Spoon-billed Sandpipers and hunting (1 Viewer)

gandytron · Jun 29, 2010

Hi All

Press release from the BTO below, and paper available from http://www.bto.org/

Hopefully these findings can be used to bring about quick and effective action to relieve hunting pressure on SpBS in Myanmar.

Best wishes

Dave

---------------------------------------

From British Trust for Ornithology

News Release No. 2010-06-28

For immediate use

Getting a handle on Spoon-billed Sandpipers – one of the world’s rarest birds

The Spoon-billed Sandpiper, one of the world’s most threatened birds,
could be rapidly heading towards extinction. The latest research outlines why, and what we can do to save this enigmatic species.

Evidence from the breeding area indicates that the Spoon-billed
Sandpiper declined by 88% between 2002 and 2009, making this one of the most rapidly declining birds in the world. British scientists have been involved in finding out why this might be and have just published their findings in two scientific papers.

The entire breeding population, found in Russia’s far north-west
numbered around 1,000 pairs in 2002. This had dropped to 120-220 pairs by 2009. No changes were found in adult survival over the same period and
parents fledged chicks in each year. However, the recruitment of these
young birds back into the adult population was zero in all but one of the years studied.

Observations from wintering areas confirm the declining trend observed
in the breeding areas but until recently little was known about the wintering areas of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper. The rapid decline of this species
resulted in expeditions to possible wintering areas to find out more.
In both 2009 and 2010 around 200 birds were found wintering in the Bay of Martaban, Myanmar, constituting most of the known world population.

There was extensive evidence of the hunting of waders in all the sites
visited, the majority of hunters encountered knew of Spoon-billed Sandpiper and probably caught them every year. For a species with such a small known breeding population, it is likely that hunting in the wintering area is the major cause of the species’ decline, exacerbated by the fact that the Spoon-billed Sandpiper’s core wintering area happens to be in an area of high hunting pressure.

Dr Nigel Clark, Head of Projects at the British Trust for Ornithology
and a scientist on the Spoon-billed Sandpiper expeditions, commented, “Urgent action is needed to find ways to give the local hunters economic
alternatives to hunting. An awareness campaign will also help to persuade hunters to release Spoon-billed Sandpipers they catch. It is also vitally important to protect the habitats of the Bay of Martaban. Without
urgent conservation action, the Spoon-billed Sandpiper could become
extinct within 10–20 years.”

Christoph Zockler, Lead Author on both papers, said, “Both papers
illustrate the critical state of the species that will be extinct in the next decade or so if the rate of decline continues. Fortunately the expeditions
during the two winters found what is probably the main wintering
population in the world, in Myanmar, and we are confident that we can address the threats caused by hunting and trapping there.” He added, “There is some hope. Local people in Myanmar hunting waders for food are keen to
cooperate with the Spoon-billed Sandpiper Recovery Team and find alternatives. This will help to halt the current state of rapid decline.”

Alan Tilmouth · Jul 1, 2010

One of the suggested actions that I found most intriguing was the prospect of a captive breeding programme to attempt to ensure survival. I'm unsure whether this has ever been tried with wader species? There must be some huge challenges to achieve success with a project of this nature and it may well be that some of the skills and knowledge may well lie with those that hold gamebird collections across the world. Thoughts and comments?

Steve Dudley · Jul 2, 2010

This is a major issue and I think those working on it are investigating all means of maintaining the population and protecting the habitats. There is little point have a captive breeding population if the habitat is not secure.

The BOU are already funding a Bangladeshi researcher there this winter (2010-11) and I know OBC and BirdLife are involved with other projects out there.

Steve Dudley
BOU

Alan Tilmouth · Jul 2, 2010

Having spent a little time in Bangladesh, albeit several years ago, I think it worth highlighting to Birdlife et al that the UK clothing industry has a large presence in terms of manufacturing in Bangladesh (but not Myanmar unless the situation has changed).
Companies such as Asda, M&S, Tesco may as a result be a possible source of project funding as a way of 'greening' what they do in Bangladesh. One of them might even be interested in a Spoon-billed Sandpiper campaign to sit alongside some of the products with a % donation.
The other comment I would make in relation to captive breeding is the World Pheasant Association have a huge number of worldwide contacts with a great deal of expertise in both captive breeding and re-introduction in many countries and might be worth talking to by whoever is looking at captive breeding.

