North Island Seychelles welcomes newest inhabitants

The North Island Rehabilitation Project continues to go from strength to strength, its latest accomplishment being the outstanding progress of the Island’s newest inhabitants, the Seychelles White-Eyes.

Less than a year ago, 25 Seychelles White-Eyes – some 6% of the world population of this endemic endangered bird – were introduced onto the Island. Barely three months later, the newcomers were spotted making nests. Their successful integration and subsequent reproduction have been confirmed in regular re-sightings of the introduced birds and confirmation of the presence of six live fledglings!

The introduction has been achieved through close cooperation with North Island’s long-time NGO partner Island Conservation Society (ICS), which also continues to provide the necessary expertise for the challenging post-transfer monitoring. Useful information on behaviour patterns, location and feeding are also recorded by North Island’s Landscape and Environment Teams. This information is shared with ICS’s monitoring missions, which in turn were responsible for finding the first nests and tracking the fledglings and released adults, with all the latter being re-sighted in the meantime.

On 7 and 8 May, Dr Gerard Rocamora and his assistant Andre LaBiche from ICS managed to ring two of the Seychelles White-Eye fledglings, taking their measurements and blood samples – the latter being the only way to determine their gender, essential knowledge in terms of the future decisions regarding translocation of additional birds to the island. The news of their successful breeding is very reassuring in that North Island, after extensive planting of the required native fruiting trees and recreating their favourite habitat, has proven to be an excellent new home for the tiny birds. It further validates the downlisting of this species from IUCN category ‘Critically Endangered’ to ‘Endangered’ and we are proud to play a crucial support role in the national White-eyes recovery programme.

Further evidence of the success of the exciting rehabilitation programme on the Island was the recent discovery of two ground level White-Tailed Tropicbird nests; proof that following our eradication of invasive rat species and feral cats, North Island has blossomed. Rats are formidable predators and quickly make short work of any ground-nesting birds and their fledglings. Since successful cat and rat eradications in 2003 and 2005 respectively, North Island’s native fauna has made a dramatic recovery, as is evident from the spectacular boom of the moorhen, blue pigeon and Seychelles skinks populations from 2006 onwards, and the recent presence of baby tortoises on the plateau.

Finally, in a thrilling development, the introduction to the Island of the black mud turtle (Pelusios subniger parietalis), a type of freshwater terrapin, has been approved by the Seychelles Government. The black mud turtle is a member of the genus of African side-necked turtles that is endemic to the Seychelles. As a result of an 80% decline in its habitat range this terrapin is listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List. North Island and ICS will again join forces in supporting the Seychelles’ Government with its conservation efforts. By adding the marshes of North Island to the black mud turtle’s available habitat, North Island’s Noah’s Ark Project continues to live up to its name.