A conversation with Dr Christoph Zockler of ArcCona Consulting and co-ordinator of the EAAFP Spoon-billed Sandpiper Task Force. The podcast was recorded less than a week after Christoph and I met up at Slimbridge to see first-hand the thirteen Spoon-billed Sandpipers held there as part of a newly-established conservation breeding programme – a conservation strategy that Christoph, who has been surveying the Russian breeding grounds for more than a decade, played an important part in setting up. In a typically frank discussion Christoph talks about the conservation breeding programme, the work he’s done halting hunting of Spoon-billed Sandpipers on the wintering grounds, the threat of reclamation, and his hopes for the survival of this most charismatic and endangered shorebird.
TN79 Dr Christoph Zockler and an update on the Spoon-billed Sandpiper [ 35:31 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadFor more information please go to http://www.eaaflyway.net/spoon-billed-sandpiper.php
Aviary at Slimbridge, WWT, 17 Dec 2011
Related posts:
- TN41 Christoph Zöckler on the Spoon-billed Sandpiper
- Spoon-billed Sandpiper Series: Part Two – interview with Christoph Zöckler
- TN44 Dr Debbie Pain and the Spoon-billed Sandpiper captive breeding programme
- Captive breeding programme for the Spoon-billed Sandpiper
- Slimbridge’s Spoon-billed Sandpipers unveiled
- TN49 Chris Collins on Chukotka and Spoon-billed Sandpipers
Again, excellent podcast, Charlie. Thank you. I know that you, Dr. Zockler and many others have seen Saemangeum in perhaps its best condition. I can’t even imagine what that could have been like. Yet, while Saemangeum can never be what it once was, in all its magnificence, I must comment that it is still very much full of life and in need of desperate attention. Just in September of this year, 5 of these Critically Endangered birds were observed at Saemangeum. What is puzzling to us is why so many within the Republic of Korea and outside have given up on Saemangeum. With the proper management of the remaining tidal flats, couldn’t Saemangeum continue to be key to the survival for these and thousands of other shorebirds staging during their migration ? Thanks again for these podcasts.
Hi Jason. Thanks for your kind comments. You’re right, of course, I do tend to feel that Saemangeum is a lost cause, whereas – as you say – shorebirds are still using it and what’s left needs to be fought for. Thanks for reminding me and thanks for everything that you’re doing with Birds Korea now.
Charlie
Thanks again for this good interview. Would like to clarify timing of moult in SBS (re Christoph’s comments during your interview): here in the ROK we see the birds moult from juvenile into a non-breeding plumage in September and October. I have not yet knowingly seen any unmoulted/non-moulting juveniles in October.