The Trocaz pigeon is a vital seed-disperser in one of the world’s rarest forest ecosystems, but its taste for cabbage has put it in direct competition with humans. Guess who wins?

As we hike through the cool, low-canopied forest along a levada – a centuries-old water canal carved out of the mountainside – our guide talks effusively of a pigeon.

It’s the “guardian of the forest” the guide with MB Tours tells me and the other hikers. Known as the Trocaz pigeon, or alternatively the laurel pigeon or the long-toed pigeon, it’s only found here: on the Portuguese island of Madeira. We halt under an ancient laurel tree and the guide explains that the endemic pigeon is vital to Madeira because it disperses many of the plants found in this unique forest ecosystem: the laurisilva.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A Trocaz pigeon in the laurisilva. Photograph: Carlos Cabral

A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the laurisilva – a name that sounds like it was invented by Tolkien – is a relic ecosystem found only in a few places on our planet: the Azores, the Canary Islands, and the largest remnant here in Madeira. Made up largely of laurel trees, it’s an ecosystem that once covered much of southern Europe, some 15-40 million years ago. And it’s home to many species found no-where, including the Trocaz pigeon with its unmistakably silver strips crisscrossing the nape of its neck.



“[The Trocaz pigeon] play[s] a determinant role for [the laurisilva’s] balance and expansion,” Catia Gouveia, with the Portuguese Society for the Study of Birds (SPEA) in Madeira, writes to me later.

And yet since 2012 the pigeon has been routinely culled on the island by the Forestry Police due to its propensity to raid agricultural fields, especially cabbage plantations and fruit orchards, important crops to the small island.

On its website, the government claims the pigeon has “disastrous socio-economic consequences for farmers and, consequently, for the family economy.”

This guardian of the forest is seen by many in Madeira as a pest, despite being a species found nowhere else and playing a vital role in keeping the laurisilva vibrant.

The royal pigeon

Madeira in Portuguese means ‘wood.’ When the Portuguese first settled in the 1420s they found an island blanketed in lush forest, specifically, the laurisilva. There were no natives living on Madeira – allowing the Portuguese to settle it without enslaving or exploiting indigenous people as they did in Brazil, Angola, Mozambique and East Timor.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A levada in the laurel forest of Madeira. Photograph: Jeremy Hance

Not only was Madeira free of people, but, like a mini-New Zealand, the island also held zero land mammals – no rats, mice, cats, monkeys, dogs, or rabbits – just a few bats (the Azores was the same). Lying over 500 kilometers from the African coast, Madeira – about half the size of Hertfordshire – was simply too far over rough seas for land animals to make the crossing, even haphazardly.



The total absence of land mammals allowed the Trocaz pigeon to become the royalty of Madeira. Believed to be descended from common wood pigeons, the Trocaz pigeon found a niche on the island with few predators, no humans and little direct competition.



When people arrived, of course, things changed. Most of the forests were chopped down, some replaced with villages and towns, others with crops like cabbage, fruit and vineyards, others with exotic forests like eucalyptus. Today, only about 20 percent of the island remains covered in the laurisilva.



In the 1980s the Trocaz pigeon almost went extinct as hunting pushed the population to less than 3,000 animals. Only when hunting was outlawed and the pigeon was added to the Europe-wide Birds Directive in 1986 did the species began to recover. Today its population has reached about 10,000-14,000 individuals.

The story was a conservation success – and then some flocks started feasting on crops.

Guardian or pest?

When it comes to food, the Trocaz pigeon is an unfussy opportunist. Research has shown that they eat at least 33 plants from the laurel forests. But pigeon colonies living near agricultural areas have also taken a liking to locals’ fruit trees and crops, especially cabbage.

When a farmer reports they have problem pigeons, the government urges them to purchase various tools to force the birds away including petrol-fueled ‘bird scares’ that cause loud noises periodically, nets to keep the birds out of certain areas, and holographic tape that scares them off.

But where such measure haven’t succeeded, a spokesperson from the government’s Institute of Forests and Nature Conservation said the government was allowed to perform a “correction of the population” by the Forestry Police.

In others words, government officials come in and shoot the cabbage-devouring pigeons. The government did not respond to several queries asking how many pigeons have been shot.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Waterfall in the laurel forest of Madeira. Photograph: Jeremy Hance

Gouveia with SEPA said that culling birds protected under the EU Birds Directive should only be allowed in “exceptional cases.” She added that SEPA has not seen “sufficiently detailed studies to date” on what crops are being eaten and “above all” how much farmers are actually losing in economic terms.

