google Scholar
anderson, D.C. and McMahon, J.A. (1985) An assessment of ground nest depredation in a catastrophically disturbed region, Mount St Helens, Washington. Auk 103: 622–626.Google Scholar
Arendt, W.J. (1990) Impact of Hurricane Hugo on the Montserrat Oriole, other forest birds, and their habitat. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Institute of Tropical Forestry.Google Scholar
Arendt, W.J. and Arendt, A.I. (1984) Distribution, population size, status and reproductive ecology of the Montserrat Oriole (Icterus oberi). U. S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Institute of Tropical Forestry.Google Scholar
Bibby, C.J., Phillips, B.N. and Seddon, A.J.E. (1985) Birds of restocked conifer plantations in Wales. J. Appl. Ecol. 22: 619–633.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buckland, S.T. (1987) On the variable circular plot method of estimating animal density. Biometrics 43: 363–384.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buckland, S.T., anderson, D.R., Burnham, K.P. and Laake, J.L. (1993) Distance sampling: estimating abundance of animal populations. London: Chapman and Hall.Google Scholar
Butcher, G.S. (1980) Northern Orioles disappear with Mt St Helens ashfall. The Murrelet 62: 15–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collar, N.J., Crosby, M.J. and Stattersfield, A.J. (1994) Birds to watch 2; the world list of threatened birds. Cambridge, U.K.: BirdLife International.Google Scholar
Conant, S., Pratt, H.D. and Shallenberger, R.J. (1998) Reflections on a 1975 expedition to the lost world of the Alaka′i and other notes on the natural history, systematics, and conservation of Kaua″i birds. Wilson Bull. 110: 1–22.Google Scholar
Emlen, J.T. (1971) Population densities of birds derived from transect counts. Auk 88: 323–342.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Emlen, J.T. (1977) Estimating breeding season bird densities from transect counts. Auk 94: 455–468.Google Scholar
Graves, G.R. (1996) Censusing wintering populations of Swainson's Warblers: surveys in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica. Wilson Bull. 108: 94–103.Google Scholar
Hayward, J.L., Miller, D.E. and Hill, C.R. (1982) Mount St Helens ash: its impact on breeding ring-billed and California gulls. Auk 99: 623–631.Google Scholar
Hiby, A.R. (1986) Results of a hazard rate model relevant to experiments on the 1984/85 ICDR Minke whale assessment cruise. Rept. Int. Whaling Comm. 36: 497–498.Google Scholar
Hutto, R.L., Pletschet, S.M. and Hendricks, P. (1986) A fixed-radius point count method for nonbreeding and breeding season use. Auk 103: 593–602.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. (1996) 1996 IUCN Red List of Threatened Animals. Gland: IUCN.Google Scholar
Laake, J.L., Buckland, S.T., anderson, D.R. and Burnham, K.P. (1993) DISTANCE User's Guide. Fort Collins: Colorado Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, Colorado State University.Google Scholar
Manuwal, D.A., Hugg, M.H., Bauer, M.R., Chappell, C.B. and Hegstad, K. (1987) Summer birds of the upper subalpine zone of Mount Adams, Mount Rainier and Mount St Helens, Washington. Northwest Sci. 61: 82–91.Google Scholar
Parker, T.A. III. (1991) On the use of tape recorders in avifaunal surveys. Auk 108: 443–444.Google Scholar
Pleasants, B.Y. (1981) Aspects of the breeding biology of a subtropical oriole, Icterus galbula. Wilson Bull 93: 531–537.Google Scholar
Raffaele, H.A., Wiley, J.W., Garrido, O. H., Keith, A. and Raffaele, J. (1998) Guide to the Birds of the West Indies. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Ramsey, F.L. and Scott, J.M. (1979) Estimating population densities from variable circular plot surveys. Pp 155–181 in Cormack, R.M., Patil, G.P. and Robson, D.S., eds. Sampling biological populations. Fairland: International Co-operative Publishing House.Google Scholar
Schwartz, A. and Thomas, R. (1975) A checklist of West Indian amphibians and reptiles. Pittsburgh: Carnegie Museum of Natural History.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwartz, A., Thomas, R. and Ober, L.D. (1978) First supplement to a checklist of West Indian amphibians and reptiles. Pittsburgh: Carnegie Museum of Natural History.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Terborgh, J. and Faaborg, J. (1973) Turnover and ecological release in the avifauna of Mona Island, Puerto Rico. Auk 90: 759–779.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wadge, G. and Isaacs, M.C. (1988) Mapping the volcanic hazards from Soufriere Hills Volcano, Montserrat, West Indies using an image processor. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 145: 541–551.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wiley, J.W., and Wunderle, J.M. Jr. (1993) The effects of hurricanes on birds, with special reference to the Caribbean islands. Bird Conserv. Internatn. 3: 319–349.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, S. (1997) BGS in the hot seat. NERC News, winter 1997: 10. (Swindon: Natural Environment Research Council).Google Scholar