The threatened Rufous Limestone Babbler Gypsophila calcicola—not a quarry species, but a “quarried species”

Abstract

Summary Limestone karst habitats are threatened globally by quarrying for production of concrete and cement. A significant area of limestone karst shared among the provinces of Saraburi, Lopburi and Nakhon Ratchasima in Thailand encompasses the entire global range of a threatened bird taxon, the Rufous Limestone Babbler Gypsophila calcicola. We estimate that 10% of the suitable habitat for this species had already been lost to quarrying by 2020, and the extension of already proposed concessions could increase this to one-quarter, with the total area impacted by proposed future quarrying as great as 273 km2, or one and a half times greater than the entire area thought to support the species, within a few years. Only 2.66 km2 (1.4% of the species’ range) has received formal habitat protection as national park. We propose further surveys of the babbler be incorporated as part of a wider biotic survey of the Saraburi Group Limestones, leading to the development of an integrated management and zoning plan that takes account of the distributional knowledge of other threatened endemic taxa of this region.