Saving our shorebirds
ABOUT 8 MILLION shorebirds migrate from the Arctic to Australia each year, along the East Asian–Australasian Flyway. They are being particularly hard hit by climate change, with the curlew sandpiper showing one of the steepest population declines – up to 80 per cent during the past two decades. Early last year, a research team led by Deakin University’s Professor Marcel Klaassen, and citizen scientists from the Victorian Wader Study Group (VWSG) attached tiny tracking devices to 75 curlew sandpipers in Western Port, Victoria. The purpose was to find where they go and what might be the cause of the decline – climate change, habitat destruction, environmental pollution or a combination of these factors. Data gathered as the birds return from the Arctic will be used with 40 years of data collected by the VWSG. It’s hoped the research will help design a management plan to turn the tide.