Agency wants Tinian monarch off endangered species list

The US Fish and Wildlife Service had proposed to remove the Tinian monarch, a small flycatcher found only on the island of Tinian, from the list of threatened and endangered species.

If this is approved, the Tinian monarch will be the fourth bird species removed from the protection of the Endangered Species Act due to its recovery.

Current population estimates that approximately 57,000 Tinian monarch exist on Tinian. They forage and breed throughout the entire island both in non native tangantangan and in native limestone forests. However, they live and reproduce in much higher numbers in native forests.

“Severe habitat loss due to clearing of land for cattle grazing and sugarcane farming prior to World War II, and later extensive construction during the war, led to the very low population estimates,” said Anne Badgley, the Service’s regional director for the Pacific region.

The decision to list the monarch was based on estimates of 50 or fewer birds after World War II. However, its numbers have increased considerably in the intervening years, said Badgley.

As tangantangan forests grew back to replace the cleared native forests, the monarch thrived. A survey of the monarch population in 1982 found the population to number approximately 40,000 birds and the species was subsequently downlisted to threatened status in 1987. The ability of the monarch to survive and thrive despite severe habitat modification is a testimony to the hardiness of this unique island bird, according to Fish and Wildlife Service biologists.

The Tinian monarch is a small (six-inch or 16-centimeter) flycatcher with light rufous underparts, olive brown upperparts, dark brown wings and tail, and white rump and undertail coverts. It feeds primarily on insects.

Although some development on the island of Tinian is expected in the future, most of the best monarch habitat — native limestone forest — is likely to remain because it occurs along cliff faces where development is not possible.

Large tracts of tangantangan habitat in which the monarch also survives and reproduces quite well are leased by the US military and development on those sites is expected to be minimal. Increase efforts to prevent the introduction of predatory brown tree snakes from Guam are underway and will help protect all bird species on Tinian.