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News article on national environment week and eradication of the fruit fly.

News article on 6 of 7 Miss Cook Islands Pageant contestants kick-starting NES Clean Up the World campaign.

News article on Miss Cook Islands contestants learning about the environment and invasive species, etc.

Six archaeological sites up to 1000years old on Aitutaki, Cook Islands, have yielded bones of 15speciesof birds, five of which no longer occur ontheisland: Pterodromarostrata(Tahiti Petrel);Sula sula(Red-footedBooby); Dendrocygna,undescribedsp.(alarge,extinctwhistlingduck); Porzanatabuensis (Sooty Crake); and Vini kuhlii (Rimatara Lorikeet). Of these, only S. sula and P. tabuensis survive anywhere in the CookIslands today.The nearest record of anyspecies ofDendrocygnaisinFiji.Asidefrom theaquaticspeciesEgrettasacra (Pacific Reef-Heron) and Anas superciliosa (Gray Duck), the only native, resident land bird on Aitutakitoday isthe SocietyIslands Lorikeet(Viniperuviana), which may have been introduced from Tahiti. Residents ofAitutaki note that Ducula pacifica (Pacific Pigeon) and Ptilinopus rarotongensis (Cook Islands Fruit-Dove)also occurredthere until the 1940sor 1950s.There isno indigenous forest on Aitutaki today. The bones from Aitutaki also include the island's first record of the fruit batPteropus tonganus. Limestone caveson the island of Atiu yieldedthe undated bones of sixspeciesof birds, three of which no longer exist there or anywhere elsein the Cook Islands: Gallicolumba erythroptera (Society Islands Ground-Dove),Ducula aurorae (SocietyIslands Pigeon),and Vinikuhlii. Each of these specieshas been recovered from prehistoric sites on Mangaia as well. The limestone terrain of Atiu is mostly covered with native forest that supports populations of Ducula pacifica, Ptilinopus rarotongensis, Collocalia sawtelli(Atiu Swiftlet), and Halcyon tuta (Chattering Kingfisher). The survival of these land birds depends upon protection of Atiu's forests.

During a visit to the Cook Islands, my wife and I spent 5 days (30 August to 3 September 1980) on Aitutaki, where we made a concerted effort to determine the composition and status of the birdlife.

During a survey of the birds of the Cook Islands from July-September 1973, the birds of the islands of Atiu, Mitiaro, Mauke and Mangaia were investigated for the first time. Series of seven land birds that apparently represent undescribed forms were collected. This paper gives descriptions of these forms, in advance of a fuller report on their biology and that of the other birds seen. The specimens collected will be lodged in the National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C., excepting one paratype of each new form given to the British Museum (Natural History).