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solonavi 13 October 2007 Endangered & Extinction 90 views No Comment Print This Post  Email This Post

AP

A rare bird that breeds in a remote Russian province is facing extinction, conservationists warned Friday, after a survey found that the numbers of the spoon-billed sandpiper had dropped dramatically.

Experts from the Britain-based conservation group BirdLife International blamed the decline of breeding pairs in Chukotka province on loss of key feeding sites during their migration from Russia to its wintering grounds in South Asia.

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The World Conservation Union list the bird as endangered with only 200 to 300 pairs left in the wild.

Syroechkovskiy said Russian authorities need to do more to protect the birds, including boosting patrols where the birds nest. The wading birds are hard to miss, with their red head, speckled body and spoon-shaped bills.

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But experts say it will be more challenging to protect key feeding sites along the bird’s migration route, which takes it down the western Pacific coast through Russia, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, mainland China and Taiwan, to its main wintering grounds in South and Southeast Asia.

South Korea, for one, has come under fire for converting about half the country’s 988,400 acres of tidal flats to farming and industry since 1960s.

This 2003 handout photo released by Christoph Zockler shows an adult Spoon-billed Sandpiper in Chukotka, Russian Far East. The spoon-billed sandpiper is on the brink of extinction, conservationist warned Friday, Oct. 12, 2007 after a survey found that the population of these wading birds at a key breeding site in Russia declined dramatically. (AP Photo/Christoph Zockler, HO)