Worrying news on Timneh Parrots from Gola

Posted by Simon Valle & Stuart Marsden

The Timneh Parrot (Psittacus timneh) together with the congeneric Grey Parrot (Psittacus erithacus) has recently been uplisted, to Endangered based on the suspected decline due to habitat loss and trapping for the pet trade (BirdLife International 2018). However, the hard truth is that we have hardly any data on the size and trends of the populations that dwell in the remaining forest patches across its range. As part of a project generously funded by the Parrot Wildlife Foundation, successfully launched inaugurated with a productive workshop at the Gola Rainforest National Park (GRNP), Dr Simon Valle (Bangor University) has spent four weeks surveying in and around GRNP to understand how abundant the species may be. 

Community guide Mohamed Nyallay (left) and porters Mustapha Kanneh (centre) and Keni Desmond on their way to set a base camp in the heart of Gola Rainforest National Park (Photo: S. Valle)

Preliminary results from the surveys have raised some serious concerns for the species in Gola, despite being probably one of the best preserved and managed protected areas in West Africa. Simon and his team often struggled to find any parrots even in the better-preserved forest at the core of the national park. Encounters were rare and far apart and judging from the extremely low encounter rates (0.3 parrots/hour), and, until the analysis is done, we can only assume that Timneh Parrots presumably persist at very low densities in the area as a whole. These figures are alarming if we compare them to those of healthy populations of the congeneric Grey Parrot such as the 30 ± 8 parrots per sq km in Lobéké National Park, Cameroun (Marsden et al. 2015), or the 59 ± 4 parrots  per sq km on the Island of Príncipe, São Tomé & Príncipe (Valle et al. 2017). 

A rare encounter in Gola forest. 
Community Guide Mohamed Mansare` listens to a 
group of Timneh Parrots feeding on a nearby tree.

Most encounters were from the 4-km buffer zone that surrounds the park, where the forest is under continuous threat from inhabitants of the surrounding settlements. The buffer zone holds pockets of reasonably intact forest and hosts some very successful wildlife -friendly cocoa farms managed in partnership with the park authorities. However, in some areas, the buffer zone still bears the clear signs of slash-and-burn farming, selective logging for valuable timber and mining for gold and diamonds. These are the areas where the work of the park authorities is the most difficult and the survival of the remaining forest most fragile.

A team surveys for Timneh Parrots in the 4-km buffer zone around the Gola Rainforest National Park, where large areas are cleared with fire to make space for subsistence farming (Photo: S. Valle)

The data collected in GRNP are an important alarm bell and shows us that a well-protected and carefully managed protected area may not be sufficient to guarantee the recovery of a population to a healthy state, or at least not before many years (Valle et al. 2018). Moreover, these results highlight the importance of performing similar surveys across the range to assess the true conservation status of this species and the need for consistent monitoring of the remaining populations. With this in mind, and following up on the successful training held in GRNP, Simon has delivered a further workshop at the HQ of the National Protected Areas Authority, the government agency which manages all protected areas across the country. Together with Prof Stuart Marsden (Manchester Metropolitan University), Simon will keep on working closely with the NPAA and GRNP to develop a long-term countrywide monitoring scheme for Timneh Parrot, probably the first of its kind in Africa.

References

BirdLife International (2018) Species factsheet: Psittacus timneh. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 12/05/2018

Marsden, S.J., Loqueh, E., Takuo, J.M., Hart, J.A., Abani, R., Ahon, D.B., Annorbah, N.N.D., Johnson, R., & Valle, S. (2015) Using encounter rates as surrogates for density estimates makes monitoring of the heavily-traded grey parrots achievable across Africa. Oryx 50(4):617-625

Valle, S., Collar, N.J., Harris, E., & Marsden, S.J. (2017) Spatial and seasonal variation in abundance within an insular grey parrot population. African Journal of Ecology 55(4):433-442

