Distribution, Abundance, and Conservation Status of the Jamaican Crow, Corvus jamaicensis

Gary R. Graves; Brian K. Schmidt

Distribution, Abundance, and Conservation Status of the Jamaican Crow, Corvus jamaicensis

Gary R. Graves^1,2,* and Brian K. Schmidt¹

¹Department of Vertebrate Zoology, MRC-116, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, PO Box 37012, Washington, DC 20013-7012, USA. ²Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, DK-2100, Copenhagen Ø, Denmark. *Corresponding author.

Caribbean Naturalist, No. 27 (2015)

Abstract
The arrival of West Nile virus in Jamaica has raised concerns about the conservation status of the endemic Corvus jamaicensis (Jamaican Crow), which has been largely restricted to the interior highlands since the 17th century. We conducted an island-wide survey of Jamaican Crow populations using playback of crow vocalizations from 2008 through 2013. Crows were detected at 370 of 1432 playback sites, mostly in the interior highlands of St. Ann and Trelawny parishes where they are locally common. Crows were absent from the Blue Mountains and from a broad band spanning the entire southern coast. Some crows were found in moderately undisturbed limestone forest in Cockpit Country and in the John Crow Mountains, but the majority was observed in anthropogenic habitats, including the patchworks of agriculture, second-growth forest, and pasture that characterize rural landscapes in Jamaica. Preliminary population estimates of <2900 individuals indicate the Jamaican Crow is one of the rarer passerine species in the Western Hemisphere.

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