Public comments sought on Rota bird’s recovery plan

The revised draft recovery plan that outlines the steps needed to help the recovery efforts for the endangered Mariana Crow has been released Friday by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services for public review and comment.

The U.S. FWS Pacific Islands External Affairs Office is inviting the CNMI public to submit comments on the revised recovery plan within 60 days. It said that the plan replaces the original that was developed in 1990, which addressed multiple species of native forest birds on Guam and Rota.

“With public input, we hope to develop a plan that will provide the necessary guidance to increase aga numbers on Rota and restore the species on Guam,” said Fish and Wildlife Service’s Pacific Islands Fish and Wildlife Office field supervisor Patrick Leonard. Aga is the Chamorro term for the Mariana Crow.

Leonard said the plan outline specific criteria needed to downgrade the species’ status to “threatened” and to eventually de-list or remove the species from the list of federally protected plants and animals.

The criteria identified for both actions are active research, habitat management, predator control, population augmentation or reestablishment through translocation (moving birds from one area to another), population monitoring and community involvement.

He said the brown tree snake control and interdiction and habitat management and research are considered the highest priority actions needed to prevent the bird’s extinction.

Down-listing criteria require that a minimum of two populations of aga, said the media release, are stable or increasing in size for at least 10 consecutive years. “The two populations, one in Rota and the other in northern Guam, must have a minimum of 75 breeding pairs,” said the agency, adding that a minimum of three populations, one on Rota and the others in northern and southern Guam, must have a minimum of 75 breeding pairs each.

The threats to the aga range from habitat loss and human persecution to diseases and introduced species such as cats, rats, black drongos, monitor lizard, and the brown tree snake.

“However, the brown tree snake is believed to be the principal threat to the species in Guam; on Rota, habitat loss, human persecution and possibly rat predation on nests are believed to be major threats.”

The agency said copies of the draft of the recovery plan are available through the Fish and Wildlife Service’s website at http://pacificislands.fws.gov or by calling the Fish and Wildlife Service’s Honolulu office at 808-792-9400. Written comments could be submitted until March 11, 2006 to the Field Supervisor, Pacific Islands Fish and Wildlife Office, 300 Ala Moana Blvd. Room 3-122, Box 50088, Honolulu, HI 97850.