Animal of the week August 25, 2014 -- The rarest duck in the world

Still more common than animal of the week, this week's animal is maybe the rarest bird in the world. It's Aythya innotata (Madagascar pochard), a diving duck from Madagascar. Diving ducks, like pochards, scaups, and tufted ducks, obtain food by diving beneath the surface and picking food off the bottom of waterbodies; dabbling ducks, such as mallards and wigeon, glean food from the surface.

This critically endangered waterfowl was, for 15 years from 1991, thought to be extinct. It had vanished from its last known home on Lake Alaotra in central Madagascar, and surveys up to the early 2000s turned up a duck...or didn't. But in 2006, a small flock was found at Lake Matsaborimena in northern Madagascar. The Durrell Wildlife Trust, Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, and the Peregrine Fund, along with Madagascan partners set up conservation efforts including a breeding programme, now there are 25 birds in the wild and 80 in captivity.

Things are looking up, but the ducks will need a new home. The lake where those in the wild live now is a poor habitat for them, when chicks reach an age when they should start to be able to feed themselves they find the steep sided lake too deep to dive—up to 96% of chicks die before reaching adulthood.

So, the conservation groups are now scoping out possible new homes where they might reintroduce captive birds. But before they can they'll have to sort out the habitat, look into controlling introduced mammals and fish species that might eat the chicks, and engage with locals to make sure that farming practices and fishing techniques allow reintroduced birds to thrive.

On the EDGE list of all bird species, Madagascar pochards are number 568/9993. They aren't as high as former AOTW the giant ibis, because although they are fewer in number (100 vs 200) they are less evolutionarily distinct: other closely related species of diving ducks in the same genus are common and unthreatened, such as the common pochard (9825), canvas back (9826), and greater and lesser scaups (9829 and 98
30).