Puerto Rico nightjar threatened

This is a video in Spanish, with English subtitles, about the Puerto Rican nightjar.

From BirdLife:

New study sheds light on nightjar

18-11-2009

A new study of the Critically Endangered Puerto Rican Nightjar Caprimulgus noctitherus suggests that the species’s geographic range is greater than previously estimated. This is the major finding of Geographic distribution of the Puerto Rican Nightjar: A patch occupancy approach, a joint effort between the Sociedad Ornitológica Puertorriqueña, Inc. (SOPI, the BirdLife Partner and Species Guardian for Puerto Rican Nightjar), Mississippi State University, USGS Cooperative Research Units, BirdLife International, and The British Birdwatching Fair.

With an estimated population of 1,400-2,000 individuals, Puerto Rican Nightjar is a single-island endemic species found in coastal dry and lower montane forests in the south-west of Puerto Rico. Fragmentation, loss and degradation of its habitat, especially from residential, industrial and recreational expansion are the main threats. SOPI, as part of the BirdLife Preventing Extinctions programme, liaised with researchers, Dr. Francisco Vilella and graduate student Rafael González to carry out the first systematic presence-absence survey to improve current knowledge on habitat and distribution of the nightjar.

Singapore nightjars: here.

The Sociedad Ornitológica Puertorriqueña, Inc. (SOPI, BirdLife in Puerto Rico) and other organisations have applauded the decision made by the Planning Board of Puerto Rico to reject and suspend the siting permit for an industrial windfarm development in Karso del Sur Important Bird Area (IBA). At the same time, the Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed development is being legally disputed: here.

The Cabo Rojo Salt Flats – within Puerto Rico’s Suroeste Important Bird Area – have been designated as the Caribbean’s first site of regional importance for shorebirds by the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network (WHSRN, an international shorebird conservation strategy). The nomination was submitted by Sociedad Ornitológica Puertorriqueña (SOPI, BirdLife in Puerto Rico) and supported by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), North Carolina State University and the BirdLife Caribbean Program: here.

The Caribbean island of Puerto Rico is rich in habitat. Abundant birdlife is found across the island, but El Yunque is a must-see destination for birders: here.

Record number of nightjars in Kent’s Blean Woods: here.

Rare nocturnal nightjar has been found in a Derbyshire wood: here.