hello tweets,

some exciting bird news reported by my colleagues at the Smithsonian
Institution and the University of Kansas! One interesting aspect of
this story is the mention of the work that is being done by the
American Federation of Aviculture to breed these birds in captivity
to help alleviate some of the pressure on wild populations of red
siskins.

regards,

Devorah A. N. Bennu, PhD
email:nyneve at amnh.org or nyneve at myUW.net
work page http://research.amnh.org/ornithology/personnel/bennu.htm
personal pages http://research.amnh.org/users/nyneve/

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Subject: Fwd: Scientists find unknown population of "near-extinct" birds

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Scientists have discovered a previously unknown
population of red siskins, a bird feared to be nearing extinction
in the wild.

"It was totally a surprise to us, a great shock," said Michael J.
Braun, a research scientist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of
Natural History.

Once widespread in the coastal mountains of Venezuela and Colombia,
the bird was nearly wiped out by trapping after it became popular
both in that region and in Europe in the 1800s.

The bird was particularly valued for its bright red feathers and in
Latin America it is known as el cardinalito, or little cardinal.

Breeders discovered that the red siskin could mate with the canary,
Braun said Thursday, providing a bright color to the formerly drab
songbird. Any canary today that has some red feathers has some siskin
genes, Braun said.

Braun said the research team was conducting a survey of birds in
little-studied Guyana -- which neighbors Venezuela -- when they
came across a population of several thousand red siskins.

That, he said, is several times the known population of the birds
elsewhere in the wild.

The discovery was made in April of 2000 but was kept under wraps
until a conservation plan could be developed providing legal
protection for the birds in Guyana. It was just a matter of time
before they were discovered, he said, because the region where
they were found is increasingly being developed.

Red siskins been protected in Venezuela since the 1940s.

The goal is not to prevent people from raising the birds in cages,
Braun said, but to avoid damage to the wild population.

The American Federation of Aviculture is engaged in a red siskin
recovery project, attempting to breed a large enough captive
population of the birds for the commercial market.

The discovery by Braun and Mark Robbins of the University of Kansas
is being published in the June issue of The Auk, the journal of the
American Ornithologists Union. The research is a collaboration
between the Smithsonian, the University of Kansas and the University
of Guyana.

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On the Net:
National Museum of Natural History: http://www.nmnh.si.edu
American Ornithologists Union: http://www.aou.org