Conditions at migratory stopovers
or overwintering sites in east Asia driving poorer survival rates for Arctic
breeding shorebirds
Date: November 20, 2017
Source: Wildlife Conservation Society
A new study co-authored by WCS
(Wildlife Conservation Society) addresses concerns over the many Arctic
shorebird populations in precipitous decline. Evident from the study is that
monitoring and protection of habitat where the birds breed, winter, and
stopover is critical to their survival and to that of a global migration
spectacle.
To understand why arctic
shorebirds are declining and the role humans may be playing, Dr. Rebecca
Bentzen of the WCS Arctic Beringia Program and her colleagues set out to
quantify adult bird survival.
The scientists collected and
combined data across nine breeding sites in the Canadian and Alaskan Arctic in
2010-2014, engaging in unprecedented levels of collaboration as part of the
Arctic Shorebird Demographic Network.
Sites included the Teshekpuk Lake
Special Area in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A) and the coastal
plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Six species of shorebirds
were represented in the study -- American golden-plover, dunlin, semipalmated
sandpiper, western sandpiper, red-necked phalarope, and red phalarope.
Testing how ecological and
human-related variables affected the adult annual survival of the birds, the
scientists observed few breeding ground impacts, suggesting that shorebird
declines are not currently driven by conditions experienced on the Arctic
breeding grounds.
"In a positive sense, our
estimates for adult survival were substantially higher than previously
published across five of the six species," said Bentzen. "This is
good news; we seem to be doing the right thing in the Arctic as far as
conserving these birds."
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