 BirdLife South Africa
BirdLife South Africa is hosting a special evening of the musical 'Cats' to raise funds for its IBA Custodian Initiative.
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News in Brief
01-10-2009
Stories in this News in Brief: Watch Cats, save birds; New sites for Grey-crowned Crocias; New record count of White-shouldered Ibis; Rat eradication project in Puerto Rico; Biodiversity conservation in Indochina
Watch Cats, save birds! - BirdLife South Africa (BirdLife Partner) is hosting a special evening next week to raise funding for its Important Bird Area (IBA) Custodian Initiative. Guests at The Teatro in Johannesburg next week (Wednesday, 7th October) will be treated to the award-winning musical ‘Cats’ by Andrew Lloyd Webber with the funds going directly to conservation. Glamour and glitz will also be supplied by the birds themselves in the form of ten models painted to represent Endangered South African bird species. If you want to attend the evening tickets are still available and can be purchased by clicking here.
New record count of White-shouldered Ibis - For the first time a nationwide coordinated count of Critically Endangered White-shouldered Ibis Pseudibis davisoni has been carried out in Cambodia. Three hundred and ten individuals were found, making it the largest ever count of White-shouldered Ibis, and providing evidence that the world population of the species is larger than previously estimated. This total was counted at four sites, comprising: Western Siem Pang Important Bird Area, Stung Treng province; Lomphat Wildlife Sanctuary, Ratanakiri and Mondulkiri provinces; Kulen Promtep Wildlife Sanctuary, Preah Vihear province; and the "central section" of the Mekong River, a 56 km stretch between Kratie and Stung Treng provinces. White-shouldered Ibis is one of the species benefitting from the BirdLife Preventing Extinctions Programme. In August 2007, In Focus became the Species Champion. For more information click here.
Rat eradication project in Puerto Rico - The Sociedad Ornitológica Puertorriqueña, Inc., (SOPI, BirdLife in Puerto Rico), the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DNER), and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) have collaborated in a rat eradication project on two small cays in southern Puerto Rico. The primary objective of the project was to eradicate the population of Black Rat Rattus rattus in order to improve the breeding of Brown Pelican Pelecanus occidentalis, locally classified as threatened. The DNER lead the project, USFWS provided the funds and SOPI provided the administrative and logistical support. To eradicate rats from the cays, bait stations were used. These stations were monitored daily during the eradication period, and monitoring continued afterwards. Both cays now appear to be rat-free, and the pelicans have begun to build nests.
Biodiversity conservation in Indochina - Less than one year after the first deadline for applications to the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) in Indochina, over $US 2 million has been granted to a total of 14 civil society organisations to conserve biodiversity in the region. To date, 19 grants have been approved from the 166 applications received, with eight grants to projects in Cambodia, five to Vietnam, one to Lao P.D.R., one to Thailand, and four to projects working in more than one country. For further information click here
 Jonathan C Eames
Three new sites for Grey-crowned Crocias have been discovered in Vietnam
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