I don’t know how but the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) figured out that it is my birthday today (17th June) and I suspect thats why they decided to make the solenodon the “Species of the day” today. Its all part of the IUCN involvement with the “International Year of Biodiversity” so please do check out and download the information which is available from here or If your reading this after the 17th of June then go here. The whole of the last survivor’s team feel extremely privileged to have one of our species honoured in this way.

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We were not expecting to write another blog until mid June but there is lots of exciting news that we want to share with you and so it warrants this special edition blog. Cristina Fernandez Secades, a student from Imperial College, has joined the project. She has hit the ground running and has already had a very productive time interviewing people in villages located near one of the national parks. The Masters project she is carrying out has two main objectives: 1) to establish the level of predation that solenodon and hutia are suffering because of wild and domestic dogs 2) finding out the tolerance of people to damage of crops/livestock from both endemic and introduced species before a response is triggered, in addition to assessing the type of response created (e.g. poison, traps, hunting, etc).

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by Pedro Martinez and Jose Nunez-Mino

Back in the UK you have been experiencing the arrival of spring, here on the Island of Hispaniola we are still waiting for our next season to start in earnest – namely the rainy season. The island is currently experiencing a bit of a drought and although this is not a good thing in general, it has meant that we have managed to avoid any major soakings since our last update. That’s not to say that no rain has fallen, it just means we have not been caught out in the field when it has. However, instead we have had to cope with searing hot temperatures in order to look for solenodon and hutia in remote sites which can only be accessed via very long treks through areas of dry forest with little or no shade. Its been tough going!!

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By Sarah Louise Smith

Since the last blog post volunteers on the Mountain Chicken project here in Montserrat have come and gone as we have seen Andres Fernandez return to Spain and have been delighted with the presence of the Linn Lagerstrom from Parken Zoo in Sweden for the month of the December. However, the future of the Mountain Chicken frog has been a rocky rollercoaster. Firstly, the rains ceased as during December and January the whole of the Caribbean entered into a drought. This was good news for us as it meant our visits into the forest were not interrupted by torrential storms. However, this also meant that thick layers of ash were accumulating in the forest (and on the frogs) as the volcano continued to be extremely active giving us a grey Christmas.

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Last week saw us organise the second workshop for the Mountain chicken restoration programme. Those of you following the blog will know about the plight of the mountain chicken frog. Reduced to existing on the two Caribbean islands of Montserrat and Dominica by the introduction of predators such as mongoose and rats, the species has now been hit by chytrid on both islands. Coupled with this, the last remaining wild population of any size then got covered in volcanic ash by a partial dome collapse in the Soufriere volcano in Montserrat in February (sound familiar??)

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Matt Goetz, Durrell and Fred Burton, Blue Iguana Recovery Programme

Last December saw the sixth annual release of young Blue Iguanas (Cyclura lewisi) into Grand Cayman’s Salina Nature Reserve brought the total number of iguanas released back into the wild on Grand Cayman to over 300. It was now time to take a detailed look at how all those iguanas were doing. We knew they started breeding in the wild in 2006, but how successful had this natural breeding been in raising the total wild population even further?

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I simply can’t write this blog without mentioning the devastating earthquake that hit Hispaniola on the 12 of January 2010; it was felt throughout the island although its destructive impact was concentrated on the Haitian capital (Port-Au-Prince). I was in the capital of the Dominican Republic (Santo Domingo) at the time and we felt it there too; some people in Santo Domingo ran out of and away from buildings in fear. In terms of the project, this natural disaster is likely to have a real impact in the future. Thousands of people have lost everything and many have been displaced. In the short term, the immediate humanitarian need obviously takes precedence. However, I hope that in the long term the environmental/conservation aspect is taken into account as part of Haiti’s recovery plan.

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Here on the island of Montserrat the project to help the mountain chickens in their fight against the deadly chytrid fungus continues. During the last weeks the weather has been quite harsh as we are now in the middle of the wet season and heavy rains arrive almost every day. These rains completely change the scenery at both ghauts, the streams run with an amazing strength washing everything in their way towards the sea. In spite of all these rains, only very few times this has stopped us from going into the field and we are still treating the frogs and continuing with the established protocols of the project.

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By Edward Bell

When not working in the coastal dry forest looking for White-breasted Thrashers another role we have out here is the continued monitoring of the St Lucia Whiptail lizard Cnemidophorus vanzoi. The St Lucia Whiptail is found only on four offshore islands around the coast of St Lucia, it was believed to be found on the mainland but by the time of its discovery in the 1960’s it ended up restricted to two Islands off the south east coast of the island, Maria Major and Maria Minor. Durrell and St Lucia forestry Dept successfully implemented a translocation to Praslin Island just up the east coast in 1997 to try and ensure the survival of the population. It was the introduction and spread of invasive species such as rats, mongoose and cats which we assume led to the whiptail dieing out on the mainland – so the first which needed to be done when translocating this lizard was to remove any potential predators off the islands.

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By Edward Bell

The beautiful bustling island of St Lucia is going to be my home for the next 6 months. St Lucia is part of the chain of islands known as the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean, the Lesser Antilles with the exception of Barbados are volcanic islands, some more active then others e.g. Montserrat. The mountainous terrain in the center of the island helps shape the climate trapping moisture leading to lush vegetation and rainforests at the core and coastal dry forest down the Atlantic east coast.

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