GUAM BROADBILL (Myiagra freycineti)
The Guam broadbill formerly occurred throughout the forests and
mangrove swamps of Guam. It was driven to extinction by habitat
destruction and predation by introduced brown tree snakes. It was
removed from the endangered species list on February 23, 2004.
The songbird had already been extirpated from two-thirds of Guam
when the Endangered Species Act (ESA) was created 1973, but a
significant population still existed and could have been saved
through captive breeding and local brown tree snake control.
Instead, the broadbill’s listing was delayed for nearly eleven years
and did not happen until after it was extinct.
No action was taken to protect the broadbill under the ESA until the Governor of Guam petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list it in 1979.
The territory also requested that the northern coast
line be designated as critical habitat. In 1982 the
Fish and Wildlife Service declared that ESA listing
was warranted, but that actual listing was
precluded by higher priorities. The broadbill was
placed on the agency’s “candidate list” where it
received no protection. But there were no higher
listing priorities. In fact, the assertion was made
during the slowest listing period in the history of
the ESA: between February 1981 and January
1982, not a single species was listed; in all of 1982,
only 12 species were listed; and in the 12 months
following the decision to delay protection for the
broadbill, just seven species were listed. None of
the 17 species listed during this three-year period
were as endangered as the broadbill. All still exist
today.
By the time the Fish and Wildlife Service issued a
listing proposal in 1983, the broadbill had declined
to about 100 birds occupying just 150 acres of
forest in the Pajon Basin. A male broadbill was
captured for emergency breeding purposes, but a
mate for it could not be found. It died alone in
captivity in February 1984.
In March, 1984 a single bird was seen on Andersen Air Force Base. In August the last Guam broadbill
ever seen was reported near the Navy golf course. And on August 27, 1984, the broadbill was listed as
an endangered species. The listing came almost eleven years after the ESA was created, six years after
the governor of Guam petitioned for listing, two years after the species was put on the candidate list, and
just days after it went extinct.
he Governor of Guam petitioned to list the Pacific sheathtailed
bat as an endangered species in 1981. The U.S. Fish
and Wildlife put it on the candidate list in 1982. It is still
on the list, unprotected and declining in 2004.
