Bridled White-eye, 2022
mixed media on paper with metallic accents
5.125" x 7"
$97 including US shipping
From the US Fish and Wildlife Service proposal for removing 23 species from the Federal Lists of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants due to extinction:
The bridled white-eye (
Zosterops conspicillatus conspicillatus,
or Nossa in the Chamorro language), was listed as endangered in 1984 (49 FR 33881; August 27, 1984), and was included in the Recovery Plan for the Native Forest Birds of Guam and Rota of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (USFWS 1990, entire). The species was last observed in 1983, and the 1984 final listing rule for the bridled white-eye noted that the species “may be the most critically endangered bird under U.S. jurisdiction” (49 FR 33881, August 27, 1984, p. 49 FR 33883) and cited disease and predation by nonnative predators, including the brown tree snake (
Boiga irregularis
), as the likely factors contributing to its rarity.
Endemic only to Guam, within the Mariana Islands, the bridled white-eye was a small (0.33 ounce or 9.3 grams), green and yellow, warbler-like forest bird with a characteristic white orbital ring around each eye. Nonterritorial and often observed in small flocks, the species was a canopy-feeding insectivore that gleaned small insects from the twigs and branches of trees and shrubs.
The brown tree snake is estimated to be responsible for the extinction, extirpation, or decline of 2 bat species, 4 reptiles, and 13 of Guam's 22 (59 percent) native bird species, including all of the native forest bird species with the exception of the Micronesian starling ( Aplonis opaca ) (Wiles et al. 2003, p. 1358; Rodda and Savidge 2007, p. 307). The most comprehensive study of the decline (Wiles et al. 2003, entire) indicated that 22 bird species were severely impacted by the brown tree snake.
The study also found that in areas newly invaded by the snake, observed declines of avian species were greater than or equal to 90 percent and occurred rapidly, with the average duration just 8.9 years.