SaveHopeGardens Brief Avifauna Survey by Wildlife member

To:
Mr Franklyn McDonald
Executive Director NRCA

Attention :
Permit & Licence Secretariat

Dear Sir

Re: The Proposed Hope Country Club Development

I invite your attention to the results of a brief avifauna survey conducted by me on the morning of Friday December 17, 1999, at the site of the proposed Hope Country Club Development. I emphasize the word brief. It required only about 90 minutes to obtain the information I was seeking, namely:

1. Establishment of the fact that there is a great deal more birdlife in the area than has been conveyed by the relevant environmental impact report.

2. That the birdlife is varied and includes, very importantly, a Jamaican endemic species that is endangered and protected by the laws of this country.

I started recording at 7 am by the mini dam and zigzagged up the ridge to the point where there is a lot of squatter activity. I then backtracked as I was attracting possibly hostile attention. Accordingly the upper reaches of the proposed development site were not assessed and some birds possibly missed. Birds on the ground and in the general shrubbery were recorded, also those in the canopy and flying just above the canopy. A number of individuals were seen too briefly to enable identification - warblers in particular.

The following list is, therefore, not exhaustive...

	NAME	APPROX. NO.	STATUS
1	Cattle Egret	30	-
2	Great Egret	1	-
3	Common Morhen	5	-
4	Yellow-billed Parrot	15	Endemic
5	Olive-throated Parakeet	7	Endemic
6	White-winged Dove	3	-
7	Common Ground Dove	5	-
8	Black-faced Grassquit	1	-
9	Greater Antillean Grackle	3	-
10	Northern Mockingbird	4	-
11	Vervain Hummingbird	1	Endemic
12	Northern Parula	1	-
13	Black and White Warbler	1	-
14	Cape May Warbler	1	-
15	American Redstart	1	-
16	Hopping Dick	1	Endemic
17	Loggerhead Kingbird	1	-

I recorded 17 Species, or subspecies, in my brief survey while the professional survey done by Environment Science and Technology Ltd, recorded only seven, including the Turkey Vulture; I found four endemic and they found only one; I saw over seventy (70) individuals, they reported approximately ten (10). I found the Yellow-Billed Parrot to be common, the EIA pretended it was not there. It is a conspicuous and highly vocal bird, how could any surveyor fail to see or hear it! I saw a minimum of fifteen individuals in the area intended for housing. I repeat this is an endemic and endangered species that is protected by law.

The Yellow-billed Parrot does not relish contact with human beings: they usually thrive in remote and densely forested areas like the Cockpit Country. However, these areas are all shrinking from increasing human activity and the bird numbers declining correspondingly. This is what makes the flock in Hope Gardens so fascinating. They have been there at least twenty-five years now an their numbers are increasing despite continuous contact with human activity. Estimates indicate the presence of thirty (30) to fifty (50) birds. Breeding was at one time thought to be doubtful but has now been confirmed.

All of this would seem to indicate that the Hope Gardens Parrots have adapted, or are adapting, to urban living much as the White-winged Dove has done in Upper St. Andrew. This “semi-domesticated” group is clearly different from the wild population in terms of its human tolerance level and is, therefore, unique and must be preserved at all costs. Construction of 248 housing units in the area where they roost at night would be highly traumatic if not deadly.

The NRCA must not allow this to happen. Fifty years from now these might be the only Yellow-billed Parrots that have survived in Jamaica and the World. The Hope Country Club scheme must be rejected not only in terms of Phase 1 but Phase 2 as well.

I request an opportunity to be heard

Yours sincerely

Stuart Lacy
MEMBER OF WILDLIFE JAMAICA