Reintroduction of adult Orinoco crocodiles: a crucial step towards the species recovery

Abstract

Pulau Kangean was of a single bird heard during several months of surveys in – (Irham , Zoo Indonesia, , –). Satellite data and ground-truthing during our  visit revealed that suitable habitat remains extensive on the island; capture for the songbird trade (easy with shamas, as they respond to playback of songs and fly straight into nets/traps) is the only plausible explanation for the bird’s disappearance. Two Kangean trappers independently told me that the Kangean shama has not been observed or caught in the main archipelago for .  years; one said it was common until the early s. Two households in Arjasa, Pulau Kangean, had pet shamas, but neither was a native nigricauda, or the rare (and also distinctive) form omissus from neighbouring Java; both were probably imported from Kalimantan. Among hobbyist Javan songbird keepers, the phrase Murai Kangean (Kangean shama) is apparently unfamiliar (J. Menner, in litt.), suggesting birds from Kangean have not been in trade for some time. A few shamas that appeared identical to C. malabaricus nigricauda were found in trade in , apparently collected on a very remote island (anonymity preserved) that year. These birds were purchased and are the founders of a captive breeding programme on Java (numbering  birds in June ; J. Menner, in litt.). Both Kangean trappers named the island in question unprompted, and one of them had personally visited it to trap shamas in ,  and, ominously without success, . The island is only small, has a jetty and settlements and given the speed at which insular shama populations elsewhere in Indonesia have been extirpated, is likely to become extinct in the wild without immediate conservation action. If a wild population of Kangean shamas does still persist, we may have only months to save it. A visit to the island is planned for as soon as is logistically and financially possible; if shamas do remain, in situ conservation should be implemented urgently.