Fourth Project Public Meeting

The fourth project public meeting took place on March 22 and had an audience of around 10% of the population. We show a video about the construction of anti-predator fence, which will be built in the Biological Reserve, and we give people the opportunity to clarify doubts about

To appeal to young public, the students of the Mouzinho da Silveira School took part in "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" competition, and they answered questions about the project.

Forest International Year

Last Monday we celebrate the Forest International Year. We join about 70 people and we began to plant endemics in Corvo Biological Reserve. Apart from the curious Corvo inhabitants, were there SPEA staff, the mayor of Corvo City Hall and students of the Mouzinho da Silveira School. The Director Affairs of the Sea was also there.

Everyone had the opportunity to plant a endemic species. The sums of all plants were 170 endemic plants. Many of these plants were produced by students in the project greenhouse.
This action was part of executive committee programme.

The project has already good outputs and some of them are recorded in Jose Serra Documentary (RTP Açores). You can check it out HERE.

WEBMAP

It´s online the LIFE Project webmap. Check it out HERE.
ID/Password: spea/spea

This site is under construction and will be dynamic. Every week new information will be uploaded:
- location of rodent trapping
- location of Cory's Shearwater nests monitoring
- density of invasive mammals
- location of plantation of endemic species

In the end of the year will be available the habitat maps and the maps of the invasive plants from Corvo Island.
The Vila Franca do Campo Islet wasn't forgotten and the webmap will be available very soon.

Any suggestion or commentary should be submitted to carlos.silva@spea.pt

A one year study of the abundance of rodents is completed

We completed the annual monitoring of rodents last February. The objective was to know its monthly abundance in four study areas at two different altitudes. We used the "capture-recapture" technique to estimate the index of abundance, seasonal variations and vital areas.

The results indicate that the density of rodents in Corvo may be influenced by the altitude, in general, higher densities were obtained at low altitudes. The highest abundance was observed in November in all areas for both captured species domestic mouse Mus musculus and black rat Rattus rattus.

Based on these first results, we aim to continue the captures at different habitats during the autumn and early winter in 2011, to obtain a sample of the most pronounced variations.

We'll continue to give updates on this work.

Suitable Habitat for Cory's Shearwater Breeding

Eva Immler is an investigator from Van Hall Larenstein, University of Applied Sciences. She was last year in Corvo mapping and characterizing the suitable habitat of the Bird of the Year - Cory´s Shearwater. The investigator approach was image capture and GIS processing.

The new innovative method was tested in April and we already have the first results.

The most suitable habitat for the Cory's Shearwater is characterized by: steep inclination, no tree cover, scarce cover vegetation, broken rock and shallow soil.

We hope in a near future this technique will be tested in all the cliffs of Corvo Island.

Her work can be downloaded HERE.

Thank you Eva

Plantation in Vila Franca Islet

In the Islet the work continues...

During the last days were planted about 3440 trees. The sum of plants on Vila Franca Islet are 7950 plants.

This year let contribute to a greener year. Plant a tree.
Year 2011 - International Year of Forests