The parany is a device used in Comunidad Valenciana (Spain) for trapping birds by the use of limed sticks. Between 1988 and 2001 successive Comunidad Valenciana governments authorised the legal trapping of thrushes Turdus spp. in 5,000 parany each year. Approximately 1.5 million thrushes (mostly Song Thrush Turdus philomelos and Redwing T. iliacus) along with half a million birds of many protected species (including raptors) were trapped annually. Authorisation ceased in 2001 but illegal trapping still occurs, using at least 2,000 parany. Comunidad Valenciana governments have explicitly supported bird trapping on both legal and technical grounds claiming that only small numbers of thrushes are caught and that other species are unaffected, thus complying with the EU Birds Directive. Such assertions have never been proven, and regional, national and international courts have declared that the parany contravenes nature protection laws. Comunidad Valenciana governments have deliberately overlooked such judgements. It is concluded that eradication of parany through law enforcement and educational schemes would be the best option. Nevertheless, according to the EU Birds Directive, controlled bird trapping would be feasible, and the requisites for such a strategy are discussed. The main obstacle to both eradication and strictly controlled use of parany is the lack of political will by Comunidad Valenciana governments.

Investigating habitat selection is a key step in improving the population conservation of forest species in areas managed for different purposes, from timber harvesting to hunting or recreation. Because economic resources allocated to conservation are limited, studies that assess cost-effective strategies are necessary, especially when concerning non-threatened species. We studied nest-site habitat selection of two raptor communities (totalling 245 nests from the five most common species: Short-Toed Eagle Circaetus gallicus, Goshawk Accipiter gentilis, Sparrowhawk A. nisus, Common Buzzard Buteo buteo and Booted Eagle Aquila pennata) in two pinewoods in central Spain separated by 200 km. Using a Generalised Linear Mixed Model for each species and with locality as a random factor, we obtained five models of habitat selection. We highlighted the common nesting patterns in order to facilitate an integrated management of forestry in relation to raptor nesting habitat selection. The most important variable for all species, with the exception of the Sparrowhawk was the nest-tree diameter at breast height, with raptors preferentially selecting nesting trees of large width. Tall trees and a high amount of tree cover around the nesting tree were also important habitat features for several species. Our results suggest that pinewoods should retain unharvested patches with moderate tree coverage (30–70%) containing not only several large trees (diameter at breast height > 40 cm) but also small ones. At the landscape level, open forests and heterogeneous habitats are preferred. These forest patches should be dispersed throughout the landscape.

Wetlands in the Biebrza Valley, north-east Poland, are inhabited by two closely related Aquila species: the more numerous Lesser Spotted Eagle A. pomarina prefers human-transformed landscapes, whereas the very rare Greater Spotted Eagle A. clanga is associated with natural marshy landscapes. At least since the last decade of the 20th century, these two species have been known to hybridise in the broad zone of their sympatric occurrence in Europe. The aim of the present study was to compare habitat preferences of both spotted eagle species in order to detect which environmental factors could increase the probability of hybridisation. We analysed nesting and hunting habitats for 148 breeding territories (61 of A. pomarina, 56 of A. clanga and 31 of mixed pairs). As expected, the presence of breeding Greater Spotted Eagles was associated with non-transformed marshy landscapes, whereas Lesser Spotted Eagles clearly preferred human-transformed areas. We hypothesised that mixed pairs should occur in intermediate habitat, confirming this assumption by analysing several variables: distance to human settlements, distance to open areas, and proportion of wetlands, shrublands, grasslands, agricultural mosaic and arable land. Results of this study suggest that some landscape changes can enable two species with different habitat requirements to inhabit the same area and hybridise. This scenario has potential conservation implications for the rarer species, Greater Spotted Eagle, which has narrower habitat preferences.

Territory occupancy, distribution and density of the isolated Bearded Vulture Gypaetus barbatus meridionalis population in the Maloti-Drakensberg mountains of southern Africa were assessed between two time periods - former (1960–1999) and current (2000–2012) - to identify population trends. Overall, 190 territories were recorded of which 109 are currently occupied. The number of occupied breeding territories decreased by a minimum of 32% and a maximum of 51% over the past five decades. Territories located on the periphery of the breeding range were more likely to be abandoned than those in the core. The current population is estimated at a minimum of 352 and a maximum of 390 individuals. The breeding range decreased by 27%, restricting the birds to an estimated area of occupancy of 28,125 km2. Breeding densities also decreased by 20%, declining from 4.9 to 3.9 pairs/1,000 km2. In both periods, higher densities were recorded in the core of the range. Nests were located about 9.0 km apart, a slight increase from the 7.7 km recorded formerly. Inter-nest distances increased with distance from the core range. Further studies are required to ascertain whether productivity or survival is limiting population growth, and whether anthropogenic influences are resulting in the abandonment of territories in the periphery of the range and the subsequent decline in numbers.

