TN007 – Nial Moores, Birds Korea

A conversation with Nial Moores, Director of the NGO Birds Korea (“dedicated to the conservation of birds and their habitats in Korea and the wider Yellow Sea Eco-region, working through research, education and public-awareness raising activities, consultation and collaboration, and well-focused advocacy“).

In this podcast Nial and I talk about the recently-published Birds Korea Blueprint, the anecdotal (so far anyway) decline of the Yellow-breasted Bunting and Eastern Crowned Warbler, where Swinhoe’s Storm-petrels breed, and Nial reels off a list of common birds that he might see on a morning’s birding (quite a list!).

I also attempt to press Nial into making this podcast the first of many – comments and messages urging Nial to commit to more would be more than welcome…

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Show Notes

“Birds Korea is dedicated to the conservation of birds and their habitats in Korea and the wider Yellow Sea Eco-region, working through research, education and public-awareness raising activities, consultation and collaboration, and well-focused advocacy.

Birds Korea recognizes that wild birds are beautiful and inspirational, and that many wild bird species are excellent bio-indicators of the ecological character of habitats, and of changes to these habitats and to the global environment. Successful conservation of wild birds entails conservation of a wide range of naturally productive habitats and sites, vital to the long-term survival of other biodiversity, including people.”

The Birds Korea website:

• English: http://www.birdskorea.org/
• Korean: http://www.birdskorea.or.kr/

Download the Birds Korea 2010 Blueprint at http://www.birdskorea.org/Habitats/YSBR/Downloads/Birds-Korea-Blueprint-2010.pdf

Written interview (October 2009) with Nial Moores on 10,000 Birds: http://10000birds.com/spoon-billed-sandpiper-part-three-interview-with-nial-moores.htm
Sample Q and A from the Oct 2009 interview:

• Charlie: Nial, in an introduction to this interview yesterday I said that you are “one of the last birders/conservationists who will ever see a large flock of Spoon-billed Sandpipers on migration”. Can I just put that statement into context for people reading this interview: how many were in the group you saw, where and when did you see them, how did you feel seeing so many Spoon-billed Sandpipers in one place, and how do you feel now that such large staging groups seem to be confined to history?
  • NM: It was at Saemangeum on South Korea’s west coast, formerly the single most important known shorebird site in the whole of the Yellow Sea, back in September in the late 1990s. At that time high-tide at Saemangeum was a phenomenal spectacle: in one huge roost there were 50,000 Great Knot, tens of thousands of Dunlin, which come to Korea from breeding grounds in Alaska as well as Siberia, hundreds of Broad-billed Sandpipers and Red-necked Stints, and this long thin line of Spoon-billed Sandpipers – 75 in a single scan. There might have been quite a few more mixed in with the other stints and sandpipers of course, and one researcher claims that he saw 150 at the same roost the very next day. After living in Japan for eight years where a “flock” of two Spoon-billed Sandpipers had already become a noteworthy event, this was simply one of the best birding highs to be had.To know this, and then to have monitored this whole area as it was dyked and damned and made into an ecological desert as part of the world’s largest reclamation project…devastating. It’s not just the loss of habitat for the Spoon-billed Sands of course. All the other shorebirds that depended on the site have lost their optimal staging site, and over twenty thousand people have lost their livelihoods. All for some mega-project with no clear end-use…

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