Blood Parasite Survey of Inca Doves from a South Texas Urban Environment

Abstract

Inca doves (Columbina inca) are a native species of southern and central Texas, which are locally abundant in urban areas. Unfortunately, little is known about the factors that may impact their populations such as predation, disease, and parasites. To learn more about factors that may influence the health of this species, we initiated a survey to determine if Inca doves in south Texas have blood parasites. Inca doves were live trapped on the Texas A&M University-Kingsville campus and surrounding City of Kingsville, aged and sexed, banded, sampled via leg vein puncture, and released. Two blood smears from each bird were made on microscope slides, preserved, stained, and examined under 1000x magnification. Forty-one Inca doves were captured from 5 July to 10 October, 2000. No blood parasites were observed on the smears. Our findings suggest that Inca doves were not infected or at least they were not demonstrating active infections in peripheral blood during late summer and early fall 2000.