autumn and winter, and leaves are consumed in spring and summer when fruits are scarce. In one study, 27% of the leaves consumed came from native trees, especially Small-leaved Holly, 61% from herbs and shrubs, and nearly 10% from introduced trees, mainly apples and peaches. This pigeon will feed in agricultural areas, where cabbage is the most commonly taken crop plant. Pigeon faeces from agricultural areas contain few native plants, and samples from forests have few crop species, so some individual birds may concentrate on crops. Feeding in cultivated land is commonest in winter, when fruit is readily available, so it appears not to be a shortage of natural foods that causes them to leave the forest, but is mostly opportunistic, resulting from the birds' movements through nearby forest. However, when the fruit crop of Til and Azores Laurel is poor, large numbers of pigeons may leave the forest to feed on cabbage, flowering cherries and vine shoots. Competition for food with rats can be significant in parts of the island. Status The trocaz pigeon formerly bred on both the main island of Madeira and nearby Porto Santo Island. It was very abundant when the islands were first colonised by humans, but was extirpated on Porto Santo, and by 1986 had declined to about 2,700 birds. Hunting was banned in that year, and there are now between 7,500 and 10,000 individuals in approximately of suitable habitat. The losses on the two islands, the only inhabited ones in the archipelago, were largely the result of deforestation for wood and to create agricultural and grazing land. The exclusion of livestock from the native forest allows the forest to regenerate and create more suitable habitat. Some illegal hunting and poisoning continues because of the damage this pigeon can do to crops, and the government allowed a cull in 2004. Perhaps the main limiting factor on the rate at which the pigeon increases its numbers is predation by introduced black rats on its eggs and young. The Madeira Nature Park has a management plan for the trocaz pigeon, and it is hoped that an education campaign and the promotion of bird scarers may reduce persecution. Its increasing population means that it is now classed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List, an improvement on its Threatened status in 1988. This species is protected under the European Union Birds Directive, and the laurel forests