Valle, S., Collar, N.J., Harris, E., & Marsden, S.J. (2018) Effects of trapping method and capture rate variability on harvest sustainability in a heavily traded parrot. Biological Conservation 217:428–436

Spotlight on Timneh Parrot

 Posted by Stu, Simon Valle & Amy Marsden

Ever since Simon Valle (now Bangor University) and Nat Annorbah finished their PhDs on Grey Parrots here at MMU, we’ve been itching to start more work on this stunning but troubled taxon. The opportunity arrived in the form of a grant from the newly formed Parrot Wildlife Foundation See their website, a French charity dedicated to parrot welfare and conservation run by Eric Vignot. Stu had spent a very pleasant week in early March with Eric and Irina in Dominican Republic, kicking off Andrea Thomen’s PhD on parrots on that island. Now it was time for something a little tougher.

Above - Simon talking about Timneh's range (Photo: Amy); Below - Stu introducing the science behind the simple encounter rate method (Photo: Simon)

There are two main components to the project – a workshop on Timneh Parrot monitoring and a survey of the parrot across the Gola Rainforest National Park (GRNP). This post describes the former and some thoughts on how Timneh Parrots can be monitored effectively but practically long term across their range. 

Relaxing after practicing fieldwork in Gola

The three-day course took place at GRNP’s research station/guest lodge in Lalehun. The attendees for the workshop represented a number of institutions and organisations working within conservation in Sierra Leone - the Conservation Society of Sierra Leone (CSSL), National Protected Area Authority (NPAA), students and lecturers from Njala University and Eastern Polytechnic, and staff from the Gola Rainforest itself. Mustapha Songe, a tour guide from a community on the border of the National Park, also attended. The aim was to introduce delegates to the ecology and plight of the Timneh, train them in a simple method to monitor parrots that can be done whilst conducting their usual duties, and to discuss ways in which a scheme to monitor Timnehs could possibly be rolled out across Sierra Leone.

Lovely t-shirts and other course materials - thanks to Bearprint Design, TinnedSnail, and Amy Marsden (Photos: Amy)

The method itself centres on a paper we published in Oryx in 2015 – we identified the relationship between grey parrot abundance as estimated using Distance sampling and an ‘on-the-hoof’ encounter rate method (simply the number of parrot groups seen or heard per hour of walking or sitting). The course included plenty of field practice and discussion, especially feedback on how the method could be tailored for the local situation. We were all delighted with both the level of interest and understanding (many participants had little or no biological training), and the enthusiasm for taking forward a countrywide parrot monitoring scheme. Certainly, Timneh Parrot monitoring is on the agenda for Gola, and we hope elsewhere too. Simon will be visiting NPAA in Freetown to discuss possibilities in other protected areas.

The course is only the beginning of our work at Gola. Simon is starting five weeks of fieldwork right across the National Park to estimate abundance and habitat needs of the species. The first step on this exciting journey was to check out reports of a large parrot roost in a community forest close to Gola with Patrick Dauda of the park’s Research & Monitoring Department. We were unable to see parrots at what seems to be a ‘flexible’ roosting area, but hope that Simon and Patrick will be able to return to the site to check on numbers of parrots in the area.

Checking potential roosting tree in one of the community forests on the border of the Nartional Park (Photo: Amy)

We thank: Alusine Kpara, Sheriff Mohamed V, Mustapha Dabenie, Ahmed M Swaray, Amara Aruma, Ibraihim J Kallon (GRNP); Momoh Bai Sesay, Mohamed Sama (CSSL); Osman Deen, Alhassan Khalli Kamara, Abdul Karim Sesay, Wuyatta Kallon (NPAA); Bobson Kobba (Njala University), James Feika (Eastern Polytechnic); and Mustapha Songe (Community tour guide) for interesting discussions during the course. Special thanks go to Benjamin Barca, Brima Sheku Turay, and Patrick Dauda of Gola Rainforest National Park for their amazing support and help with logistics. The project is funded by Parrot Wildlife Foundation.