Detecting and quantifying threats and researching and implementing management actions are key to improving the conservation status of endangered species. Bibliometric analysis can constitute a useful tool for the evaluation of such questions from a long-term perspective. Taking as a case study the Cinereous Vulture Aegypius monachus in Spain, we tested relationships between population dynamics, research efforts, existing threats and conservation milestones. The population growth of the species (from 206 pairs in 1976 to 2,068 in 2011) was parallelled by the increase in the total number of publications, the number of articles in SCI journals and the number of published works dealing with aspects of conservation, threats and management. These results are discussed in terms of cause-effect relationships taking into account that the influence of other non-mutually exclusive factors could also probably explain such associations. Similarly, we analysed the trend of the Cinereous Vulture breeding population with respect to different threats and indices of food availability, obtaining a positive correlation with the increase in big-game hunting bags in Spain. With respect to conservation milestones, we concluded that the current situation is positive in terms of the protection of the species and its habitat, with the situation in relation to food availability being unclear. Finally, we reviewed the main conservation actions that have been taken for the species in Spain and how these have been progressively modified based on new scientific and technical evidence, as an example of adaptive management applied to conservation.

Diagnosing the causes of population declines of highly endangered species is vital to ensure that appropriate conservation measures are undertaken. Although experiments can provide critical information on potential causes, these can be time consuming and costly, and so it is important to determine the most plausible hypothesis for such tests. The last wild population of the Critically Endangered Mariana Crow Corvus kubaryi has been declining rapidly on Rota in the Mariana Islands. Because nest predation by introduced rats Rattus spp. has been implicated in the declines of other Pacific island birds, we tested for a correlation between breeding success of Mariana Crows and abundance of rats R. diardii surrounding their nest sites. If rats are a contributing factor in this species’s decline, we predicted that breeding success would be lower in areas where rats were more abundant. In complete contrast to this prediction, we found that breeding success was significantly higher where rats were most abundant, suggesting that rats are unlikely to be a major driving force behind the decline in this species. The positive association between crow breeding success and rat abundance suggests these species may be responding to similar habitat needs or a shared predator. This study illustrates the importance of gathering sufficient knowledge on the ecology of a species prior to undertaking costly, logistically difficult and time consuming experiments.

African Penguins Spheniscus demersus naturally breed in guano burrows which provide shelter from predators and extreme weather conditions. Past guano harvesting has removed this habitat and artificial nests of different types have been deployed, with previous research identifying variable success of these different types. We investigated climatic conditions in two types of artificial nests, and compared them to natural burrows and surface nests for two weeks in the incubation and early chick-rearing phases of the 2012 summer breeding season on Bird Island, Algoa Bay, South Africa. We also compared breeding success since 2009 between some of these nest types. Natural burrows remained the best insulated from extremes of temperature and humidity, with temperatures consistently higher and humidity consistently lower than in exposed nests and the two types of artificial nests. Fibreglass nests retained temperatures > 30°C, when Spheniscus penguins start being heat-stressed, for the longest periods of time. Sustained high temperatures will induce increased energy expenditure associated with active thermoregulation for birds in these nests. The combination of high temperatures and low humidity could also have contributed to damaging water loss in the eggs and reduced egg survival, as suggested by the consistent lower hatching success in the fibreglass nests. Cement nests had more moderate temperatures than fibreglass nests and higher breeding success, possibly due to superior ventilation. Vegetation cover had no effect on the temperature regime inside fibreglass nests. To maximise conservation efforts for these endangered penguins, additional research should be conducted towards engineering artificial nests that better mimic the conditions of natural burrows.

