At first glance, the Timor green pigeon doesn’t seem like the kind of bird that makes headlines. It’s a pigeon, after all, one of the most common types of bird in the world.
It’s a soft, grayish green, with yellow-tipped wings that help it blend in among the treetops, where it all but disappears. But unlike its common cousins, this unassuming bird now survives only in the forests of Timor-Leste, and it’s running out of time.
Once a common sight, the Timor green pigeon has dwindled to just 100 to 500 birds in the wild, according to a new study. Drawing on more than two decades of fieldwork, researchers found that the bird, which once ranged across Timor and a few neighboring islands in both Indonesia and Timor-Leste, has vanished from most of those places. Today, it survives mainly in and around Nino Konis Santana National Park in eastern Timor-Leste.
Jafet Potenzo Lopes, a Conservation International scientist and study co-author, has spent years working to keep the bird from disappearing. He believes its best chance lies with the villagers who share the forests — including some who hunt it.
“If we lose this species, we lose one of the iconic endemic birds of Timor,” he said. “We lose something special that nature gave us.”
An easy target
Prized for their rich, oily meat, hunting is driving the decline. The bird’s own habits make them extra vulnerable. In the dry season, when food is scarce, the pigeons gather in the few trees that still bear fruit — where hunters know they can find them.
“You can see all of them crowding in the same tree,” Potenzo said. “And unlike many other birds, they don’t scatter at the crack of a gun — they stay put. Hunters can take out many in just a few minutes.”
Other pigeons are hunted in Timor-Leste, too, but unlike the green pigeon, their populations have been able to withstand the pressure.
The green pigeon is already classified as endangered, and the researchers behind the new study are calling for it to be reclassified as critically endangered, the highest risk category before extinction in the wild. But Potenzo said a new label alone won’t save the bird.
“It shouldn’t only be on paper,” he said. “What do we do in action? We must be solution oriented.”
For Potenzo, that action starts in the villages closest to the pigeon’s forests. The people who live alongside the birds, including the hunters who target them, are the partners most likely to reverse the decline, he said.
Not just a pigeon
Part of the challenge is the same quality that makes the bird so easy to overlook. To many in Timor-Leste, the Timor green pigeon is just another pigeon — and they don’t realize its populations are plummeting.
Awareness is the first step in restoring the bird’s numbers, Potenzo said.
“When you know a species is endangered, you are much more likely to take care of it,” he said.
When he visits communities near the pigeon’s remaining habitat, he doesn’t lecture the community — he starts by showing a photo of the bird and playing its call. He then asks two questions: How often did you see this bird 10 or 20 years ago? And, how often do you see it now?
The answers usually follow the same script: often in the past, rarely now. From there, people often ask the question he’s hoping to hear: Why?
“In conservation, you need to put yourself in the position of a humble person,” Potenzo said. “You can’t come in as if you already have all the answers.”
Potenzo hopes to turn the communities and people who once hunted the pigeon into its protectors. He envisions a citizen science program in which community members and hunters report every sighting of the green pigeon. Over time, those records would show where the birds are and how many remain, giving conservationists population data that has long been missing.
He believes that protecting the bird could also bring income to local people. There are programs in the region that pay communities to monitor wildlife and share sightings with researchers. There’s also potential in birdwatching tourism — he says enthusiasts will travel far and pay well for a chance to see a bird found nowhere else.
Potenzo imagines former hunters guiding visitors through the forest, people who once helped push the pigeon toward extinction and are now working to save it. The approach has worked elsewhere. In Mexico, when fishermen who once hunted endangered crocodiles began protecting them instead, they found that the animals helped keep the ecosystem healthy, including the shrimp fishery they depend on. Today, the two coexist, and the ecosystem is recovering.
“They will be the main actors,” he said. “They can tell their own story: before we knew, we shot a lot of green pigeons, and now only so many remain.”
It won’t be easy, he says, but it may be the bird’s best chance.
Still here
Recently, during a field assessment in a remote part of Timor-Leste, Potenzo saw three Timor green pigeons in an area where the species had never been documented before.
In a dense forest, surrounded by water and mud, they were in a place few people go. Potenzo suspects that’s exactly why they were there. They may have moved from Nino Konis Santana National Park, where they’re known to reside, and found refuge somewhere hunters can’t easily reach.
“I’m not saying I was surprised to see them there,” he said. “But I was relieved — they’re still here.”
He knows that hope is fragile. A single hunting trip could wipe out the three birds he found.
“If people shoot them, they’ll be gone, and we don’t know when we’ll see them again in the wild,” he said. “It’s up to all of us to ensure we don’t lose them forever.”
