The bird on the Seychelles’ 25-rupee note once had only 12 survivors on one island; after another decline, conservationists helped rebuild it to around 280 across five islands

If you ever get a Seychelles 25-rupee note, take a good look at the front. Next to the coco-de-mer artwork is a small shiny black bird with a white wing bar. That’s the Seychelles magpie-robin, one of two birds depicted on the note, and it nearly did not survive long enough to appear on currency at all. A detailed 2016 study in Bird Conservation International titled ‘The history, status and trends of the Endangered Seychelles Magpie-robin Copsychus sechellarum’ found that by 1960, the bird’s population had fallen to just 12 birds, all crowded onto a single island. What happened next is one of the most hopeful bird recovery stories, with lessons for saving small, isolated species.

A bird pushed to the edge, twice

The magpie robin once lived across several islands in the Seychelles. Then the familiar causes of species extinction on islands came into play: deforestation for agriculture and rats and cats brought in on ships. Island populations disappeared one by one. The same study shows that by 1960 the species was surviving only on Frégate Island and the numbers had dropped to just 12 birds.


The revival process did not go smoothly. Conservation activities during the 1960s and 70s resulted in a rise of numbers up to 38 to 41 birds by 1977-78. But the numbers fell by nearly half again, and by the 1980s only 17 to 21 birds remained. The original low in 1960 did not inspire a dedicated rescue programme, but this renewed decline did.

The turnaround begins

In 1990, the International Council for Bird Preservation (now BirdLife International) began a recovery programme on Frégate for the Critically Endangered species with funding from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. The plan seemed simple enough on paper. Get rid of the predators, restore the forest, put up nest boxes, feed the birds if they needed it, and stop using the pesticides that were poisoning their food supply. In practice, it involved years of patient, unglamorous fieldwork.

It was worth it. As Frégate's population stabilized and began to increase, conservationists had a new option: spreading the risk across multiple islands, rather than keeping all the birds in one place. Birds were moved to Cousin in 1994, to Cousine in 1995, to Aride in 2002 and to Denis in 2008, each island selected because it had few or no predators and enough good habitat to support a colony.

Not all moves were smooth

The Cousin and Cousine populations settled in and eventually reached what scientists call saturation, meaning the islands were home to as many birds as the habitat could support. Denis Island's population was also on the rise, particularly after the mynah birds, competing with the native birds for nest sites, were brought under control. But Aride Island was another matter. After initial expansion, its population began to fall sharply through 2014 and into 2015, and researchers still weren't quite sure why. A similar report in Bird Conservation International cites disease, poor breeding success, social conflict between birds, and possibly genetic problems.

That uncertainty highlights a known risk in conservation: introducing only a few animals to start a new population can reduce genetic diversity without obvious early warning signs. The paper, ‘The impact of translocations on neutral and functional genetic diversity within and among populations of the Seychelles warbler,’ published in the journal Molecular Ecology, found that the warbler’s translocated island populations showed some, though limited, loss of genetic diversity compared to the source population they originated from. The warbler is a different species, but it faced the same kind of founder-population bottleneck now facing the magpie-robin, which makes its findings a useful cautionary parallel rather than direct evidence. That is a risk well worth watching for the magpie-robin too, for all five current populations are descended from the same few survivors on Frégate.

Where things stand now

By 2015, magpie-robins had been found on five islands instead of one, with a population of some 280 birds in total, a huge leap from the 1960 low of 12. The IUCN Red List downlisted the species from Critically Endangered to Endangered in 2005, a status that has held ever since.

Why this small bird matters to the rest of us

It’s easy to dismiss this as a nice nature story from a far-off island nation, but the magpie-robin’s journey is a lesson in patience. Conservation doesn’t happen in one dramatic rescue. It is the product of decades of unglamorous work: pulling weeds, trapping rats, counting birds one by one, and being honest when a population is beginning to slip again, rather than prematurely declaring victory.

That bird on that 25-rupee note is a reminder that recovery is possible. It’s never permanent, and it’s seldom a straight line. In the Seychelles, conservationists keep a close eye on Aride, keep replanting forest on Denis, and keep banding every chick that hatches. For a bird that once numbered just 12, it’s remarkable enough that it’s still around. To keep it that way will require the same slow, deliberate work that got it here.