Hi Marilyn,
Great to hear about your concern about the decline in our migratory waders.
Unfortunately it is not the result of colour flagging (I say unfortunately
because if it was the cause the solution would be simple). In actual fact
many of our smallest waders (Red-necked Stints) manage an arduous migration
to the high Arctic and return every year, some were flagged up to 18 years
ago and still going strong.
Hope you have been following the progress of the satellite tagged Bar-tailed
Godwits via our website. It is amazing to see some of these birds fly direct
from New Zealand to the top end of the Yellow Sea (near the North Korean
border) in one flight carrying satellite transmitters. These birds don't
even seem to be tired, some of them flying over 1000 or 2000km of suitable
tidal flats in South Korea to their preferred destination to refuel before
moving on to Alaska. One would think that birds carrying such a heavy
payload would be exhausted, stopping at the first opportunity. We do see of
course the occasional bird that stops off somewhere, but this becomes
obvious when looking at weather maps at the time. Their navigational skills
and assessment of weather conditions is remarkable to say the least.
The good thing about satellite tagging is that a handful of birds can tell
us more that the tens of thousands of birds flagged in the past, however, it
is because of flagging we know so much about migration routes and staging
areas, enabling us to look in the right places during field work in the Asia
Pacific over the past 20 years or so.
To get back to the decline in the numbers of waders. The worst hit are
species for which we do not have good information on migration routes, such
as the Curlew Sandpiper in Australia. This species is in serious decline and
we need to find out why. Interestingly, the Red-necked Stint seems to be
fine with numbers pretty stable over the past 25 years. There are some
species that are in decline for very obvious reasons - hundreds of square
kilometres of mudflats every year in China and Korea. Loss of habitat in
Australia is also of concern. Incremental losses over the past 60 years has
seen huge declines in the Hunter River estuary and also around Sydney.
Glad you were able to look at the Asia Pacific Shorebird Network website. We
will be working hard with the aid of researchers and volunteers to attempt
to find some of the answers about the decline in our waders. If you have not
registered as a subscriber please do so by logging in to
by putting "please sign me up for APSN News
Alerts" in the subject. By the way the stick figures of waders and leg flags
are deliberately exaggerated to make the colour flag combinations clear for
people to see.
It will be fantastic when we reach the stage in technology to be able to do
as you suggest, or use some of the tiny transmitters in the development
stage for satellite tracking. Radio transmitters are now even been fitted to
dragonflies!! When we get to the stage we can do this with satellite
transmitters or data loggers we can forget about leg flags!! In the meantime
stay tuned to the APSN website (starting up again in a few days after a bit
of a quiet period, wrestling with internet technology to enable us to send
news alerts for four or five thousand subscribers at a time.
Best wishes,
Phil Straw
Coordinator Asia Pacific Shorebird Network
From: Marilyn Davis
Sent: Thursday, 4 October 2007 9:46 AM
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Subject: Decline of small waders
Importance: High
Hello Birding-Ausers
The following link describes the major cause for decline of our small
waders.
<http://www.shorebirdnetwork.org/leg_flags.html>
http://www.shorebirdnetwork.org/leg_flags.html
Very good, isn't it. Imagine two large leg flags and a metal band on a
phalarope (relies on its legs to swim), a sanderling (needs its legs to run)
or a stint (needs its legs to walk through floating algae). Make no
mistake; impact on targeted rare and endangered waders from this destructive
practice is just as bad as any random habitat destruction.
But leg flagging has not been acknowledged as a threatening process for
birds? Because such a large number of waders are now leg flagged, why won't
the perpetrators consider research that will demonstrate impact such as a
comparative study using microchips? If a comparative sample of birds were
micro chipped and the same number uniquely leg flagged, retrap scanning
would soon prove my concerns.
Yes, micro chipping small birds has risks and must be expertly administered.
Sure, microchips are not visible but they can be electronically scanned and
strategic siting scanners near roosting sites would probably give better
results than population biased random field observation.
Nearly all of the leg flagged birds disappear without trace on their first
migration but the billygoats responsible refer to a pathetically small
number of retraps and field observations to justify their hideous work.
These are facts and you should be aware of the destructive consequences
caused by leg flagging before supporting this sort of 'bird conservation'.
I apologise for being forced to use this method to place a post on
birding-aus but Russel has banned me from birding-aus. So much for free
discussion or does he agree with leg flagging.
Regards
Marilyn Davis
Via Katherine NT
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now!
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