Species Fact Profile: Socorro Dove (Zenaida graysoni)

Socorro Dove
Zenaida graysoni (Lawrence, 1871) 

Range: Previously found on Socorro and Revillagigedo Islands off the west coast of Mexico
Habitat: Lowland forests, up to 500 meters elevation
Diet: Fruits, Seeds, Berries, Insects Social Grouping: Solitary outside of breeding.   Pairs split up shortly after their chicks fledge.

Reproduction: Breeding has never been studied in the wild.  Believed that breeding season peaked in March and April.  In captivity, 2 white eggs are laid in elevated nest boxes.  Eggs are incubated 14-17 days, chicks fledge at 14-20 days

Lifespan:  15 Years (for closely related mourning dove)
Conservation Status: IUCN Extinct in the Wild

• Body length 26-34 centimeters, weighing 190 grams on average.  Differ from many doves in having longer legs, characteristic of a more terrestrial lifestyle
• Males are cinnamon-colored on the head and underparts with a blue-gray neck.  The head has an iridescent pink patch, most prominent just after molting.  Females and juveniles resemble males, but are duller
• The call is a two-syllable “Coo-oo”, followed by three shorter coos and then another long one (“Coo-oo, oo, oo, oo, coo-oo”)
• Very terrestrial, feeds mostly on the ground.   Mammalian predators were traditionally absent from the island; avian predators included hawks and frigatebirds. 
• Genus name Zenaida honors the niece of Napoleon Bonaparte, Zenaida Laetitia Julie Bonaparte, a Princess of Canino and Musignano, by her ornithologist husband, Charles Bonaparte.  The species name graysoni honors the American ornithologist Andrew Jackson Grayson
• Although the species was common on the islands as late as the 1950s, the last sighting of a specimen in the wild was in 1972.  Several had been collected for aviculture in the 1920s, forming the basis of captive populations in Europe and North America
• Some birds in the captive population were later found to be hybrids with the closely related and much more common mourning dove (Z. macroura) and had to be excluded
• In 2013, several captive-bred doves were transferred to Mexico’s Africam Safari Park to establish an additional captive breeding colony in that country, with the aim of eventual reintroduction to the islands
• Primary cause of decline believed to be the introduction of invasive species – cats, which predated on the doves, and sheep, which overgrazed and destroyed their habitat.  Efforts are underway to clear invasive species from the island