Alice Hadley- BSc Environmental Conservation 3rd year student
Placement blog - Echo
About the placement
is a Parrot Conservation project that aims to ensure Bonaire’s endangered Yellow Shouldered Amazon Parrot experiences a stable population growth. Conservation management, community education and research are the three main focuses of the project. Conservation management includes restoring Yellow Shouldered Amazon Parrot habitat, preventing its degradation from invasive, feral herbivores, and preventing the illegal poaching of parrots for the pet trade. Community education includes running information tours at Echo’s conservation centre and being a presence at a local cultural market. Research includes the monitoring of the parrot population through roost counts, nest monitoring and ringing.
Roost counts involve getting to high points at dusk and identifying the tree/s parrots settle in for the night.
My responsibilities
Being a 6 month volunteer here at Echo has meant I’ve been involved in many of the organisations research and management projects. My main role however has been the running and development of the native plant nursery and habitat restoration.
Nursery management and Habitat Restoration
Running the nursery includes daily watering, weeding and repotting. I also collect large amounts of seed, so the nursery’s stock can be maintained and the variety of its native species expanded. Seed collection has meant becoming familiar, via research and fieldtrips, with many of Bonaire’s native plants, learning of their seeding times and how to propagate them. Propagation is an issue for many of Bonaire’s native plants, as seeds are highly dormant and take weeks, even months, to germinate! Therefore, I have conducted many experiments during my time here, looking into what it takes to get a given species to germinate, looking at soil type, shade, sunlight and scarification. I have also helped to set up an experiment looking into the ability of two native, pioneer species to germinate on bare soil. This has allowed me to develop my skills in experimental design and given me a more in depth understanding of science in the field.
Seed collection.
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Experiment; seeds after scarification and soaking.
Echo also has an ‘exclusion’ area, which is designed to keep invasive herbivores out, allowing habitat regeneration. I have been involved in the planting out of 230 native trees into this exclusion area, and the maintenance of the plants- they take a lot of watering and mulching!
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Planting in the exclusion area.
I have also written a Habitat Restoration Management Plan for Echo, giving examples of pioneer species, suitable habitat for a list of conservation priority species and how to propagate given species. This has allowed me to develop my research skills.
Other roles
I have also taken on the accounting of the Echo team’s expenditure and incomes from tours and markets, allowing me to develop my organisational skills.
I’m involved with Parrot husbandry from time to time, taking on feeding duties and putting fresh branches in the aviaries when there are few volunteers. Echo also takes in many injured parrots, who require special care.
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Taking in an injured parrot.
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The parrots receiving their morning feed.