Conservation Note
BirdLife and the search for breeding Spoon-billed Sandpipers
A 2011 episode on the expedition to northern Russia looking for undiscovered breeding pairs of the Critically Endangered Spoon-billed Sandpiper.
One of the harder problems facing conservationists working on the Critically Endangered Spoon-billed Sandpiper has been a basic one: establishing where the birds actually breed. The species nests in the coastal tundra of the Russian Far East, across an area large enough that known sites could plausibly represent only part of the population.
This episode covered an expedition organised to address that. Heritage Expeditions, a New Zealand company running expedition voyages, had taken on Species Champion status with BirdLife International for the species. It ran a voyage to northern Russia on an itinerary designed specifically to look for undiscovered breeding pairs, with two of the leading specialists on the species aboard and directing the landings.
The conversation involved Jim Lawrence, then manager of BirdLife International’s Preventing Extinctions Programme, and Chris Collins of Heritage Expeditions, on how a commercial expedition operator came to be funding and carrying survey work, and what the trip was expected to establish.
Subsequent survey results are held by the EAAFP Spoon-billed Sandpiper Task Force and BirdLife International, and are the place to look for the current picture.