Also known as: Pea Dove, Well’s Dove.
One of the world’s rarest doves
The Grenada Dove (Leptotila wellsi) is endemic to the island of Grenada and is listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List. Its population is extremely small and fragmented, confined to two main areas of secondary dry forest — one in the southwest around the Mt. Hartman estate, and one on the west coast around the Perseverance and Beausejour areas.
A fragile population
Numbers have long been precarious: the population was estimated at around 100 birds in 1998, rising to roughly 180 by 2003–2004 before Hurricane Ivan struck Grenada in September 2004. Post-hurricane surveys indicated a decline, particularly on the west coast. Much of the remaining habitat lies on unprotected, fragmented land.
Identification and voice
A medium-sized ground dove with warm pale-brown upperparts, a whitish face and white underparts, and pinkish-red legs. Its song is a single descending note about a second long, repeated monotonously every several seconds — sometimes for hours — which is the main way the elusive bird is detected.
Habitat and behaviour
The Grenada Dove is a bird of dry coastal and lowland forest, foraging on the ground for seeds and small invertebrates among the leaf litter and nesting low in shrubs and small trees. This dependence on dry forest is itself a vulnerability: dry coastal land is exactly the habitat most sought after for tourism and residential development on a small island, so the dove competes directly with construction for the ground it needs.
Conservation
Conservation efforts centre on protecting the dove’s two remaining strongholds, especially the Mt. Hartman National Park, alongside habitat restoration, monitoring of the calling population, and control of introduced predators such as rats, cats and mongooses that take eggs and chicks. As Grenada’s national bird and one of the rarest doves in the world, it has become a focus for both national pride and international conservation attention — a small population whose survival depends on safeguarding a few fragments of forest.
