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Habitat & Behavior: The Guam Rail is a
secretive, flightless, territorial species that is
most easily observed as it bathes or feeds
along roadsides or field edges. The call is a
loud, piercing whistle or series of whistles,
usually given by two or more birds in
response to a loud noise, the call of another
rail, or other disturbances. Though
individuals will respond almost invariably to
the call of another rail, the species is
generally silent.
The rail is one of the few native birds of
Guam that is found more frequently in scrubby second growth or mixed forest than in uniform tracts of mature forest, and might have been more abundant after the arrival of man than before.
It is an omnivorous feeder but appears to prefer animal over vegetable food. It is known to eat gastropods, skinks, geckos, insects, and carrion as well as seeds and palm leaves.
The rail is a year-round ground nester making it highly susceptible to predators, such as the monitor lizard and the rat. It lays 2-4 four eggs and both parents share in the construction of a shallow nest of leaves and grass. A far more efficient predator was introduced in the 1950s, the brown tree snake. The snake is generally considered to be the primary cause of the disappearance of most of Guam's native birds.
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Past & Present:
Before the 1970s, the Guam rail occurred island-wide and distributed in all habitats except wetlands. The population declined severely from 1969-1973, and the rail disappeared from southern Guam in the mid 1970s. The decline of the rail continued until in 1980, only 10 rails were recorded. In a desperate move, 21 birds were caught in the wild in the mid-1980s and placed in captive breeding both in the continental United States and on Guam. |
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Conservation Efforts:
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began conducting systematic forest bird surveys in Micronesia in 1981. The majority of forest birds were protected on Guam by the turn of the century with such acts as Guam Public Law 6-87 which prohibited the taking, buying or selling of wild birds or their eggs and the Endangered Species Act of Guam (Guam Public Law 15-36), which protects both locally and federally listed endangered species on Guam. The Government of Guam also established four conservation reserves that provided protected habitat for many native species, at least until the brown tree snake invaded.
A brown tree snake barrier was erected around a 60-acre parcel known as Area 50 on Andersen Air Force Base in 1998, and 16 Guam rails were released into the area in November 1998 the first Guam rails to exist in the wild on the island since the mid-1980s. Although at least four of the birds have died, four breeding pairs have hatched at least 10 chicks. Guam rails also have been introduced on Rota, an adjacent island that has not been invaded by brown tree snakes.
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