Being that the Guam Kingfisher
is extinct in the wild, it makes it hard to show
support for this beautiful bird. Humans, along with the
introduction of new predators have caused the extinction of 9 of the 11
species native to Guam. Don’t let this be the 10th! Although captive breeding
programs are fighting to save this precious bird, there are still only between 100-200 left (Guam Kingfisher, National Aviary, 2015). Aquarium of the Pacific is one of the few organizations that are actively working to spread the word and working to fix the habitat for the kingfisher’s reintroduction (Guam Kingfisher, Aquarium Of the Pacific, 2015).
What can you do? Unfortunately, because not many people know about the Guam Kingfisher's tragic story, they don’t get the kind of news coverage that big cats or rhinos get. Make it known, make it known that only 2 of the native bird species to Guam still remain due to the invasive brown tree snake and habitat loss. We have to try and save this beautiful creature. In addition to spreading the word, you can support the Guam Kingfisher by donating to the following zoos, and show support for their breeding programs.
Get
Involved!
SPREAD THE WORD NOW!
Zoo's Hosting the Kingfisher
By donating to any of the following zoos, you can make an instant impact on the conservation of the Kingfishers.
The Aquarium of the Pacific is an non-profit institution, located in Long Beach, CA. The aquarium is part of the Marianas Avifauna Conservation (MAC) program started in 2004. This project is intended to provide the birds of the Mariana archipelago with the best possible chances for long-term survival.
Call Lindsay Yates to find out how to donate directly to the Guam Kingfisher conservation program.
(562) 951-1679
The entire captive population of Guam kingfishers is managed under the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ Species Survival Plan (SSP) which formed in 1988 and has been managed by Philadelphia Zoo staff ever since. The SSP coordinates with the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Guam Kingfisher Recovery Committee, working to prepare this species for eventual release in the wild.
Since its inception in 1910, the St. Louis Zoo has been renowned for its beautiful naturalistic exhibits and for its diverse collection of animals from the major continents and biomes of the world. It is widely recognized for its innovative approaches to animal management, wildlife conservation, research and education.
Call (314) 646-5537 for more information or contact them by email donations@sandiegozoo.org
San Diego Zoo Global is a not-for-profit organization that operates the San Diego Zoo, the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, and the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research. It was founded on October 2, 1916, by Harry M. Wegeforth, M.D, and has an 11-member Board of Trustees headed by Robert Horsman; Douglas G. Myers is our president/CEO.
Call (619) 231-1515 for more information or contact them by email donation@stlzoo.org
The National Zoo is proud to participate in the recovery efforts for endangered and threatened species. At The Smithsonian's National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute visitors can see Micronesian kingfishers as well as the Brown Treesnakes. The Zoo was one of the First to set up to the plate to help the conservation, and their first chick was hatched in 1998.
Call (202)-633-2922 for more information or contact them by email fonzmember@si.edu
Lincoln Park Zoo is a privately managed institution that depends primarily on the support of its visitors, members and donors to remain open and free every day. More than two-thirds of the zoo’s operating budget is provided by revenue from its food service, retail shops, parking, and fund-raising activities. The remaining portion is provided by a fixed annual subsidy from the Chicago Park District.
Call (312)-742-2000 for more information or contact them by email acottrell@lpzoo.org
Other Ways to Help & Stay Involved
Write letters to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service stating that you are a “United States citizen and are interested in the reintroduction and rehabilitation of the Guam Micronesian Kingfisher back to it’s native habitat of Guam.”
You can choose to write to either the headquarters, or region 4, which includes Guam.
Write Letters Stating Your Opinon
Region 4 - Southeast
Chief, Endangered Species
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
1875 Century Blvd., Suite 200
Atlanta, GA 30345
http://www.fws.gov/southeast/es/
Headquarters
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Endangered Species
5275 Leesburg Pike
Falls Church, VA 22041
http://www.fws.gov/endangered/
Print by: Justin Richel
Buy a Print from The Endangered Species Print Project
The Endangered Species Print Project was started as a way to use artistic talents to directly support conservation efforts and biodiversity on Planet Earth. To date $14,000 has been raised for endangered species conservation. All materials used are high-quality archival materials, in the highest post-consumer recycled percentage available.
Purchasing this print will support The Guam Micronesian Kingfisher Species Survival Plan at the Lincoln Park Zoo.
Support Guampedia
Guampedia, Guam’s online encyclopedia, is striving to help preserve and promote Guam’s history and culture and help educate children, residents and visitors alike; but they need your help.
Contat Shannon Murphy for more information on supporting Guampedia.
Guampedia
303 University Drive
UOG Station
Mangilao, GU 96913
"Help us help Guam’s culture survive.
Help us keep our people informed and educated.
Help us bring what is beautiful about Guam to the world’s attention."
