Critically Endangered
Grenada Dove
Leptotila wellsi
The Grenada dove is a medium-sized New World tropical dove.
Appearance
The Grenada dove is characterised by a white throat. Face and forehead pale pink shading to dull brown on crown and nape; upperparts olive brown; underwing chestnut; neck and upper breast pink-buff fading to white on lower breast, belly and undertail coverts.
Range and habitat
The Grenada dove is a little-known species endemic to the main island of Grenada, West Indies. Historically, it has been recorded from locations throughout Grenada, among them offshore islands, and the type specimen was collected from Fontenoy, on the west coast. Some surveys imply that Grenada doves are associated with dry forest communities in the west and southwest parts of the main island (Blockstein 1988, Blockstein and Hardy 1989, Bird Life International 2000).
It is endemic to the island of Grenada in the Lesser Antilles. The Grenada Government – in cooperation with the World Bank – set up two reserve zones in 1996 to preserve the dove: the Perseverance and adjacent Woodford Estates, that are adjacent to a landfill and abandoned quarry site, in the west of the island and a sanctuary of c.150 acres (0.61 km2) within the Mount Hartman Estate, a former government cattle farm and sugarcane plantation, in the south.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
Grenada dove were documented consuming Carica papaya (Papaya) during diet studies associated with Grenada Dry Forest Ecosystem Protection Project. Observations have been made of Grenada doves foraging on the ground (Blockstein 1998).
Herbert Bright maintained captive Leptotila doves in England and documented a breeding pair killing other congeneric doves introduced to the aviary. Only one active Grenada dove nest has been documented.
In crisis
It is considered to be one of the most critically endangered doves in the world. Population estimates by various researchers indicate that there may be fewer than 100 individuals remaining in the wild (Blockstein 1988), and declines in numbers may have occurred between 1987 and 1991. The last published population estimates were produced by David Blockstein in 1991.
This dove is classified as critically endangered by BirdLife International on the IUCN Red List. According to some studies, the Mount Hartman Sanctuary was never considered adequate for the dove's survival and other understudied populations are located along the western coast in the Beausejour and Black Bay watersheds.
Grenada Dove is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Grenada Dove, Wikidata item Q905437. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
