(Seychelles News Agency) – Seychelles’ Ministry for Environment remains in the procedure of evaluating all its action prepares to much better save and secure threatened types, specifically those under hazard of termination, such holds true of the Seychelles white-eye bird.
The primary secretary for environment, Denis Matatiken, informed SNA that the ministry has actually begun to engage with regional stakeholders for the defense of this endemic types in addition to other threatened types, following reports concerning a worrying decrease in the population of the white-eye bird on the primary island of Mahe.
A little grey bird with a narrow white ring around each eye, the white-eye was formerly categorized as seriously threatened on the IUCN red list, and effective preservation work enabled the bird to be down-listed to susceptible status. The types can presently be discovered on 4 of the 115 islands of the Seychelles island chain; Mahe, Fregate, North Island and Grande Soeur.
“The ministry understands this circumstance and thinks that preservation is essential specifically where our endemic types are worried. It thinks about taking proper actions when required,” said Matatiken.
He included that the federal government plans to examine all the types action strategies, consisting of the one for the Seychelles white-eye, which was established from 2009-2013.
“It is necessary to develop what has actually been done, what is understood and what actions require to be carried out. This is necessary considered that a great deal of efforts and resources were put in the defense and preservation of such a types,” he said.
SNA looked out to the important state of the bird’s population on Mahe by the regional conservationist turned tourist guide, Perley Constance.
Constance has more than thirty years of experience in preservation and research study on bird and plant types and has actually worked as a preservation officer with the Ministry for Environment. Besides his tourist guide business, Constance likewise works as a specialist. Bird seeing is one activity that he uses visitors to the islands.
“It was throughout among my latest trips, when I took customers to see the zwazo linet [white-eye in Seychellois Creole], something that I constantly consist of in my trips. I likewise bring visitors to see the scops owl. This was recently and I got a shock. At La Misere there was just a set of the types. Normally there were a few of these birds at this place,” explained Constance.
Apart from La Misere, according to Constance, these types can be spotted on Mahe at Cascade, Sans Soucis, Grand Anse Mahe and Barbarons – though this website has actually not been available just recently given that the location was bought by personal owners.
Constance has actually revealed his worries about the present status of the white-eye, as he feels the appropriate authorities must alter their method where preservation is worried and focus must be placed on sightseeing tour to much better evaluate the status of threatened types.
“If something is refrained from doing now, it is with terrific unhappiness that we would lose the population on Mahe, much like we have actually lost the mom population on Conception Island,” included Constance.
Conception Island is a little island around 2 km west of the primary island of Mahe. The island is independently owned and is unoccupied. Up to 2016, the island had a healthy population of over 300 white eye birds.
 |
| Rocamora and his group have actually been studying the Seychelles white-eye given that 1995 when he showed up in Seychelles. (Gérard Rocamora) Photo License: All Rights Reserved |
This was an outcome of effective work which began in the 1990s by a group of regional conservationists headed by Dr Gerard Rocamora, a preservation biologist, and specialist in ornithology, island preservation and intrusive types management. Constance dealt with Rocamora on the task.
The effective management of this population was done prior to the island being sold to a personal business owner who has actually not established the island given that. Unfortunately, over a duration of just 3 years, the entire population of birds was consumed by rats.
In a previous interview with SNA, Rocamora shared the latest advancement with concerns to the threatened types, and where a job was being executed to move types of white-eye on Mahe to other islands.
“The goal today is to move a few of the couple of birds left on Mahe to another island to make sure that the valuable genes of the Mahe bird population, various from those of the birds present on the other islands, can be handed down and do not disappear permanently,” said Rocamora in November 2021.
He explained that a morphology and genes research study of the birds on Mahe and Conception revealed that those on the primary island were a little bigger, nevertheless, this did not suggest that the 2 populations were various.
Meanwhile, Constance is determined that all the work carried out in the 1990s associating with preservation must not fail and is requiring an immediate collaboration at the nationwide level to renew the population of birds on Mahe prior to it is far too late.
