10 Review of Madagascar’s wildfowl
©Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust
Wildfowl
(2013) 63: 5–23
sites, was not included in the first bird Red
Data Book. However, concerns for the
species were already being expressed in the
1970s (see
e.g.
Kear & Williams 1978) and its
status “progressed”, even in the absence of
counts, from a candidate for the Red Data
Book (Collar & Stuart 1985) to “Near
Threatened” (Collar
et al.
1994), “Vulnerable”
(Green 1992) and eventually “Endangered”
(BirdLife International 2000). Madagascar
Pochard was listed as “Vulnerable” (King
1978–1979) well after the population crashed,
but this was soon rectified and the species
became “Endangered” (Collar & Stuart 1985)
and then “Critically Endangered” (Collar
et al.
1994). Although the pochard was considered
extinct briefly (Young & Kear 2006),
it remains on the “Critical” list. The
Madagascar White-backed Duck, as a
subspecies, has no IUCN classification
(IUCN classifications being only to the
species level); however,
T. leuconotus insularis
is recognised as “Endangered” by the
Threatened Waterbird Specialist Group
(TWSG 2006).
Distribution of endemic wildfowl taxa
Madagascar’s endemic wildfowl taxa are
very specific in their habitat requirements
and vary accordingly in their distribution
across the island (see distribution maps in
Fig. 2, and also Safford & Hawkins 2013, for
detailed records of each duck). Ecologically,
Madagascar has at least three distinct sub-
regions, principally: a dry west region, a
humid eastern region and an arid area in the
southwest of the country (Wilmé 1996).
The Madagascar White-backed Duck is a
bird of quiet, well-vegetated (especially with
water lilies
Nymphaea
sp.) wetlands and is
fairly nomadic, moving from seasonally
drying wetlands in the western region. This
duck was probably once the one with the
widest distribution in Madagascar; however,
today it almost only found in the west.
Madagascar Teal is a mangrove specialist
and, with little mangrove in the east, is only
known to nest in littoral mangrove and is
found almost exclusively within a few
kilometres of the coast or along larger
estuaries. Subfossil remains of
A. bernieri
at
inland sites (Goodman & Rakotozafy 1997)
suggest a formerly wider distribution or
greater dispersal than today. Meller’s Duck is
territorial and is a specialist of the many
streams and small rivers of the extensive
eastern drainage of rain forest and humid
areas. Often nesting in thick forest, non-
breeding Meller’s Ducks may collect on
larger lakes on the High Plateau such as
Lake Alaotra. Madagascar Pochard is only
known from lakes and marshes of the
humid regions of the High Plateau.
Subfossil remains of Madagascar’s two
extinct sheldgeese have been found at
several sites across the island (Goodman
& Rakotozafy 1997; Goodman &
Ramanamanjato 2007), but particularly in
the arid southwest, suggesting that this
region was formerly more hospitable to
waterbirds (Goodman 1999).
A new understanding
While very little was known about any
aspect of the wild ducks even in the latter
half of the 20th Century, this can in part be
explained by a shortage of local and visiting
ornithologists and difficulties in accessing
large parts of the island, particularly in the
wet season, the waterbird breeding season.
