Endangered
Mauritius Kestrel
Falco punctatus
The Mauritius kestrel is a bird of prey from the family Falconidae endemic to the forests of Mauritius, where it is restricted to the southwestern plateau's forests, cliffs, and ravines.
The bird
It can reach a size between 26 and 30.5 cm (10.2 and 12.0 in). It weighs up to 250 g (8.8 oz).
Published measurements include mass about 196.
Range and habitat
The Mauritius kestrel is a bird of prey from the family Falconidae endemic to the forests of Mauritius, where it is restricted to the southwestern plateau's forests, cliffs, and ravines. It is the most distinct of the Indian Ocean kestrels. It colonized its island home to evolve into a distinct species probably during the Gelasian (Late Pliocene).
With the help of Gerald Durrell, the Welsh biologist Carl Jones established a wildlife sanctuary on Île aux Aigrettes.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
In 1974 the Mauritius kestrel was close to extinction, with only five or possibly six known birds, among them two in captivity and a solitary breeding female.
In crisis
In 1985, numbers were estimated to have increased slightly in the wild, but it remained critically endangered at fewer than 15 individuals. In pre-colonial times, the population was estimated to be between 175 and 325 breeding pairs. This small population was most likely caused by deforestation in the 18th century and by cyclones.
Even so, the most severe decline was in the 1950s and 1960s due to indiscriminate DDT use and invasive species like cats, mongooses, and crab-eating macaques that killed the kestrels and their eggs. What was probably this species' closest relative in recent times, the Réunion kestrel, became extinct in the 1670s.
CITES lists this taxon on Appendix I. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.
Mauritius Kestrel is 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 Mauritius Kestrel, Wikidata item Q843346. 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.
