Restoration of Nu'utele & Nu'ulua, Aleipata islands, Samoa protection of friendly ground dove during proposed rat eradication / D.J. Butler

Abstract

For one of the species potentially at some risk of poisoning under the proposed rat eradication regime, the Friendly Ground Dove, Nuutele and Nuulua hold populations that are nationally significant. The complete loss of these populations would threaten the survival of the taxon in Samoa. Some authors consider the Samoan doves to be a separate race (Gallicolumba s. stairi) from those in Fiji and Tonga (Watling, 2001). Outside Samoa, the race is only found on the small island of Ofu, American Samoa where it is threatened. So the loss of Nu’utele and Nu'ulua birds could threaten the race with extinction.