Happy Tracking Anniversary to a Persistent Jamaican Pigeon!

Ricardo Miller prepares to release Trelawny after a successful tagging.

WOW!  We’ve been tracking Trelawny, an adult, female, White-crowned Pigeon (Patagioenas leucocephala) for 4 years using the smallest satellite transmitter made at the time of its capture, a 5-gram solar unit made by Microwave Telemetry Inc.

A big “Thank You” to ARCI’s collaborators, the Jamaica National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA), especially Ricardo Miller; and for the assistance of Susan Koenig of the Windsor Research Centre.

All of Trelawny’s days since tagging have been spent within Jamaica’s Trelawny Parrish, on the north central part of the island. She has two focal areas that are about 5 miles apart. Most of the year, she resides in Cockpit Country, inland near the town of Duanvale, where there are plenty of native fruit-bearing trees. Occasionally she comes down to the coastal lowlands to make use of different food sources and to roost near Falmouth.

This bird has persisted through four regulated hunting seasons within Jamaica. The hunting season lasts 6 weeks in August and September and is approved each year by the Prime Minister under the recommendations of the Natural Resources Conservation Authority. All hunters need to obtain a $160 (US) license from the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA).

Today we want to recognize her tenacity and all the highly informative data we received from her. Trelawny has been tracked longer than any other White-crowned Pigeon. The next longest was a bird we tracked in Florida for 2.1 years.

ARCI has now satellite tracked 16 White-crowned Pigeons throughout much of their range in the Cayman Islands, Jamaica, Bahamas, Puerto Rico and Florida for a multi-partner research project entitled “Seasonal movements of White-crowned Pigeons tracked by satellite telemetry: Identifying trans-national threats, management needs, and conservation opportunities."

Source: The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, All About Birds

The White-crowned Pigeon is widely distributed throughout the Caribbean, but the species is threatened by habitat loss, poaching, and, in some countries, harvest regulations that are not based on scientific data. With satellite telemetry, we are informing wildlife managers of seasonal changes in distribution, identifying manageable threats, and documenting the need for concerted conservation planning across national boundaries. 

You can follow the movements of the tagged White-crowned Pigeons through a link on our website: http://arcinst.org/arci-tracking-studies.