“This information is important in order to take decisions on other possible measures, including compensation to farmers,” Gouveia said.

She said she does not believe that the government has “exhausted” all alternatives before turning to shooting. Nor does SEPA have information on how many farmers have actually tried all the other options before they turn to the government to deal with the problem pigeons.

While the Trocaz pigeon is currently listed as least concern that doesn’t mean it is at zero risk of extinction. Already, humans have eradicated a population that once lived on the neighboring island of Porto Santo. Now, it is a bird surviving on a single island with a population that, while stable, isn’t especially large. There are more people living in the village of Louth than all the Trocaz pigeons in Madeira – and therefore the world.

The birds look as inoffensive as any life form could be – but then again they aren’t eating my garden. Jeremy Hance

An epidemic could hypothetically wipe out such a population quickly. For example, disease is believed to have killed off two native rodents on Christmas Island within a decade of the arrival of black rats and their contagions. The best safeguard against a similar fate is a robust, genetically diverse population.

Still, there is no question that the species is a nuisance to many – and arguably an economic problem on Madeira. It is a conflict species: farmers have been known to illegally shoot and poison the pigeons.

But Manuel J. Nogales Hidalgo, a reseacher with the Spanish National Research Council, said the government’s decision to cull the pigeons was “difficult to understand” given that usually endemic island species are suffering from far too few individuals – rarely too many.

Sea cliffs

In some ways, the plight of the Trocaz pigeon is a microcosm for our global wildlife crisis. Around the world, wildlife populations have plunged by approximately 58 percent in just the last forty years, according to WWF and the Zoological Society of London, which are tracking 3,700 vertebrate species worldwide.

As the human population has grown – seven billion plus – the world’s other life-forms have less and less habitat in which to make their homes and fewer resources to keep them alive. And whenever any of these non-human species – whether it is wolves, bears, elephants, rabbits, lions, spiders, snakes, leopards, deer, crows, coyotes, or Trocaz pigeons – dare to bother us in our space it rarely ends well for them.



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Sure, we’re fine with wild species – but only so long as they stay where they belong: in national parks and other protected areas (about 14 percent of land and 3 percent of the oceans).

The human species is evolutionary covetous for the most part, unwilling to share, unwilling to live and let live, unwilling to sacrifice even just a little for another species’ well-being. Our lawns are manicured into grassy deserts, our lakes stocked with the fish we want to catch, our oceans blanketed by nets and lines, even our national parks are invaded by oil, gas, mining, and logging industries. It’s difficult enough for humans to share with other humans – let alone other animals.

Still, as the Earth undergoes a potential mass extinction, it remains to be seen whether we humans are capable of viewing the natural world a little differently. Are we able to see our earth as something no longer limitless and no longer abundant, as something that is being displaced and wrung out? Something that’s maybe even worth sacrificing a little for?

We don’t see any Trocaz pigeons on my hike through the laurisilva. But one afternoon I find them with my binoculars cooing on the sea cliffs. Large and heavy-set, the flashing stripes on their neck gives them an unexpected beauty. And I realize: this is the only place on our planet where one can do this - watch the light glint off a Trocaz pigeon’s silver feathers.

Chilling out in the noon sun, the birds look as inoffensive as any life form could be – but then again they aren’t eating my garden.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Laurel forest in Madeira. A common ecosystem in southern Europe long before humans evolved, now only found on a few islands in the Atlantic. Photograph: Jeremy Hance

As I watch the pairs, I find myself trying to solve the puzzle: how do we keep the people happy and the pigeons alive? Should farmers be asked to give up on some of their crops? Should pigeons be moved out of agricultural areas? Should we just keep shooting?

My mind wanders: why not stop the culling? But will farmers simply retaliate with illegal shooting and poisoning? Why not sell wildlife-friendly cabbage at a premium? Maybe the Maderian hipsters will love it – but most would still buy the cheap stuff. Or why not pay farmers for every lost cabbage? Why not ask tourists to donate to the ‘save the pigeons’ fund? Hey, we could rewild the island of Porto Santo with Trocaz pigeons – then we’d have an insurance population!

I soon realise I don’t have an easy answer. But that’s the luxury of being a journalist: I don’t need one. I just need to tell the story and hope someone cleverer figures it out.