Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust Madagascar Pochard

JerseyLotte said:
It's already going :)

Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust ? Official Blog : Madagascar
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Hi JerseyLotte,

They are now a serious case for aviculturist treatment with a critically low and skewed sex ratio population. Thank goodness Durrell is involved in Madagascar

K.B.


On a side note: Right now full bush meat trade and total ransacking of Protected Areas has been rearing its ugly head in a particularly politically diffuse time inside Madagascar. It should seriously concern conservation people as the international community is throwing down the drain 15+ odd years of achievement by withholding even conservation funding from Madagascar. It is proving to be counter-productive!
 
are there plans for an ex-situ programme for these birds at Durrell? In a country such as Madagascar (no offence intended) I always believe in-situ should be supported by ex-situ as a sensible back-up in case of "problems" within the home country.

On a side-note, what species of Madagascan duck do Durrell have in their collection?
 
Chlidonias said:
are there plans for an ex-situ programme for these birds at Durrell? In a country such as Madagascar (no offence intended) I always believe in-situ should be supported by ex-situ as a sensible back-up in case of "problems" within the home country.

On a side-note, what species of Madagascan duck do Durrell have in their collection?
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Anas melleri
Anas bernieri

On current plans for Madagascar pochard ex situ. You better ask JerseyLotte for the latest details. Personally, I think it is early days ... (and perhaps they need to raise funds for that first).
 
Kifaru Bwana said:
Anas melleri
Anas bernieri

On current plans for Madagascar pochard ex situ. You better ask JerseyLotte for the latest details. Personally, I think it is early days ... (and perhaps they need to raise funds for that first).
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I'm not a bird person, but I'd agree with KB if I were to speculate. Realistically, with a population of 20 birds in habitat that is as yet relatively undisturbed I'd think leaving them in situ with support while slowly building a captive group locally would be the best option. You'd have to be mighty brave to just rip the lot out to an ex-situ location and there is no way you would seperate 20 birds down to an in situ group and an ex situ group!

They're employing the classic, harvest first brood, encourage a successful second. This technique is fairly honed down and has been used succesfully in a number of <50 pairs situations, so if anything will work, that'll be it :)

Madagascar is as bleak as it gets for conservationists (and the unfortunate people of the country for that matter!) right now. Years of hard work are coming undone with illegal logging and poaching rife throughout protected areas.

All we can ever do is try :)
 
JerseyLotte said:
Madagascar is as bleak as it gets for conservationists (and the unfortunate people of the country for that matter!) right now. Years of hard work are coming undone with illegal logging and poaching rife throughout protected areas.

All we can ever do is try :)
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But of course the wildlife is better off. The anti-zoo people tell us, so it must be right.
 
JerseyLotte said:
I'm not a bird person, but I'd agree with KB if I were to speculate. Realistically, with a population of 20 birds in habitat that is as yet relatively undisturbed I'd think leaving them in situ with support while slowly building a captive group locally would be the best option. You'd have to be mighty brave to just rip the lot out to an ex-situ location and there is no way you would seperate 20 birds down to an in situ group and an ex situ group!
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sorry I didn't express my question the way I intended. What I meant was, once the numbers are up IN Madagascar (which theoretically could be done fairly quickly with double-clutching), THEN would there be plans for removing some of the birds to a facility or facilities outside the country.
 
Chlidonias said:
sorry I didn't express my question the way I intended. What I meant was, once the numbers are up IN Madagascar (which theoretically could be done fairly quickly with double-clutching), THEN would there be plans for removing some of the birds to a facility or facilities outside the country.
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No, not at this time. Like I said it is early days. A WWWT staff member has just gone out to Madagascar to set up what JerseyLotte described for the in-situ flock.

I agree with her that with a population that low in don't make sense to take them out of Madagascar yet. The double-clutching method and hand-rearing/feeding to exponentially increase numbers are pretty straight forward avicultural techniques these days. They have been shown to be highly effective.

Perhaps at a later stage a captive ex situ population might be set up, but for now it is to get the numbers in Madagascar up quickly. The onus is on breeding up as much as possible and allow for the population in situ to reach a minimum viable population to be able to sustain itself. What happens afters is anybody's guess at the moment.


On Madagascar conservation: I really am ashamed about the attitude of the ex situ community - I do not mean zoos here - where there seems to be a lack of concern for 15-20 years of conservation investment in Madagascar. We need a high profile campaign inside Madagascar - some Malagasy NGO's and ANGAP are taking up issue with it - and outside to get the politicians to at least restore funding to conservation projects inside Madagascar (it do not make sense to me how they ignore the real issues and sustainable development). :(
 
Great news! Wonderful idea of Jersey trust and Madagascan authorities!

I hope for success!

PS. I also wouldn't mind breeding malagasy pochards arboad instead of starting a breeding centre from scratch in Madagascar. Rare wildfowl (including this species) were raised very well in Britain, just remember famous WWT work.
 
There was an article in the Sunday express yesterday concerning the madgascan pochard buyt unfortunatley the copy I had has been put into recycling and I cannot find it anywhere on the website.
 
If they manage to rear all these ducklings I would think it reasonable to bring a couple of pairs back to Jersey to establish a reserve population . Pochards seem to be fairly easy to breed in captivity .
 
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