Ridgway's Hawk Buteo ridgwayi Scientific name definitions

Ridgway's Hawk is endemic to the Caribbean island of Hispaniola and satellite islands (1 Wiley, J. W. and B. N. Wiley. (1981). Breeding-season ecology and behavior of Ridgway's Hawk (Buteo ridgwayi). Condor 83 (2):132-151. Close , 2 BirdLife International. (2000). Threatened birds of the world: the official source for birds on the IUCN red list. Barcelona, Spain, and Cambridge, U.K: Lynx Edicions and BirdLife International. Close ). It is a small forest Buteo with an overall grayish brown appearance. Formerly distributed throughout the countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, the last known record for the species in Haiti occurred in 1962 (3 Woolaver, L. G. (2011). Ecology and conservation genetics of Ridgway's Hawk Buteo ridgwayi. PhD dissertation, York University, Toronto, Canada. Close ) and it was believed to be extirpated there (4 Latta, S., C. Rimmer, A. Keith, J. Wiley, H. Raffaele, K. McFarland and E. Fernandez. (2006). Birds of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Close ), until two individuals (one juvenile and one of unknown age) were observed in Haiti in 2019 (Jean and Hayes, unpubl. data), signifying that at least one breeding pair remains. Ridgway’s Hawk is critically endangered with an estimated global population of fewer than 400 individuals (T. Hayes and R. Thorstrom, unpubl. data). The species’ last known stronghold is Los Haitises National Park and surrounding areas in northeastern Dominican Republic. Once locally common and widespread across elevation and habitat types, it is now confined to mosaics of mature and disturbed forests with agricultural plots. Owing to a translocation program conducted by The Peregrine Fund, a second population of Ridgway's Hawk has been established at Punta Cana on the southeast side of the island where it inhabits a resort landscape of manicured lawns, trees, and golf courses, as well as patches of dry forest.