page_title: Wildlife of Mauritius
section_title: Birds
hierarchical_section_title: Wildlife of Mauritius / Flora and fauna / Birds
caption_attribution_description: Mauritius Pink Pigeon - Columba mayeri
context_page_description: The wildlife of Mauritius is composed of its flora and fauna. Mauritius is located in the Indian Ocean to the east of Madagascar. Due to its isolation, it has a relatively low diversity of wildlife; however, a high proportion of these are endemic species occurring nowhere else in the world. Many of these are now threatened with extinction because of human activities including habitat destruction and the introduction of non-native species. Some have already become extinct, most famously the dodo which disappeared in the 17th century.
context_section_description: Over 100 species of bird have been recorded in Mauritius. There are seven or eight surviving endemic species on the main island depending on taxonomy. The Mauritius grey white-eye is the most common of these, being widespread across the island including in man-made habitats. The others are less common and are mainly restricted to the Black River Gorges National Park in the south-west of the island. The Mauritius Kestrel, Mauritius Parakeet and Pink Pigeon all came close to extinction but are now increasing thanks to intensive conservation efforts.
  Rodrigues has two further endemic species, the Rodrigues Warbler and Rodrigues Fody. Seabird colonies are present on many of the smaller islands of the country.
  St Brandon islands are home to vast numbers of seabirds (Feare, 1984; Gardiner, 1907; Strauss in litt., 9.7.84). Staub and Gueho (1968) found a total of 26 species. Blue-faced Boobies Sula dactylatra melanops are found on Serpent Island and Ile du Nord. Large populations of Sooty Terns Sterna fuscata and White Terns Gygis alba occur on Albatros, St Raphael and Siren Islands. In 2010, a survey of seabirds of St Brandon was undertaken. "We estimated that 1 084 191 seabirds comprising seven breeding species and excluding non-breeders were present at the archipelago. (...) Analyses of 30 different islets that make up the atoll showed that the seabird species mostly partitioned their use of islets based on islet size, with four species preferring larger islets and two species preferring smaller islets. St Brandon has been proposed for a Marine Protected Area by the World Bank, has been identified as an 'Important Bird Area' in Africa by BirdLife International, as a Marine Important Bird Area under the Nairobi Convention, and a Key Biodiversity Area by the CEPF. In 2011, The Ministry of Environment & Sustainable Development issued the "Mauritius Environment Outlook Report" which stated that "There is an urgent need to allocate more resources for a closer monitoring of the environmental assets of the islands." It further recommended that St Brandon be declared a Marine Protected Area. In the President's Report of the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation dated March 2016, St Brandon is declared an official MWF project in order to promote the conservation of the atoll.
  A wide variety of birds have been introduced into Mauritius. These include some of the most common and conspicuous birds of the islands including the common myna, red fody, red-whiskered bulbul and zebra dove. The common myna is becoming a pest due to its well documented habit of displacing smaller bird species from their habitat and also destroying the smaller bird species young. The mynas were introduced for commercial reasons, primarily to help control the locusts which eat the sugar cane leafage. Instead, they prey on small indigenous lizards which are easier to catch due to their basking habits which is required for their metabolism. The lizards have become the myna's primary source of food. Because of this, an imbalance is being created with insects which the lizard would prey on which the common myna does not eat due to its inability to crawl under rocks and forage in the dense grass, flora, and fauna.
caption: Pink pigeon (Columba mayeri)
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