Our Opinions
After extensive research, we formulated our opinions on whether or not the Guam Kingfisher should be saved. We weighed the odds of the cost-benefit analysis and came to an educated decision.
Nina's Opinion
The Guam kingfisher is a beautiful bird with a sad story. Properly called the Micronesian kingfisher, it was found only on the tiny Pacific island of Guam. At some point during or immediately after World War II, a cargo ship accidentally brought some vicious stowaways to the kingfisher’s island paradise. The stowaways were brown tree snakes, a mildly venomous native of New Guinea. The tree snake had no natural predators on the island and their population size went from a handful to perhaps 10,000 per square mile in just a few short years. They ate almost every bird on the island, including our beautiful kingfisher, dropping the kingfisher population to a rough 29 individuals (Endangered Species Act Overview, 2013). The kingfisher population of Guam was federally listed as an endangered species in 1984, and by 1988, they were considered extinct in the wild. Today, the U.S. Government and other agencies such as; the U.S. Fish and Wildlife and the Aquarium of the Pacific, have carried out massive efforts to save the Guam Kingfisher from extinction. All of the Guam Kingfishers have been taken out of the wild and are currently being kept in 11 U.S. Zoos. Any Guam Kingfisher currently alive has become an ambassador for the survival of their species. No individuals have been re-released into their native habitat on Guam. Scientists believe if the Guam Kingfishers were returned to the wild, once the snake was removed, the native climate, light cycles and food cycles in Guam will increase breeding progress and improve Guam’s wildlife (The National Zoo, 2005). Therefore, it is very important that the Guam Kingfisher must be saved. Saving the Guam Kingfisher means that there is still hope for saving the other various bird species that face extinction on Guam due to the introduction of the brown-tree snake.
Humans are the cause of this bird’s fatality and humans must take responsibility in saving the Guam Kingfisher. Currently, the species has evolved and adapted to living in captivity and an environment where the brown-tree snake, introduced by humans, is no longer a threat. The captive breeding programs set up by the Guam’s Department of Aquatic and Wildlife Resources in hopes that the bird will have it’s population regenerated to someday sustain itself once returned to the wild. Despite intensive efforts, the brown tree snake still thrives on Guam, so the initial release may be on nearby islands. If the birds are returned to the wild the majority of the breeding issues and problems they face in captivity would take care of themselves. It is hoped that the bird would be returned to a forest located in the South Pacific and even become an ecological success story.
Another benefit of the bird, once returned to the wild, would be the niche it plays in the forest and woodland areas of Guam. The Guam Kingfisher fed on insects, lizards by catching them with its large beak. Now that the Guam Kingfisher and various other birds have disappeared from the island there has been a
staggering increase of insects, especially spiders, in the wild and now inching towards communities. In one of the first studies to examine how the loss of forest birds is affecting Guam’s island ecosystem, biologists from Rice University, the University of Washington and the University of Guam found that the Pacific island’s jungles have as many as 40 times more spiders than are found on nearby islands like Saipan. The loss of birds has led to an increase in the spider population on Guam, since many birds consume spiders, compete with spiders for insect prey and utilize spider webs in their nests. Co-authors Janneke Hille Ris Lambers and Josh Tewksbury of the University of Washington and Ross Miller of the University of Guam found that spiders were between two times and 40 times more plentiful on Guam than on neighboring island (Boyd, Jade, 2013). Birds have a strong effect on spiders, anytime you have a reduction in insectivorous birds, the system will respond with an increase in spiders. Now, the island is not only over-run in snakes but spiders too! Birds pollinate our crops, control crop pests, and, it would seem, keep spider populations from exploding and now that almost all the bird species have disappeared from Guam they are losing all of those benefits and more.
“Guam is an island that has completely silent forests; it’s really astonishing to walk into a forest on Guam and hear nothing but the wind whistling through the leaves” (Haldre Roges, Rice University). There are birds that drink nectar and pollinate trees, there are birds that eat fruit and move seeds around, and there are birds that eat invertebrates and control food web dynamics. The Guam Kingfisher played the role of controlling the food web dynamics. On Guam, the forests have double the number of tree-fall gaps or open areas as Saipan (neighboring island), yet they have far far fewer of the pioneer species that usually grow in gaps. The trees of Guam are falling. Without birds bringing seeds to those tree-fall areas, most gaps do not have quick-growing pioneer species present, and therefore it takes a lot longer to have the tree grow up and close the gap. Meanwhile other trees are still falling, and more gaps appear on the landscape. So in this way bird loss is also changing the forest structure.
Overall, the Guam Kingfisher played an important niche on the island by controlling the pest infestation and now that it’s species is gone, along with numerous other birds on Guam the insect population has tremendously increased. Until, the snake population is controlled and terminated or there is an introduction of the bird species the island of Guam will have to face the number of problems and issues caused by the bird-empty forests. The Guam Kingfisher needs to be saved and thankfully to the U.S. breeding programs hopes to the Kingfisher population returning to a non-extinct capacity are capable by the year 2050 if efforts continue in saving them continues.
