Sao Tome Oriole (Oriolus crassirostris)

Red List Team (BirdLife International)

Sao Tome Oriole (Oriolus crassirostris)

Africa

This discussion was first published as part of the 2021 Red List update. At the time a decision regarding its status was pended, but to enable potential reassessment of this species as part of the 2024 Red List update this post remains open.

The initial discussion on this topic can be viewed here.

9 thoughts on “Sao Tome Oriole (Oriolus crassirostris)

  1. Please take into consideration the points raised last year.

    The species occurs on a single location – the largest forest block in a small island, where multiple threats are in place, including anthropogenic forest degradation (there is a single market for timber, thus this should be considered a singular threat and not a combination of isolated events) and introduced mammals, which most likely prey on this species, at least during the breeding season (see study on the nearby island of Príncipe – https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/oryx/article/introduced-mona-monkey-is-a-key-threat-to-the-critically-endangered-principe-thrush/2C355A8886EBD951D7B2404E76A301EC).
    At most it can be considered to occur in two locations, if we assume that there is an effective protected area that offers some safety regarding these threats.
    Observations outside the forest are scarce and always in the proximity of forest, so I don’t think they deserve being considered separate locations.
    This would imply the species becoming EN – B1ab(iii,v). In which case, all other São Tomé endemic species currently listed as VU would need to be reassessed.

    Moving this species from LC to VU makes little sense when many other threatened species endemic to São Tomé that have similar habitat requirements and face similar threats are also classified based on inferred decline. This decline is more than suspected, considering the strong land-use changes currently taking place across the island (including coversion to oil palm monoculture of lowland forests where densities are especially high), resulting from a steep growth of the economy and of the human population, which will most likely continue for decades to come.

    Furthermore, there is no new data to justify this change, which is partially based on old population estimates that are suspitiously high.

  2. Preliminary proposal

    Based on available information, our proposal for the 2022.1 Red List is to pend the decision on this species and keep the discussion open, while leaving the current Red List category unchanged in the 2022.1 update.

    There is now a period for further comments until the final deadline on 27 February 2022, after which the recommended categorisations will be put forward to IUCN.

    Final 2022.1 Red List categories will be published on the BirdLife and IUCN websites in July 2022, following further checking of information relevant to the assessments by both BirdLife and IUCN.

  3. Pour ma part, le statut actuel de l’espèce devrait rester inchangé au regard des différentes informations susmentionnées. L’espèce demeure encore vulnérable (VU), rien qu’en se basant sur son aire de répartition, qui est restreinte à un bloc forestier, également confronté à des pressions anthropiques diverses au niveau de l’ïle. D’ailleurs, des études complémentaires devraient être menées pour évaluer l’impact réel des différentes perturbations sur la biologie de l’espèce, car les données disponibles n’en font pas mention. Même si des travaux (Soares et al. 2020) ont révélé que l’espèce fréquente occasionnellement aussi des agroécosystèmes, des forêts secondaires, cela devrait être au contraire une alerte pour entreprendre des mesures de protection de son habitat. D’emblée, selon Soares et al (2020), la population de l’espèce est plus importante dans la forêt primaires que dans les forêts secondarisées. De ce fait, le statut de l’espèce peut toujours rester VU tout en réaménageant certains critères. Par exemple, sur la base de son écologie, elle pourrait être classée (VU B2 ab(iii, v) au lieu de NT.

  4. Preliminary proposal

    Based on available information, our proposal for the 2022.2 Red List is to pend the decision on this species and keep the discussion open until 2023, while leaving the current Red List category unchanged in the 2022.2 update.

    There is now a period for further comments until the final deadline on 24 July 2022, after which the recommended categorisations will be put forward to IUCN. The final 2022.2 Red List categories will be published on the BirdLife and IUCN websites in December 2022, following further checking of information relevant to the assessments by both BirdLife and IUCN.

  5. Preliminary proposal

    Based on available information, our proposal for the 2023.1 Forum process is to pend the decision on this species and keep the discussion open.

    There is now a period for further comments until the final deadline on 12 February 2023, after which the recommended categorisations will be put forward to IUCN.

    Final 2023 Red List categories will be published on the BirdLife and IUCN websites in December 2023, following further checking of information relevant to the assessments by both BirdLife and IUCN.

  6. Preliminary proposal

    Based on available information, our proposal for the 2023 Red List is to pend the decision on this species and keep the discussion open, while leaving the current Red List category unchanged in the 2023 update.

    There is now a period for further comments until the final deadline on 2 July 2023, after which the recommended categorisations will be put forward to IUCN.

    The final 2023 Red List categories will be published on the BirdLife and IUCN websites in December 2023, following further checking of information relevant to the assessments by both BirdLife and IUCN.

  7. The proposed downlisting to NT is in the opposite direction to the change proposed for ST Scops Owl, and the difference seems to hinge on the definition of “location” for the two species. I agree with Ricardo’s comment above that this species cannot reasonably be regarded as comprising more than two locations (as discussed for ST Scops, and I agree with Ricardo that one single location makes the most sense). This would result in retaining ST Oriole as VU (as suggested above by Pierre Kouadiou), whereas ST Scops is considered likely to have a smaller AOO/EOO, leading to its proposed reclassification as EN.

  8. I maintain my position regarding this species. There is no significant new information since the last assessment, thus I see absolutely no reason to change the status of this species.

  9. Preliminary proposal

    Following a lengthy consideration of the issues with this proposal it has been decided that it should be withdrawn. The existing published assessment, published only shortly before these proposals were first posted, will stand until the species is reassessed during the next assessment cycle (2025-2030).

    All comments received will be retained to inform the reassessment and we thank those who have so helpfully contributed.

    No further comments will be approved on this topic and it will be closed at the end of this forum window.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *