Abaco PARROTS vs. RACCOONS
Impact of an introduced species to the Abaco's ecology

Abaco PARROTS vs. RACCOONS
Impact of an introduced species to the Abaco's ecology
PLEASE ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE YOU . . .
By Alice Bain

Part 1 of a 2 part series - to read part 2, Please Click HERE

There has been a lot of very public debate about the fact that raccoons have recently been introduced to Abaco. They appeared in Little Abaco a couple of years ago and have been spreading south ever since; the assumption is that someone brought them over from Grand Bahama. Now raccoons are undoubtedly a nuisance - they raid fruit trees and are far more adept at opening garbage cans than the average potcake dog could ever hope to be - but the main concern has been that when they reach South Abaco, they will wipe out our native Abaco parrot by raiding nests and eating eggs and nestlings.

Now, let me say up front that introducing raccoons to this island is an incredibly stupid thing to have done, but the fact is that as in the case of Casuarina trees and feral (that is, domestic that have reverted to the wild) cats, there is not a whole lot we can do at this point. The genie is out of the bottle, and we'll just have to cope. So what is the damage likely to be? I'm not so sure that it is as bad as it appears, although to tell the truth we won't know until the raccoons actually arrive in South Abaco. As they say, the proof will be in the pudding. Abaco parrots are unique.

Although they are a subspecies (Amazona leucocephala bahamiensis) of the Cuban parrot (as is the Inagua parrot), they nest on the ground. Ground-nesting parrots are exceedingly unusual - the only other example I could find was the Kakapo, which is from New Zealand. There are only about sixty Kakapos left in the wild - not only do they nest on the ground, but they are also flightless and nocturnal which makes them extremely odd indeed and also a lot easier for introduced species (like feral cats and rats) to catch and eat. Our Abaco parrot is in a different category from the Kakapo.

For one thing, they still have the use of their wings! When the Abaco parrot first arrived on this island, it was part of a population used to nesting in trees. The parrots innovated a different way of nesting - actually in crevices, in sinkholes and other cracks in the limestone caused by rainwater solution - and we can't be sure why.

One theory is that our trees here don't have holes/are too thin/are the wrong type, another is that the behavior is recently developed as a reaction to the logging of Abaco that occurred the beginning of last century and again in the 1960s and still a third is that it protects the nests from fire. John Hedden theorizes that since the Inagua variant nests mainly in thatch palm trees, the original Abaco parrots did as well.

As witnessed in the last round of forest fires, while the thatch palms themselves survive (most of the time), any nests in them would most probably be roasted. A natural forest fire here does not burn too hot at the ground level and the sinkholes might protect a nest fairly well. Before humans arrived on the islands, the only natural predators of the parrots were land crabs and snakes.

We (as we have done everywhere else we have set foot - except possibly the moon) introduced two species that hitchhike with us and have a fondness for bird flesh - the domesticated cat and the Norway rat (I have seen Norway rats in the wild here, but never black rats like there are in Nassau. Does anyone have any more information on this?). Both of these species have hurt the population of Abaco parrots, but the parrots have survived. As of the last count I could find published, we had somewhere between 900 and 1200 in the wild, but a more recent count claims to have sighted anywhere up to 3,000 birds.

The Abaco parrot used to be a regional variant of what we could call the Bahama parrot - but the bird has entirely disappeared from New Providence, San Salvador, Crooked Island and Acklins Island, all of which were part of its former range (again, if anyone has any more information on this I would appreciate it!) Now the range is divided between Abaco and Great Inagua, and the behavioral differences between these two populations suggest the beginning of an evolutionary divergence. So it looks pretty bad for the parrot, what with all these introduced predators.

Why hold out any hope at all for them?

Firstly, it appears that their numbers have been recovering of their own accord - which seems to indicate that the main pressure on the population was loss of habitat due to logging. The parrots now have their very own forest preserve so logging will not be a problem in the future. And secondly, because of the very fact that they adapted to nesting in sinkholes. The parrots haven't been here for very long (on an evolutionary scale) and it occurs to me that the flexibility they displayed by beginning to nest in sinkholes may have more to do with intelligence than with instinct.

That is, the parrots nest where they do because they learn the practice from other parrots in the colony (rather like we learn to drive a car) rather than because of some inner prompting. Of course, the only way to find out for sure would be to swap chicks from the Inagua population and the Abaco population, let them grow to adulthood and see where they attempt to nest. Somehow, I don't think anyone will be doing this sort of research any time soon, so let me theorize that they nest in sinkholes because they figured out that that was a good place to nest rather than doing so "by accident," i.e. only those individuals who nested on the ground survived, making the behavior innate.

To anyone who doubts that parrots have the ability to figure things out, I would recommend withholding judgment until you have had personal experience with a parrot. As a human who was owned by a parrot for all of four years, I can say without reservation that they are cunning little boogers. To perhaps clarify that statement a bit - there are no domesticated species of parrot in the world, and taking even a captive-bred parrot into your home is a challenge.

WILD-CAUGHT BIRDS SHOULD NEVER EVER BE BOUGHT AS PETS!

Trapping for the pet industry is part of the reason our parrot is so scarce. If you must own a parrot, buy one from a reputable breeder (lists are available in the back of Bird Talk magazine) - but beware! The parrot will rule your life if it can, and they can be incredibly manipulative! Amazons (of which the Abaco parrot is a type) are particularly intelligent parrots. Individuals of other Amazon species in captivity that I have known have found it pitifully easy to, for example, unlock and open the average parrot cage door.

They can also open Tupperware, turn on water faucets, open cupboard doors to find food, etc. Furthermore, when taken out of familiar surroundings, they will still understand what the concept of "cupboard door" means, associate it with food and look behind any promising cupboard doors that they can jimmy open.

Talk to an average parrot-owned human and they will be full of similar stories. So, the parrots are smart and adaptable. That probably explains at least some of why they're still around. The problem is that raccoons are smart as well and terribly difficult to eradicate from the wild - case in point is Germany where they were introduced as fur animals back sometime in the first decade of the 20th Century.

The Germans have been trying their darnedest to eliminate the raccoons for several decades now and they haven't even come close. Once raccoons have a proper foothold here, we are extremely unlikely to be able to control them, and we'll all have to start padlocking our garbage cans. Starting control measures now while they are still moving south would give us a definite advantage. Putting a bounty on raccoons (and feral cats while you're at it) and letting our hunters shoot them could slow their advance and the infiltration of the southern forest preserve.

This might buy the parrots enough time to adapt again. Of course, the parrots might survive without any help from us at all - as they seem to have done in the past - or they might be pushed over the brink and lost forever. Having experienced firsthand how ornery parrots can be gives me more faith in the former statement than the latter! Quite apart from the Abaco parrot question, I think we need to be wary of raccoons for yet another reason - the more wild mammalian species we have running around in the bushes, the more likely it is that at some point the rabies virus will be introduced to the island and become endemic as it is in the United States.

This is a problem we definitely don't need. If you sight a raccoon anywhere in Abaco, you are asked to report it to the Bahamas National Trust at 393-1317 or the Ministry of Agriculture at 367-2240.