Spoon-billed sandpiper

During a recent waterbird survey in the Ou-Fei Reclamation Area of Wenzhou Bay, Prof. Zhang Yongpu's team from Wenzhou University surprisingly sighted a spoon-billed sandpiper with a yellow leg band, on which appear the black English letters "YE". All this was shown clearly on a photo taken at the scene. From the organization of the "Spoon-billed Sandpiper in China", the team learned that the band was given in Kamchatka in 2017 when it was a juvenile.

The spoon-billed sandpiper, a bird of the family Scolopacidae (order Charadriiformes), features a rice spoon-like mouth, which sets it apart from other sandpipers. According to the Wenzhou Municipal Bureau of Natural Resources and Planning, as a  long-distance migratory bird in the East Asia-Australasia Flyway, it is one of the most endangered and rarest birds on Earth, identified as one of National First-Class Protected Animals in China. The bird was among the IUCN Red List Critically Endangered (CR) species in 2008, facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. (IUCN, short for International Union for Conservation of Nature).

It is known that the spoon-billed sandpiper breeds in the tundra area of the Chukotka Peninsula in the far east of Russia and the Kamchatka Peninsula from May to July each year, and then migrates southward along the East Asia-Australasia Flyway (EAAF) to winter in Southeast Asia. Its wintering grounds include Thailand, the Indochinese Peninsula, Singapore, the Malay Peninsula, and Weitou Bay of Quanzhou City in Fujian Province, China.

It is understood that Wenzhou, being a crucial location along the EAAF, kept clear records of spoon-billed sandpipers’ migrating and wintering in the areas along Wenzhou Bay before 2014. Since then, the bird has become hard to find in the areas due to environmental changes, and there have been only three times of video or camera records on sighting the bird in March 2021, October 2023 and this month. The survey conducted by the research team from the university will not only build up a clear picture of the coastal waterbird population in southern Zhejiang but also provide a basis for biodiversity conservation in the city.

It is said that the estimated global population of the spoon-billed sandpiper is 700-800. Due to the habitat loss on its breeding, migration, and wintering grounds, the species faces severe challenges. On the eve of Earth Day on April 22 this year, a discussion on conservation strategies for the endangered spoon-billed sandpiper was made by a  expert team from the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, and the Russian Association for Bird Protection and Research, and that from Nanjing University, Nanjing Forestry University, Beijing Forestry University, etc. at Tiaozini Wetland in Dongtai City of Jiangsu Province. Meanwhile, a related strategic cooperation agreement was signed between the  Russian and Chinese teams.