The curlews are one of the most
widespread and far-travelling of all the bird families — and also one of the
most threatened. It seems that wherever they roam, habitat loss and human
encroachment follows. We can’t let the Far Eastern Curlew go the same way as
its fellows.
The Numeniini — a tribe of large
waders including curlews and godwits — is one of the most threatened bird
groups on the planet. The once-abundant Eskimo Curlew Numenius
borealis of the Americas is now considered Critically Endangered (Possibly
Extinct), having last been spotted with certainty in the 1960s. But the plight of
the Numeniini also extends over the Atlantic into the Old World. Here, the
extensive drainage of wetlands across the Mediterranean and North Africa —
important wintering grounds for many migratory birds across the
African-Eurasian Flyway — has rendered another species, the Slender-billed
Curlew Numenius tenuirostris,
missing in action for almost a quarter of a century.
Like the Eskimo Curlew, the
possibility of the extinction of the Slender-billed Curlew cannot be confirmed
for sure until we have scoured the entirety of its known breeding grounds in
the Siberian wilderness for a remnant population. And although it hasn’t been
recorded with confidence across its wintering range since February 1995, it’s
possible that a few remaining Slender-billed Curlews — gregarious birds by
nature — are still making the long trip south as part of a flock of a more
common species, such as Eurasian Curlew Numenius arquata or Whimbrel Numenius phaeopus.
Attempts to track down a
straggling Slender-billed Curlew population continue, with the RSPB (BirdLife
in the UK) recently using environmental data, gleaned from tiny atoms harvested
from museum specimens, to pinpoint a potential breeding ground in the Kazakh
steppes. But with each year that passes, it becomes more likely that Europe has
suffered its first avian extinction since the Great Auk Pinguinus impennis croaked its last
in 1852.
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