Endangered Golden-cheeked Warbler from Texas documented at bird monitoring station in El Salvador

SAN SALVADOR, EL SALVADOR—On Friday, 12 September 2008, a young male Golden-cheeked Warbler was captured in the net of a bird monitoring station at Montecristo National Park, in northwestern El Salvador.  Although this endangered warbler species is regularly observed in its Central American wintering grounds, it had never been captured in a monitoring station there. Biologists working for SalvaNATURA’s conservation science program took photographs and measurements before releasing the rare bird in healthy condition. They also marked the bird with a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service aluminum leg band (number 241078792). 
 Photo by Roselvy Juárez.
The warbler was captured in its favored habitat, pine-oak forest, which SalvaNATURA has been monitoring monthly for nearly four years, since November 2004. “We had observed the species in the trees near the nets each winter,” said Roselvy Juárez, the biologist who supervised the monitoring station. “We had been hoping to catch this species every year, but it took us 47 visits, more than 18,000 net hours, and we have captured more than 1700 birds of other species before this one flew into a net”. The nets are operated for 400 net-hours during the monthly visits.

The Golden-cheeked Warbler, whose scientific name is Dendroica chrysoparia, is one of three species of globally-threatened birds that are found in El Salvador, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (www.iucnredlist.org) and the El Salvador Red List of Birds, which SalvaNATURA is publishing this fall (due in November).  The bird breeds exclusively in central Texas from March to July and by September, most of the population, estimated at just 22,000 birds, have flown to pine-oak forests in southern Mexico and northern Central America.  The warbler is the flagship species for the Alliance for the Conservation of Mesoamerican Pine-oak Forests, a group of non-profit organizations and government agencies concerned about the conservation of the warbler and other species unique to the pine-oak ecoregion.

The capture of the rare bird has special scientific significance, according to SalvaNATURA’s science director, Dr. Oliver Komar. “We hope to be able to observe this individual bird in the future, now that it has been marked with a leg band, and determine if it remains at the bird monitoring station through the winter,” commented Komar. “We have never had such an opportunity before, to learn about the species’ movements on the wintering grounds, and also whether or not it remains faithful to a wintering territory.”

With funding support from Texas Parks & Wildlife Department and the United States Endangered Species Act, SalvaNATURA had studied Golden-cheeked Warblers wintering at Montecristo National Park and at other pine-oak forests since 2006, observing their foraging behavior and estimating their relative abundance. Nonetheless, this species had never been captured by local biologists.  Observations of the Golden-cheeked Warbler contributed to confirming the Montecristo area as an Important Bird Area, following guidelines used worldwide by BirdLife International.  SalvaNATURA is the BirdLife International representative in El Salvador.

Montecristo National Park is managed by El Salvador’s Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources. “We are delighted to see the fruits of the permanent monitoring program,” said Néstor Herrera, the Ministry’s director for biodiversity. “Biodiversity monitoring is a national priority which should be carried out in all of the country’s protected areas, although at present only a few have benefited from such programs.”

Pine-oak forest is one of the most threatened natural habitats in Central America, which is why SalvaNATURA has been monitoring its bird populations.  An analysis of population trends in pine-oak forest has shown that 17% of the resident bird species and 18% of the migratory bird species have declined significantly over the last four years.  Juárez and Komar will present those results to Central American scientists during the XII Congress of the Mesoamerican Society for Biology and Conservation, in San Salvador during 10-14 November 2008 (www.smbcelsalvador2008.com).

The monitoring station at Montecristo National Park run by SalvaNATURA is funded in part by the Institute for Bird Populations (with funds from the Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act), but most of the funding comes from sponsorship of a calendar with photos of birds, and by donors to the annual SalvaNATURA bird-a-thon, held in October for the last 6 years.  More information about the bird-a-thon and how to support the monitoring station can be found on the internet, at http://birdathones.blogspot.com/.

For further information, contact:

Oliver Komar, Ph.D.

Director, Programa de Ciencias para la Conservación

SalvaNATURA

Colonia Flor Blanca, 33 Av. Sur #640

San Salvador, El Salvador, C.A.

Tel: (503) 2279-1515, Fax (503) 2279-0220

Email okomar@salvanatura.org

Web www.salvanatura.org