Subject: [UKBN] Fw: [EBN] Slender-billed Curlew (fwd)
Date: Jan 24 20:17:11 2002
From: ian paulsen - ipaulsen at krl.org
HI ALL:
Our Ivory-billed Woodpecker has company!!!!!
Ian Paulsen
Bainbridge Island, WA, USA
ipaulsen at krl.org
A.K.A.: "Birdbooker"
"Rallidae all the way"
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 02:12:30 +0100
From: Norman D.van Swelm <Norman.vanswelm at wxs.nl>
To: UKBirdnet <ukbirdnet at dcs.bbk.ac.uk>
Subject: [UKBN] Fw: [EBN] Slender-billed Curlew
Here I pass on a great story of a long lost friend, hope he'll forgive me.
All the best, Norman
From: Brian Unwin <brian_unwin at BIGFOOT.COM>
To: EUROBIRDNET at LISTSERV.FUNET.FI <EUROBIRDNET at LISTSERV.FUNET.FI>
subject: [EBN] Slender-billed Curlew
>As it doesn't look as if any British newspapers will use the article I have
>written today about a new effort to find the breeding grounds of
>Slender-billed Curlew (Numenius tenuirostris) coinciding with the British
>Ornithologists Union Records Committee's announcement confirming the
>identification of the bird at Druridge Bay, Northumberland, UK, in 1998, I
>am sending it to EBN as it may be of interest to some subscribers:-
>
>Last ditch efforts are planned to save Europe's most endangered bird - of
>which there has only been one confirmed sighting anywhere in the world
since
>1995.
>
>New technology is being used to try to find the nesting grounds of the last
>few Slender-billed Curlews before this species becomes the first European
>bird to die out completely since the Great Auk in 1844.
>
>The project was announced yesterday (Thurs) to coincide with a British
>Ornithologists' Union Records Committee (BOURC) announcement confirming the
>identity of one that lingered at Druridge Bay, Northumberland, over 4-7 May
>1998.
>
>This record of Numenius tenuirostris, described by the BOURC, as "probably
>the most remarkable in recent history", is the only definite indication
that
>the species still exists during the past seven years.
>
>From at least 1988 a few regularly spent the winter at the Moroccan
wetland,
>Merdja Zerga, between Tangier and Rabat, but none has been seen there - or
>anywhere else apart from the Northumberland bird - since February 1995.
>
>Now the only hope for ensuring the species has a future rests with finding
>its nesting grounds in the remote wildernesses of western Siberia or
>northern Kazakhstan and carrying out special conservation.
>
>The last nest was located in 1924 and after successive expeditions in
recent
>times have failed Britain's Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is
>turning to new technology to crack the mystery.
>
>They are encouraged by lengthy study of videotape and photographs of the
>Northumberland bird confirming it was a first year bird - proof that the
>species nested successfully somewhere in 1997.
>
>RSPB researchers will analyse the atomic make-up of feathers from museum
>specimens - collected when Slender-billed Curlew was commoner in the past -
>in the hope of detecting clues to the breeding territory.
>
>Dr Debbie Pain, a research scientist, explained: "Any feathers grown on the
>breeding grounds will lock away and reflect the area's 'signature' of
atomic
>ratios of elements and isotopes."
>
>This would enable researchers to study maps showing these "signatures" and
>"narrow down the search from a potential area three or four times the size
>of the British Isles to somewhere which could be more easily combed by
>fieldworkers.
>
>Dr Pain stressed: "The Slender-billed Curlew is critically endangered and
it
>could easily become one of the first extinctions of this millennium."
>
>Although the most likely breeding range was remote and with few people, it
>was wrong to assume this territory was safe for the birds, she added.
>
>"For instance, the fens of western Siberia are being drained rapidly and
>climate change and desertification appear to be affecting the steppe
>grasslands of Kazakhstan and southern Russia."
>
>The total world population was now thought to be less than 50 individuals.
>"If we are to save this bird we need to find its breeding grounds as a
first
>step and work to ensure their adequate protection."
>
>* No European bird has become extinct since the world's final pair of
>flightless Great Auks (Alca impennis) was killed on an Icelandic island in
>1844.
>
>The last of these birds in Britain was beaten to death in 1840 by two
>superstitious residents of Scotland's remote St Kilda islands - who feared
>it was a witch.
>
>ENDS
>
>
>
>
>Brian Unwin
>e-mail: brian_unwin at bigfoot.com
>website: http://welcome.to/Brian_Unwin
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