Yapen Island boasts at least seven avian sub-species bear `jobiensis’ in its Latin taxonomy. Since 2012, SPF has recorded 130 species of bird from 50 families and nearly half of it is considered endangered. Birds known endemic to Papua were not found, instead 28 sub-endemic species to Yapen Island were clearly observed, among others: Coroneted Fruit-dove (Ptilinopus coronulatus geminus), Coconut lorikeet (Trichoglossus haematodus berauensis) and Lesser Bird of paradise (Paradisaea minor jobiensis).
This area is, indeed, home to four species of the Paradisaea family, as the only species of birds on earth worthy the name ‘paradise’: Jobi Manucode (Manucodia jobiensis), King Bird of paradise (Cicinnurus regius), Magnificent Bird of paradise (Cicinnurus magnificus) and Lesser Bird of paradise(Paradisaea minor). Few members of this family are perhaps best known for the elaborate plumage of the males which beauty had driven one of world’s evolutionary thinkers, Alfred Russell Wallace, to seek this particular species while conducting his field research in Singapore, Malaysian and Indonesian archipelago. He wrote his research in a scientific journal titled The Malay Archipelago which is regarded as probably the best of all journals of scientific exploration published during the 19th century. As he mentioned in the journal, harsh sea condition had prevented him from going to Jobi, but it did not stop him from obtaining samples and he praised the beauty of Lesser Bird of paradise as follow:
[…] In such a country and among such a people are found these wonderful productions of nature. In those trackless wilds do they display that exquisite beauty and that marvellous development of plumage, calculated to excite admiration and astonishment among the most civilized and most intellectual races of man. A feather is itself a wonderful and a beautiful thing. A bird clothed with feathers is almost necessarily a beautiful creature […] (Alfred Russell Wallace)
Saireri Paradise Foundation 