TRANSATLANTIC MOVEMENT OF DOMESTIC PIGEONS COLUMBA LIVIA DOMESTICA

Gabriel Silva Santos, Maurício Brandão Vecchi, Maria Alice Santos Alves

Abstract


Historically, Domestic pigeon (Columba livia domestica Gmelin,1789) (Columbiformes, Columbidae) breeders use the species to promotes race competitions which over the time could select traits to increase the flight performance and spatial orientation capabilities. Although the species has remarkable navigational abilities, it is possible that these birds sometimes become disoriented pushing the individuals to fly off-course and over distances larger than usual. Here we report a Domestic Pigeon ringed in the Canary Islands (Spain) observed in the Abrolhos Archipelago, eastern Brazil, and compiled similar events (N = 5) in the Southwest Atlantic Ocean coast. Our results indicate that these events are largely unnoticed in the scientific literature as most of them were found in non-scientific newspaper and academic conferences, thus, untraceable from scientific databases as Scopus and Google Scholar. As domestic pigeons are possible intermediate hosts of diseases, we encourage the creation of a systematized database of this kind of movements of these birds, including the profile of these vagrants and the circumstances in which these events occur, which can be a basis to be used for scientists and decision makers.


Keywords


Abrolhos archipelago; alien species; citizen science; coastal islands; ring recovery

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References


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Submitted: 24 August 2019

Accepted: 7 July 2020

Published on line: 27 July 2020

Associate Editor: Nuria Pistón




DOI: https://doi.org/10.4257/oeco.2020.2404.03

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