Strandman · Jul 2, 2010

Rare Visitor said:
One of the suggested actions that I found most intriguing was the prospect of a captive breeding programme to attempt to ensure survival. I'm unsure whether this has ever been tried with wader species?

It is borne of extreme desperation: but Black Stilt and Shore Plover in New Zealand are examples of captive breeding and release of waders. Obviously, both very diferent waders with a very different ecology to SbS though.

Some experiments with Sanderling might be good start for a dummy run; sometimes they seem closer in moult, movements etc, to SbS than do stints.

Acrocephalus · Jul 24, 2010

This last note in Nature repeats some actions that need to be done that were proposed earlier by C. Zöckler et al. Wader Study Group Bull. 117, 1–8; 2010.

Székely, T. & Sutherland, W. J. (2010). Hunting the cause of a population crash. Nature 466: 448. PDF

The authors (they mean: C. Zöckler et al. Wader Study Group Bull. 117, 1–8; 2010) propose that incentives should be offered to the villagers to conserve the birds; village elders may then ensure that there is no hunting. Such mechanisms have worked elsewhere in Myanmar.

The story illustrates how conservation is as much a social science as a biological one. When the two come together, there is hope for real change.

lashinala · Jul 24, 2010

Conservation biology through ecological anthropology? Interesting. :t:

Acrocephalus · Jul 25, 2010

lashinala said:
Conservation biology through ecological anthropology? Interesting. :t:

That what should be done, a community-based conservation, not only in this case but all across the globe (in many cases this could get better results than would be by the methods followed today, Merja Zerga in Morocco as an example).

lashinala · Jul 25, 2010

Yes, I met a Moroccan here several years ago who mentioned Merja Zerga. He was going to IFDC (ifdc.org) in Muscle Shoals. If a local community is convinced that their biological diversity has a monetary/patriotic/intrinsic value, even to someone else, many are cooperative. Convincing them is the difficult part.

Richard Klim · Jul 26, 2010

Hunting the cause of Spoon-billed Sandpiper population crash?

Acrocephalus said:
Székely, T. & Sutherland, W. J. (2010). Hunting the cause of a population crash. Nature 466: 448.

Nial Moores, on the Oriental Birding mailing list yesterday...
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/orientalbirding

Dear All,

Only having read a similar account linked to by the BTO website and elsewhere (and not the Nature article), it seems that the evidence of hunting having a major impact on remaining individuals is high.

However, I would sincerely appreciate learning how the evidence supports hunting (esp. at one key overwintering site) as having caused the long-term population decline of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper.

Without very compelling evidence it seems counterproductive to emphasise hunting as the cause of the species' population crash at the cost of removing the / much of the focus away from habitat loss.

Here in the Republic of Korea for example, it is very clear that key staging sites have been either degraded (e.g. the Nakdong Estuary) or reclaimed (e.g. Saemangeum) most especially during the past 25 years. In the case of the Nakdong, before barrage construction in the late 1980s the estuary was said to have supported several hundred individuals (Gore and Won, 1971). These years, it supports ca 5 each year. In the case of Saemangeum, a single roost during southward migration (was said to have) held 170 or 175 individuals as recently as the end of the 1990s. Following seawall close at Saemangeum 2006, we measured a very rapid drop in number of individuals staging at Saemangeum - along with other shorebird species dependent upon the same site. We have found no evidence that the species has been able to relocate to other sites once that optimal site was lost. If the bill were not enough of an indication, at prefered sites the species tends to favour very small areas within larger estuaries, suggesting a (very) high level of specialisation.

In Japan, there has also been remarkable loss and degradation of inter-tidal areas and open estuaries during the past 30 or 40 years or so, and the species, while not recorded there in as large concentrations as in Korea, has shown a decline there over past decades too.

