Reports by Samoan hunters of increasing scarcity of flying foxes first alerted our colleague, Dr. Paul Cox, to the impact of commercial hunting on those islands' flying foxes. Since 1987, access to Samoan bats has become limited for a number of reasons, including Samoan restrictions on export of its declining flying foxes. Trade from these areas has escalated dramatically in the past four years. The islands of the Pacific are home to many localized species of the flying fox genus Pteropus. In many cases, they are an island's only native mammal.
Limited distributions mean that, even under optimum conditions, population sizes are small.
On islands, there may be little refuge from habitat disturbance or human exploitation, leading to the possibility of rapid population declines. There is a similar, remarkable lack of basic biological data on these islands' forests and other natural communities. Concern for the status of flying foxes and their habitat, and the need to evaluate the impact of trade, prompted BCI to sponsor a preliminary survey of several island groups. Thus, BCI member and bat biologist Dr. Elizabeth Pierson and I spent August 1989 in Guam, Chuuk, Pohnpei, and Kosrae. We went to Guam first, where we met with Guam customs officials and members of the Guam Division of Aquatic and Wildlife Resources.