sdavid

The first Spoon-billed Sandpiper to hatch in captivity in the world  was always going to be a spectacular sight, but when a BirdLife Species Champion Heritage Expeditions boat docked in Anadyr, Russia, not one, not two, but an incredible 17 tiny, hatched Spoon-billed Sandpiper chicks emerged http://www.birdlife.org/spoonbilledsandpiper/?p=870

ajohn

Amazing to see photos of these chicks.

Let's hope the attempted rescue attempt is successful, but the most important thing to save this species is surely to get better protection for the wild birds by stopping development of coastal stop-over sites, preventing hunting and protecting habitat in the breeding grounds. That will be a real challenge for those working towards saving the species!

ddavid

There is a very interesting ongoing discussion about the Spoon-billed Sandpiper situation on the OBC Yahoo group at  
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/orientalbirding/

In that thread, David Melville posted the following link: http://www.wwt.org.uk/our-work/w ... oonbilled-sandpiper which may be of interest to HKBWS members who are not part of the Yahoo group. The site provides a further link to the paper in the recent issue of British Birds which gives the rationale for the conservation breeding programme of Spoon-billed Sandpipers.

David

[ Last edited by ddavid at 14/07/2011 21:38 ]