As many people reading this will have have seen from the article published on the Guardian website we were successful in our mission to unite the two remaining wild mountain chicken frogs on Montserrat. This true life fairy-tale was made possible from funds raised through an online appeal run by Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and further support from the...
First thing’s first - finding the frogs
This translocation was initially planned to take place in 2015. However, that year saw Montserrat along with the rest of the Caribbean experience the worst period o
f drought for over 50 years. May to August, in what should have been the wet
season and breeding period for mountain chickens, saw the ghauts (local name...
Trekking into Fairy Walk and tracking down our frog.
On paper the plan was quite simple. Go out to Fairy Walk. Find the female frog. Move her down to the male’s location. Do regular post-move monitoring to check on how they are doing. As with almost all fieldwork though things are never that straightforward and just because the female was...
Sunday success
Fortunately we did not have to progress those thoughts as on Sunday 26 June eleven days after I had arrived and the first day all of us - myself, Luke and Katy from Chester (who had just arrived the previous day) - were out together we had success. As usual we arrived in Fairy Walk, had a much...
Follow up monitoring
Moving the two frogs together, whilst the most important component, was just the first stage. As nothing like this had been done on this level with amphibians before we did not know what would happen. One of the major concerns was that the female would immediately try to get back to her original patch. For this...
In 2014 Nordens Ark became the newest partner in the mountain chicken project, and hope to assist in the restoration of self-sustaining, viable populations of the mountain chicken through breeding captive individuals and later reintroductions. The Ark itself is located near Smögen in Sweden and is run by a non-profit foundation.
Nordens' have been helping the mountain chicken’s cause since...
The Mountain Chicken Recovery Programme may have been quiet on the blog front for the last two years or so, but let me assure you Durrell and the MCRP have been busy plotting and scheming – and now we're finally back in Montserrat!
The captive populations have been busy doing their part for their species; several generations of offspring have...