Simon's Opinion
The Guam Kingfisher, a beautiful bird covered with vibrant blues and oranges, is in trouble. Since World War II, the populations of these birds has been crashing due to the introduction of invasive species and habitat destruction. As of now, only 100-200 survive, being kept in captive breeding programs around the United States. With only a few organizations backing the bird, it raises the question, is it really worth it to save it? Personally, I don’t think so.
Although the Guam Kingfisher is a beautiful bird, it doesn’t offer that much to its habitat. Its role in its habitat is to eat insects, a food that many other animals on Guam prey on as well. Besides eating insects, the Guam Kingfisher doesn’t really do anything. Before the introduction of the brown tree snake, and before Guam was developed, they had no natural predators, and were an extremely common sight. The cost to reintroduce the species would be $145 million over a 50 year period (Revised Recovery Plan for the Sihek or Guam Micronesian Kingfisher, 2008). That’s money that the kingfisher just doesn’t have. When you think of endangered species, you probably think about rhinos, or tigers, very few people think of a tiny bird native to Guam. No one knows about the bird, so no one knows to donate money to its cause. Fortunately for the kingfishers, unlike many other species, humans don’t have any motive to kill the kingfishers, they have
no ivory or expensive pelts. Humans don’t have any motiveto kill the kingfishers, they have no ivory or expensive pelts. The big endangered species like rhinos and tigershave to deal with poachers,whereas the kingfisher has to deal with natural obstacles. Furthermore, even if the species was to be reintroduced, what is stopping the same thing from happening again? The snakes wouldn’t be gone, development wouldn’t suddenly come to a screeching halt, and it’s just not feasible. Even if the brown tree snake was relocated, the feral cats and rats would still prey on the kingfishers, and their populations would grow due to the lack of the brown tree snake, a known predator for both (Revised Recovery Plan for the Sihek or Guam Micronesian Kingfisher, 2008). Instead, what we should promote is the continuation of the captive breeding programs, but instead of having the goal to reintroduce the species, it is to educate people of the situation that these birds were put into and work to prevent it in the future.
Overall, while the Guam Kingfisher is a beautiful bird, it just doesn’t have enough of an impact on its habitat, let alone any habitat outside of Guam, to receive enough support. We should use this bird’s tragic story as a guide for what not to do in the future. If we spread the word of what happened to this bird, and use it to educate about the introduction of invasive species, we can prevent this kind of thing from happening again.
Wylie's Opinion
The main concern about the Guam Kingfisher (Todiramphus cinnamomina), is that it won’t be saved. The environment in Guam has been radically affected by the absence of many of Guam’s birds. “It was the heavy silence. A dawn in the tropics without bird sounds bordered on the surreal. The silence was so complete that it seemed to be audible, and so eerie that I felt like shuddering there were no more native forest birds in southern Guam. Their last stand was in the northern third of the island. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was already a year-round affair in southern Guam. Extinction was no longer some textbook abstraction; it was a reality - a silent reality.” (L.C. Selton, 1986)
Ten of the twelve forest birds of Guam have been named extinct since the Brown Tree Snake (Boiga Irregularis) was introduced shortly after World War II. Without the insectivorous birds around, the islands arachnid’s levels have soared through the roof. The Kingfisher in particular used to feast on spiders, as well as compete with other arachnids for food and nesting space (Chant, 2012). Since the eradication of the kingfisher, and other species, the spider population has increased drastically to “take over” the control of herbivores (Rodgers, 2013). For every one spider on neighboring islands not afflicted by tree snakes, Guam now hosts up to forty (Chant, 2012). This new high level of “creepy-crawlers” has affected the tourist rates in Guam, seeing as a stick is a necessity to someone
taking a hike through the forest, solely to remove spider webs from their path (Rodgers, 2013).
The island has been used as an example for species extinction, and drawn awareness to other endangered species around the world. This however, is hardly a reason to keep a species out of its natural habitat. The good news is that the U.S. Government agrees, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is working exceptionally hard to restore the kingfisher back to its habitat. The captive population numbers of the kingfisher have been steadily increasing, and the FWS looks to be ready to recover the species to a listing of vulnerable or lower, by 2058; the recovery plans preconceived date of completion. The Kingfisher however still needs lots of help from the general population to keep its future home nice and healthy. The Brown tree snake either needs to be eradicated, or fully controlled in Guam in order for the kingfisher population to rise again.
The Guam kingfisher is most definitely worth saving. Between the control of spiders, and other arachnids, the increased level of biodiversity, and simply their regular calling, the kingfishers prove themselves worthy of reintroduction into their natural habitat.