8 Jun 2017
Today we celebrate World Oceans
Day as we finally reach 10 million – not dollars, pounds or euros – but
valuable data points in the Seabird Tracking Database. Discover how this
inspiring international collaboration enables scientists and policy-makers to
better understand and protect seabirds.
Seabirds undertake some of the
most incredible migratory journeys in the world. Take the Arctic Tern, for
example, whose travels from pole to pole every year exceed a whopping distance
of 80,000 km, or many shearwaters and skuas, with journeys of tens of thousands
of km, often across ocean basins. Protecting such highly migratory bird species
is a challenge, as different scientists, institutions or NGOs gather local data
and try to safeguard their patch of ocean with limited funds.
Inevitably, conservationists can
lose sight of the big picture if there’s no place to share the information.
This is where the Seabird
Tracking Database comes into play. One of the largest conservation
collaborations in the world, it was established by BirdLife in 2003, when data
on 16 species of albatrosses and petrels were put together for the first time
in order to identify the most important places for these seabirds and ensure
their protection.
From albatrosses to penguins,
petrels and gulls, the tracking database now gathers seabird data from over 120
research institutes (including BirdLife and its Partners), and more than 170
scientists. Data on Critically Endangered species such as the Tristan
Albatross Diomedea dabbenena, the Balearic
Shearwater Puffinus mauretanicus and another 36 globally
threatened species are regularly registered in the database. In total, the
database holds information for 113 species in more than 10 million locations.
