| Habitat
& Behavior: The
Guam Rail is a secretive, flightless, territorial species that is
most easily observed as it bathes or feeds along roadsides or field
edges. The call is a loud, piercing whistle or series of whistles,
usually given by two or more birds in response to a loud noise, the
call of another rail, or other disturbances. Though individuals will
respond almost invariably to the call of another rail, the species
is generally silent.
The rail is one of the few native birds of Guam that is found more
frequently in scrubby second growth or mixed forest than in uniform
tracts of mature forest, and might have been more abundant after the
arrival of man than before.
It is an omnivorous feeder but appears to prefer animal over vegetable
food. It is known to eat gastropods, skinks, geckos, insects, and
carrion as well as seeds and palm leaves.
The rail is a year-round ground nester making it highly susceptible
to predators, such as the monitor lizard and the rat. It lays 2-4
four eggs and both parents share in the construction of a shallow
nest of leaves and grass. A far more efficient predator was introduced
in the 1950s, the brown tree snake. The snake is generally considered
to be the primary cause of the disappearance of most of Guam's native
birds.
| Past
& Present:
Before the 1970s, the Guam rail occurred island-wide
and distributed in all habitats except wetlands. The population
declined severely from 1969-1973, and the rail disappeared
from southern Guam in the mid 1970s. The decline of the rail
continued until in 1980, only 10 rails were recorded. In a
desperate move, 21 birds were caught in the wild in the mid-1980s
and placed in captive breeding both in the continental United
States and on Guam. |
|
Conservation
Efforts:
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began conducting systematic forest
bird surveys in Micronesia in 1981. The majority of forest birds were
protected on Guam by the turn of the century with such acts as Guam
Public Law 6-87 which prohibited the taking, buying or selling of
wild birds or their eggs and the Endangered Species Act of Guam (Guam
Public Law 15-36), which protects both locally and federally listed
endangered species on Guam. The Government of Guam also established
four conservation reserves that provided protected habitat for many
native species, at least until the brown tree snake invaded.
A brown tree snake barrier was erected around a 60-acre parcel known
as Area 50 on Andersen Air Force Base in 1998, and 16 Guam rails were
released into the area in November 1998 the first Guam rails to exist
in the wild on the island since the mid-1980s. Although at least four
of the birds have died, four breeding pairs have hatched at least
10 chicks. Guam rails also have been introduced on Rota, an adjacent
island that has not been invaded by brown tree snakes.
Trivia
quiz:
The Guam Rail is:
[a] a
waterbird
[b] a year-round ground nester
[c] an introduced species
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