Extinction looming for the Masked Finfoot
The Masked Finfoot could become Asia’s next avian extinction if urgent survey work is not carried out and all remaining known breeding populations get adequate protection.
The alarm call comes in a recently published study in the Oriental Bird Club’s ornithological journal Forktail.
The Masked Finfoot (Heliopais personatus) is among Asia’s most threatened waterbirds. The species formerly ranged widely across north-east India, Bangladesh and South-East Asia, but recent records are few. It depends on low-lying, undisturbed areas of forested wetlands, especially river channels with formerly little or no human activity. Given that low-lying, forested wetlands across South-East Asia are increasingly encroached upon by human activities, or are cleared, habitat loss and disturbance is the single most important threat to the species.
The Masked Finfoot was uplisted from Vulnerable to Endangered in 2009 because rates of population decline were realised to be higher than previously assumed, owing to destruction and disturbance to forested, riverine habitats and, to a lesser extent, hunting and collection of eggs and chicks.
Based on a combination of survey data and best-guess estimates from key sites, researchers estimate the current population is now at 108–304 individuals scattered across a few small subpopulations. This is far lower than the last estimate of 600–1,700 individuals in 2009.
Masked Finfoot may now breed only in Bangladesh and Cambodia, and there have been no records within the past five years in Malaysia and Thailand, where it once occurred regularly, despite a marked increase in observer effort.
Based on the new population estimate, researchers are now calling for the status of Masked Finfoot to be updated to Critically Endangered.
19 February 2021
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