Successful reintroduction of the Critically Endangered Antiguan racer Alsophis antiguae to offshore islands in Antigua, West Indies

Abstract

The Critically Endangered Antiguan racer Alsophis antiguae is endemic to Antigua and Barbuda (441 km2 area) but declined following the arrival of invasive mammals. By 1995, only an estimated 51 Antiguan racers survived on an offshore islet (Great Bird Island: 8·4 ha), many of which had injuries consistent with rat bites. To prevent extinction, a consortium of national and international organizations eradicated the Black rats Rattus rattus from Great Bird Island in 1995 and the snake population promptly doubled in size. The agencies then embarked on a programme to eradicate invasive rats and, where present, Small Asian mongooses Herpestes javanicus from a further 14 islands around Antigua. The first reintroduction was carried out in November 1999, with ten wild racers translocated from Great Bird Island to Rabbit Island. Further reintroductions followed to Green Island (from October 2002) and York Island (from January 2008), bringing the total area of occupancy for racers to 63 ha. The translocated racers appeared to thrive in their new habitats and reproduced almost immediately. The reintroduction programme was underpinned by field research, fundraising and an innovative education campaign to address prevailing negative attitudes towards snakes. While the Antiguan racer metapopulation has increased to > 1100 individuals in the wild, lasting success depends on Great Bird, Rabbit, Green and York Islands being fully protected from invasive mammals and harmful developments. To spread the risk, additional reintroduction sites must be identified.

7,000 years of turnover: historical contingency and human niche construction shape the Caribbean’s Anthropocene biota

“… D. In 1995, 15 green iguanas ( Iguana iguana, E. LA ) rafted from Guadeloupe to Anguilla during a hurricane [16]; this event was contingent on the past introduction of green iguanas by Indigenous and/or colonial groups [17]. The Critically Endangered Antiguan racer ( Alsophis antiguae) has been translocated to three offshore islets, growing the population from 51 to >1100 individuals [18]. In St. Kitts, colonial French brought African green monkeys ( Chlorocebus aethiops sabaeus, E. LA) as pets in ~1670; troops persist today [19].…”

New hope for the Eastern barred bandicoot Perameles gunnii after 27 years of recovery effort

“…Assisted colonization can be controversial but islands that are free of key threats (such as predators or disease) are increasingly being used to conserve threatened species (Seddon et al, 2015). In Australia, the use of offshore islands has provided insurance against extinction for species such as the Rufous hare wallaby Lagorchestes hirsutus (Richards, 2012), Gilbert's potoroo Potorous gilbertii (Stead-Richardson et al, 2010) and Tasmanian devil Sarcophilus harrisii (Thalmann et al, 2015;Hogg et al, 2017; see also Daltry et al, 2017).…”

Editorial: The Role of Zoos and Aquariums in Reintroductions and Other Conservation Translocations

“…This volume of the International Zoo Yearbook focuses on the roles that zoos and aquariums have in re-establishing or reinforcing populations in the wild, and provides examples of reintroductions using wild (Astore et al, 2017;Bird et al, 2017;Daltry et al, 2017;Ettling et al, 2017;Nightingale et al, 2017;Parrott et al, 2017) or captive populations (Astore et al, 2017;Bird et al, 2017;Fritz et al, 2017;Hogg et al, 2017;Mawson & Lambert, 2017;Nightingale et al, 2017;Parrott et al, 2017;Woodfine et al, 2017), reinforcements using captive populations (Bird et al, 2017;Ettling et al, 2017) and assisted colonizations (Gardiner et al, 2017;Fraser et al, 2017). The papers in this volume cover a range of animal and plant taxa, and present species-specific reintroduction case studies that highlight particular challenges, such as biosecurity and disease management (Hogg et al, 2017;Nightingale et al, 2017;Woodfine et al, 2017), the impact of invasive species (Daltry et al, 2017;Nightingale et al, 2017) and introduced predators (Parrott et al, 2017) on native biodiversity, as well as broader review articles on the role that zoos and aquariums have in reintroductions and reinforcements (Fraser et al, 2017;Gilbert et al, 2017), and many of the articles describe the processes associated with conservation translocations. Overall, the papers highlight many of the challenges faced by conservation-translocation practitioners, and provide a guide for zoos and aquariums seeking to participate in reintroductions and other conservation translocations.…”

“…This may take the form of an outreach project as per the example of Astore et al (2017), who combined formal and informal education sessions and materials to inform the public and change attitudes towards Andean condors. Similarly, the innovative education campaign to address widespread negative attitudes towards snakes in Antigua has contributed to the success of the Antiguan racer Alsophis antiguae reintroduction programme (Daltry et al, 2017). However, some conservation translocations go further and place people at the heart of the process.…”

“…Zoos and aquariums have considerable experience in managing a variety of taxa resulting in them being well placed to contribute to a wide range of conservationtranslocation projects. The papers in this volume exemplify how zoos and aquariums can participate in such projects for birds (Astore et al, 2017;Fraser et al, 2017;Fritz et al, 2017;Mawson & Lambert, 2017), mammals (Hogg et al, 2017;Mawson & Lambert, 2017;Parrott et al, 2017), reptiles (Daltry et al, 2017;Fraser et al, 2017;Mawson & Lambert, 2017;Woodfine et al, 2017), amphibians (Ettling et al, 2017;Mawson & Lambert, 2017), terrestrial invertebrates (Gardiner et al, 2017), aquatic invertebrates (Nightingale et al, 2017) and plants (Bird et al, 2017). This volume does not contain any case studies of conservation-translocation projects for fish, and although zoos and aquariums have certainly been involved in re-establishing fish populations in the wild (e.g.…”