Mapping migratory routes and the distribution of species during migration requires information collected over large scales (e.g. survey data), or the ability to follow specific movements (e.g. using tracking devices), which is often limited to a few individuals. For endangered species, such techniques may be impractical, but developments in flight range modelling allow inferences about migratory routes and potential site occupancy, given a few morphological parameters. We modelled flight range in a rapidly declining population of continental Black-tailed Godwits Limosa limosa limosa departing from a staging site in Iberia during spring migration and found that the vast majority of godwits are able to reach the breeding grounds in a single flight. Contrary to the traditional use of staging sites in France (and Morocco), godwits currently staging in Iberia are predicted to fly directly to The Netherlands and be present at breeding locations earlier than previously expected and observed. Despite harbouring approximately 75% of the total population during spring migration, Iberian staging sites currently lack any legal protection. Our example of the Black-tailed Godwit illustrates the potential of this approach to identify migration strategies and locate staging sites for species of conservation concern for which such information may be virtually absent.

Taiwan has 145 breeding bird species, but so far no comprehensive attempt has been made to model their distributions. For the first time, we bring together various datasets to model the distributions of the 116 bird species with sufficient sampling coverage. We improved on previous limited modelling efforts by using ensemble modelling, based on five well-performing modelling approaches: multiple discriminant analysis, logistic regression, genetic algorithm for rule-set production, ecological niche factor analysis and maximum-entropy. We then used these ensemble models to improve our knowledge of the status of each bird species by (1) calculating each species’s coverage of Taiwan, (2) calculating each species’s coverage by Taiwan’s protected area network, and (3) comparing these two conservation-relevant measures with already established measures to highlight those species whose status may need to be reassessed. We categorised each species’s coverage of the entire study area as measured by their modelled distributions into four quartiles, thus establishing a new measure of rarity called ‘range quartile’ which we used to highlight the 22 species with a limited distribution on mainland Taiwan. We also calculated that overall, 29.8% of the distribution ranges of the 116 modelled species are covered by Taiwanese protected areas. We then identified those species whose status may need to be reassessed because of possible conflicts between the respective conservation-relevant measures. Thus we identified 10 species which are first-quartile species < 5% of whose distributions are protected, of which only five are considered threatened. We also identified another 12 species with limited distributions, 30 species with limited protection and 19 species whose status may need to be reassessed for various reasons. We recommend that range quartile and protected area coverage be incorporated into future assessments of the conservation status and protected area coverage of Taiwanese birds.

The endemic Jamaican subspecies of the Golden Swallow Tachycineta euchrysea euchrysea has been rare and locally distributed since its discovery in 1847. By the 1950s, its geographic range had contracted to a small region along the northern frontier of Cockpit Country. The last unequivocal sight records occurred in the early 1980s, raising strong concern about the swallow’s conservation status. I conducted an island-wide search for the swallow from 1994 through 2012. Standardised censuses of aerial insectivores at 1,281 sites, including the last redoubts of the Golden Swallow in Trelawny Parish, revealed no evidence of the species. These surveys and the absence of documented sight records during the past three decades suggest that the Jamaican race of the Golden Swallow is close to extinction if not already extinct. The cause of the population decline is unknown but is most likely linked to chronic predation by introduced mammalian predators, particularly the arboreal black rat Rattus rattus.

Many island endemics are of great conservation concern due to small range and population sizes. The Montserrat Oriole Icterus oberi is a forest passerine endemic to the Caribbean island of Montserrat, where recent volcanic activity has destroyed a large proportion of suitable forest habitat. From 1997 to 2000 the Montserrat Oriole population declined dramatically even in the remaining forest habitat, leading to its classification as ‘Critically Endangered’. We present trend estimates of the Montserrat Oriole population from 2000 to 2013, and estimate the world population size in 2012 based on repeat point counts and beta-binomial mixture models. Montserrat Orioles recovered between 2003 and 2005, and we found no evidence for a continuing population decline. However, there was large uncertainty around trend estimates, and the power to detect a shallow negative trend was very low. Based on the comparison of count data at 42 points, the Montserrat Oriole population in 2013 was less than half as large as in 1998. To improve future trend estimates a new monitoring design was introduced in 2011, and applied to all subpopulations of the species in 2012. The world population in 2012 was estimated to hold between 307 (95% credible interval 212–503) and 690 birds (476–1131) birds in the two forest fragments on Montserrat, depending on whether the sampling area around each point count was assumed to encompass 100 m or 150 m. Based on these estimates, the Montserrat Oriole currently does not meet the IUCN criteria for ‘Critically Endangered’, and we recommend a revision of the species’ conservation status.