Dendroica cerulea

Taxonomy

Assessment Information

Geographic Range

Population

Habitat and Ecology

Threats

Conservation Actions

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Taxonomy [top]

Kingdom	Phylum	Class	Order	Family
ANIMALIA	CHORDATA	AVES	PASSERIFORMES	PARULIDAE

Scientific Name:

Dendroica cerulea

Species Authority:

(Wilson, 1810)

Common Name/s:

English

–

Cerulean Warbler

Assessment Information [top]

Red List Category & Criteria:

Vulnerable A2c+3c+4c ver 3.1

Year Assessed:

2008

Assessor/s:

BirdLife International

Reviewer/s:

Bird, J. & Butchart, S.

Contributor/s:

Butcher, G.

Justification:
This species is listed as Vulnerable, because its population is estimated to have undergone a rapid decline owing to continuing habitat loss and fragmentation on its breeding and wintering grounds.

History:

2004

–

Vulnerable

Geographic Range [top]

Range Description:	Dendroica cerulea breeds from Quebec and Ontario (Canada), east to Nebraska and south to northern Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia (USA)¹. A four year study from 1997-2000 identified several seemingly key sites that support large populations⁴. These included the Cumberland Mountains north-west of Knoxville, Tennessee; the Montezuma wetlands complex and adjacent areas in central New York; the Kaskaskia River Valley and Shawnee National Forest in south eastern Illinois; the Jefferson Proving Ground of southern Indiana: Queens University Biological Station in south eastern Ontario; the Kalamazoo River of south western Michigan; the Eleven Point and Upper Current rivers in Missouri; the Shenendoah National Park and Blue Ridge Highway in western Virginia; and the Delaware River Valley and adjacent highlands of north western New Jersey. These areas may represent primary areas for population monitoring and conservation⁴. It migrates south through the south-eastern USA, the Bahamas, Cuba, Jamaica, the Caribbean slope of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama, and winters from Colombia and Venezuela south, mainly east of the Andes, to eastern Ecuador, eastern Peru and perhaps northern Bolivia¹. Breeding Bird Survey results show declines equating to 26% per decade over the period 1980-2002, but longer-term declines are even more severe⁷.
Countries:	Native: Bahamas; Barbados; Belize; Bolivia; Canada; Colombia; Costa Rica; Cuba; Ecuador; Guatemala; Honduras; Jamaica; Mexico; Nicaragua; Panama; Peru; United States; Venezuela Vagrant: Brazil; Cayman Islands; Netherlands Antilles; Puerto Rico; Saint Lucia; Trinidad and Tobago
Range Map:	Click here to open the map viewer and explore range.

Population [top]

Population:	Rich et al. (2003).
Population Trend:	Decreasing

Habitat and Ecology [top]

Habitat and Ecology:	Breeds in mature deciduous forest^1,2, often in the vicinity of swamps³. Migrating birds are recorded from a variety of forest woodland, secondary growth and scrub habitats¹. Wintering birds are found in Andean submontane forest, mainly between 1,000 and 2,000 m³. The nest is built on the branch of a tree, and breeding takes place between May and July³.
Systems:	Terrestrial

Threats [top]

Major Threat(s):	Degradation of habitat through land use change is the major threat to this species. Conversion of mature deciduous forest to agricultural or urban areas, fragmentation and increasing isolation of remaining mature deciduous forest, the change to shorter rotation periods and even-aged management, and loss of key tree species to disease are all breeding season constraints⁵. Wintering habitat is also threatened by conversion to other land uses such as pastureland, subsistence crops and coffee plantations, and is converted into coca plantations which have a detrimental effect on suitable primary forest habitat. Attempts to eradicate coca plantations will also potentially damage forests⁵. Mountaintop mining constitutes a known but as yet uncontrolled threat⁶.

Major Threat(s):

Degradation of habitat through land use change is the major threat to this species. Conversion of mature deciduous forest to agricultural or urban areas, fragmentation and increasing isolation of remaining mature deciduous forest, the change to shorter rotation periods and even-aged management, and loss of key tree species to disease are all breeding season constraints⁵. Wintering habitat is also threatened by conversion to other land uses such as pastureland, subsistence crops and coffee plantations, and is converted into coca plantations which have a detrimental effect on suitable primary forest habitat. Attempts to eradicate coca plantations will also potentially damage forests⁵. Mountaintop mining constitutes a known but as yet uncontrolled threat⁶.

Conservation Actions [top]

Conservation Actions:	Conservation Actions Underway It is listed as a species of concern on the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service website where full details of the species's status and conservation actions are listed. Current activities include planning projects that use estimates of minimum tract size for the species as criteria for habitat acquisition and protection, land protection and acquisition projects to increase the amount of forest in certain areas such as the Interior Low Plateaus and Coastal Plain of Tennessee, and the Cerulean Warbler Atlas Project, an information gathering project managed by Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology⁵. A symposium was held in 2006 to address the species's conservation⁸, followed by a summit in 2007 focussing on the development and implementation of conservation actions¹⁰. A reserve was created specifically for the species in Colombia managed by ProAves Colombia, the first reserve in South America specifically for a neotropical migrant landbird. Shade grown coffee is promoted as Cerulean warbler friendly. Over 1 million acres of bottomland forest in the USA have been replanted with native hardwoods. Conservation Actions Proposed Understand fully the requirements of the species in terms of ideal or high quality breeding habitat. Develop and test forest-stand management techniques that result in "ideal" or "high quality" habitat. Protect intact primary forest ecosystems to maintain wintering populations. Urgently protect key sites for the species in its breeding and non-breeding range. Conduct thorough environmental impact assessment prior to any mining operations to ensure that measures are taken to avoid destroying habitat and to mitigate against any negative impacts.

Conservation Actions:

Conservation Actions Underway
It is listed as a species of concern on the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service website where full details of the species's status and conservation actions are listed. Current activities include planning projects that use estimates of minimum tract size for the species as criteria for habitat acquisition and protection, land protection and acquisition projects to increase the amount of forest in certain areas such as the Interior Low Plateaus and Coastal Plain of Tennessee, and the Cerulean Warbler Atlas Project, an information gathering project managed by Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology⁵. A symposium was held in 2006 to address the species's conservation⁸, followed by a summit in 2007 focussing on the development and implementation of conservation actions¹⁰. A reserve was created specifically for the species in Colombia managed by ProAves Colombia, the first reserve in South America specifically for a neotropical migrant landbird. Shade grown coffee is promoted as Cerulean warbler friendly. Over 1 million acres of bottomland forest in the USA have been replanted with native hardwoods.

Conservation Actions Proposed
Understand fully the requirements of the species in terms of ideal or high quality breeding habitat. Develop and test forest-stand management techniques that result in "ideal" or "high quality" habitat. Protect intact primary forest ecosystems to maintain wintering populations. Urgently protect key sites for the species in its breeding and non-breeding range. Conduct thorough environmental impact assessment prior to any mining operations to ensure that measures are taken to avoid destroying habitat and to mitigate against any negative impacts.

Citation:	BirdLife International 2008. Dendroica cerulea. In: IUCN 2011. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2011.2. <www.iucnredlist.org>. Downloaded on 09 February 2012.
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