Guam Rail - Background

Background

Beginning in the mid 1960s, the Brown tree snake decimated Guam's native avifauna. The birds of Guam evolved in the absence of snake predators. They had no experience with such a predator and lacked protective behaviors against the snake. Consequently, they were easy prey for these efficient, nocturnal predators. As the snakes spread across the island, the number of snakes began to grow exponentially and bird populations plummeted.

The history of this decline starts shortly after the introduction of the Brown tree snake, although appreciable losses were not evident until the 1960s. By 1963, several formerly abundant species of native birds had disappeared from the central part of the island where snakes were most populous. By the late 1960s, birds had begun to decline in the central and southern parts of the island and remained abundant only in isolated patches of forest on the northern end of the island. Snakes began affecting the birds in the north-central and extreme northern parts of the island in the 1970s and 1980s, respectively.

Zoologist Bob Beck, a Guam Department of Agriculture Division of Aquatic and Wildlife Resources wildlife supervisor, is credited with leading the efforts to capture the remaining wild Guam rails, Micronesian Kingfishers and other native birds to save them from extinction. His efforts to save the Guam rail began in 1982 and lasted more than 20 years. Beck was considered to be instrumental in capturing the remaining population of Guam rails and establishing captive breeding programs for the species on Guam. He later established a release site and an introduced breeding population of Guam rails on the neighboring island of Rota in the Northern Mariana Islands.

Beck was also a driving force in establishing Guam rail breeding programs in zoos throughout the mainland United States. Beck's Guam rail breeding program initially began with just three zoos in the U.S. - the Bronx Zoo, the Philadelphia Zoo and the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. The program proved to be successful and was soon expanded to include other zoos. Seventeen zoos now participate in the Guam rail breeding program, as of 2008, including the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans, the San Diego Zoo, the Santa Fe College Teaching Zoo, and zoos in Chicago, Houston and San Antonio.

The efforts by Beck, and others, to save the Guam rail have been promising. There are now approximately 120 Guam rails in captivity in Guam and approximately 35 birds in captive breeding programs throughout the United States. Biologist Gary Wiles, who worked on the Guam rail breeding program from 1981 through 2000, said of Beck's efforts to save the Guam rail, "Bob was one of the first to begin organizing catching the birds so they could be brought into captivity, held there and bred. He started a captive population. We still have Guam rails today because of his efforts." Suzanne Medina, a wildlife biologist, also credited Beck with saving the Guam rail, "Bob Beck was the ko'ko' champion, was Guam's champion at the time for preventing the extinction of these birds."