While there has been an even shorter history of comprehensive shorebird survey work elsewhere along most of this species' Flyway, recent decades and years have seen massive habitat loss and degradation in e.g.Sakhalin (where the species was said to have staged in large numbers, though hard data have apparently been hard to find), along the Chinese coast, in parts of Vietnam (including one small site in the Mekong Delta that had between one and five wintering there a decade ago: now infilled apparently), and in other parts of the species' wintering range.

Even now, one of the Spoon-billed Sandpipers prime prime known wintering areas, Sonadia Island in Bangladesh, is threatened by deep-port construction.

Is it really just coincidence that the species' detected decline over the past few decades appears to have accelerated in tandem (more or less) with the increase in habitat loss in the Yellow Sea, in Japan and elsewhere?

Unless it can be proven that the Spoon-billed Sandpiper is able to relocate to other (suboptimal) sites following loss or degradation of optimal sites, then massive habitat loss and degradation will have led to a massive decline in the species.

Yes, it is imperative to find ways to stop the pressure of hunting at sites used by this wonderful species. Its short-term survival might well depend on it.

However, such efforts might well have little value over the longer term if the species' habitat, shared by a large number of other declining species, still continues to be reclaimed and drained, dammed and degraded.

Nial Moores
Birds Korea

E-mail: [email protected]
http://www.birdskorea.org
http://www.birdskorea.or.kr

Richard

Acrocephalus · Jul 26, 2010

Hunting the cause of Spoon-billed Sandpiper population crash?

This is the original paper discussed in the Nature note cited above:

Zöckler C. et al. (2010). Hunting in Myanmar is probably the main cause of the decline of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper Calidris pygmeus. Wader Study Group Bull. 117: 1–8. Full paper

The authors acknowledged other possible contributing factors to this decline, but their studies (this paper and others in press or submitted) indicates that the hunting takes the biggest blame.

Zöckler el al. (2010) wrote:

At present, the rate of decline of the global Spoon-billed Sandpiper population is thought to be of the order of 24% per annum (Zöckler & Syroechkovskiy, subm.). At this rate the species is likely to become extinct in about a decade. Apart from hunting, there are other possible contributory causes of the decline, including temperature-mediated habitat change on the breeding grounds, and loss of habitat through land reclamation in other non-breeding and passage sites. These may be as important as hunting, and might even be the ultimate cause of extinction. However, our studies have now established that hunting is a major cause of mortality that must be having a significant negative effect on the global population.

The authors proposed the following actions (followed by my own opinion on them):

a) Urgently contact the village communities in the prime Spoon-billed Sandpiper areas to make agreements under which hunting waders will cease or any Spoon-billed Sandpipers caught alive will be released in return for livelihood support.

The first half of this statement is hard to accept as such and I think they (the villagers/hunters) will not accept it. The local community will give up the hunting for food and/or additional income only if they have better choses which can be offered by the long-term solutions. In my humble opinion these solutions will work:
In long-term: better education for the children which means good future for them by moving to towns to work, so less and less hunting pressure as elder-and-uneducated people will die eventually. (I reckon that this may seem naïve to some people).
In short-term: proposition of real socio-economic alternatives to hunting by the government and its partners.

b) Engage with local communities to establish a greater understanding of the need to conserve Spoon-billed Sandpipers and garner their support to stop the hunting.

You can convince them to release of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper after capture, but that will have a little effect. Because, hunting other shorebirds will continue with the entire disturbance associated, and not all the hunters will be willing to cooperate.

c) Promote the designation of (1) the Gulf of Martaban, (2) the Salween River Mouth and Bilugyun Island, (3) Nan Thar Island and the Kaladan River Mouth in Arakhan region as protected/conservation areas. These sites might also be listed under the Ramsar Convention as they support internationally important numbers of wintering waders; moreover the Bay of Martaban also fulfls several criteria for UNESCO Man & Biosphere site nomination.

The simple designation will do nothing to reverse the situation, unless is accompanied with the implementation of long-term community based conservation.

I don’t know very much about the situation in Myanmar, but I think that must be there analogies, in a way or the other, with situations in Morocco and elsewhere.

Regards,
Mohamed

lashinala · Jul 26, 2010

The first half of this statement is hard to accept as such and I think they (the villagers/hunters) will not accept it. The local community will give up the hunting for food and/or additional income only if they have better choses which can be offered by the long-term solutions. In my humble opinion these solutions will work:
In long-term: better education for the children which means good future for them by moving to towns to work, so less and less hunting pressure as elder-and-uneducated people will die eventually. (I reckon that this may seem naïve to some people).
In short-term: proposition of real socio-economic alternatives to hunting by the government and its partners.

With all due respect, I disagree. Ideally, yes they would give up hunting. But as I've said before on this forum, if the culture depends on hunting, they won't give it up easily. It's a skillset that they've earned over generations and that doesn't disappear when someone from 'the government' says they should stop...and I agree with their stance to keep hunting as it a) defends their biological heritage...(hopefully not minus a wader?) and b) keeps a cultural skillset they have possibly used for generations. Moving the indigenous people opens the whole area to 'development' which guarantees NO waders will be there within 100 years. i.e. "That area would make a wonderful 36 hole golfcourse and just add some highrise apartments in the back" In other words, if you stop the hunting by moving indigenous people out, you lose eventually.
In the long term, someone has to insure that the marsh remains a marsh, the jungle a jungle and the estuary an estuary, etc. Who do you trust with this responsiblity? A government employee looking to please future taxpayers or an indigenous person that has a vested interest in the area? Both are subject to corruption, but only one has to answer to the harshest critics of all....their families that still live there. If we educate our young to be 'more urban', then expect them to be less aware of their own biological heritage, because they are not grounded or tied to the land. If we educate them not to hunt, then they later vote as non-hunters...they play golf, live in highrise apartments, and drain tropical swamps for a living. Not good.
Just my opinion.

Acrocephalus · Jul 26, 2010

lashinala said:
With all due respect, I disagree. Ideally, yes they would give up hunting. But as I've said before on this forum, if the culture depends on hunting, they won't give it up easily. It's a skillset that they've earned over generations and that doesn't disappear when someone from 'the government' says they should stop...and I agree with their stance to keep hunting as it a) defends their biological heritage...(hopefully not minus a wader?) and b) keeps a cultural skillset they have possibly used for generations. Moving the indigenous people opens the whole area to 'development' which guarantees NO waders will be there within 100 years. i.e. "That area would make a wonderful 36 hole golfcourse and just add some highrise apartments in the back" In other words, if you stop the hunting by moving indigenous people out, you lose eventually.

Actually we don’t disagree in this, just the wording of my idea was too short and probably you didn’t get my point. As you said, if some hunting is cultural, it is difficult for the people to give up easily their long tradition because someone from the government told them that. Zöckler et al. (2010) cited two main reasons for hunting: 1) for food resources and/or additional income, and 2) for religious purposes. So the hunting associated with the first motive (food and/or income) can be remedied easily by education and getting good jobs for young people, but by no means, I didn’t mean moving these people from their fatherland. Other sustainable practices (ecotourism…) and other alternatives solutions (not necessary depends on that ecosystem) can be used by the families that stay behind, so the perennity of these ecosystems can be guaranteed. Only my views, they could be not realistic though.

Irish Kite · Jul 26, 2010

Richard Klim said:
Nial Moores, on the Oriental Birding mailing list yesterday...
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/orientalbirding

Richard

Thanx Richard for an interesting(though in many ways depressing) read!! - From this and the other info I have on wildlife in Korea it appears there is a "development at all costs " culture that has led to near total devastation of most major habitats with many national extinctions and increasing numbers of species going on the endangered list. Unfortunaly it appears that this economic model, that has little regard for most of the basic tenets of sustaineable development or the appreciation of the value of biodiversity to a country's overall well-being economically, socially etc. is being increasingly adopted by many other east Asian countries|

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Acrocephalus · Jul 28, 2010

Zöckler et al. (2010). Rapid and continued population decline in the Spoon-billed Sandpiper Eurynorhynchus pygmeus indicates imminent extinction unless conservation action is taken. Bird Conservation International 20 (2):95-111. Full paper

Spoon-billed Sandpipers and hunting (1 Viewer)

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