International Search Effort to Find Slender-billed Curlew

Bonn, 17 December: The largest ever attempt to rediscover a possibly extinct species will be mounted this winter with teams of skilled volunteer observers scouring more than 35 countries around the Mediterranean, Middle East and the Indian subcontinent in the hope of confirming the continued existence of the Slender-billed Curlew.

The full article is on the AEWA website (click here)

Quest to find the Slender-billed Curlew continues – as species’ Steering Group meets in Bonn

Bonn, 11 February 2009 - The first meeting of the Steering Group of the relaunched Slender-billed Curlew Working Group (SbCWG) took place yesterday at the UN Premises in Bonn in the framework of the Convention on Migratory Species’ (CMS) Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the critically endangered species.

The full article from the UNEP/ AEWA website can be accessed here.

RATIFICATIONS, ACCEPTANCES, APPROVALS, ACCESSIONS

As of 31 December 2000, the Slender-billed Curlew Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed by 18 Range States and three co-operating organizations (see Summary Sheet for details). The latest additions was Italy, which signed the instrument on 18 April 2000.

Although it would seem, at a first glance, that the picture is much complete now, there are still a number of relevant Range States to sign this MoU. In this respect, an appeal was made at the last meeting of the CMS Scientific Council so that countries such as Russian Federation and Turkey do so urgently.

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SbC WORKING GROUP

The Slender-billed Curlew Working Group (SbCWG) has been officially established under CMS. It aims to facilitate co-operation and collaboration among scientific experts and decision-makers for the conservation of the species. This is almost certainly the rarest and most poorly known bird species in Europe. It is precisely the lack of knowledge that adds to the difficulty of conserving it.

The SbCWG is led by Dr. Gerard Boere (The Netherlands). Secretariat services for this group will be provided by BirdLife International, and the contact person is Dr. Umberto Gallo-Orsi (email: u.gallo-orsi@birdlife.agro.nl). The SbCWG will communicate electronically and through the AEWA Newsletter. All relevant news will also be posted on this website.

SLENDER-BILLED CURLEW ACTION PLAN

The International Action Plan for the Slender-billed Curlew, prepared by BirdLife International (Council of Europe, 1996) approved by the European Commission and endorsed by the CMS (Res.5.1 at COP 5) is the main tool for action in relation with this species. It identifies the following conservation priorities:

• Effective legal protection for the Slender-billed Curlew and its look-alikes
• Locate the breeding grounds
• Promote international and national policies which protect the Slender-billed Curlew and its habitat
• Appropriate protection and management of all passage, wintering and breeding grounds
• Locate and study key wintering and passage sites
• Increase public awareness of the species critically threatened status amongst politicians, decision-makers and hunters

This action plan will be transformed into a CMS Action Plan, in UNEP-format, in order to ease measure implementation and to facilitate the allocation of funds. This is done in conjunction with the Belgian Royal Institute for Natural Sciences (IRSNB). Contracting Parties to the MoU will thus have a balanced and fully operational tool to provide for the conservation of one of Europe's rarest bird species.

SUPPORT TO NEW ACTION

The CMS has been allocating funds to projects for the conservation of the Slender-billed Curlew. Alongside contributions to the funding of the Slender-billed Curlew Working Group, as the sharing of information and co-ordination of the work of specialists is unanimously considered a key point in favour of the species. This working group should also co-ordinate the organisation of the First Meeting of the Signatories to the MoU in 2002.

The second project has been an expedition to the Persian Gulf to locate wintering grounds for the species. A number of reports in late years point to the existence of an as-yet unknown wintering area of Slender-billed Curlews there (including up to 50 birds wintering along the southern coast of Iran). The expedition tried to locate such areas and to determine exactly how many birds spend the winter in them. Unfortunately so far the recent expeditions have failed to locate birds but confirmed the presence of huge areas of potential pristine habitat suitable for the species.

A third contribution has been done to search for stop-over sites in Ukraine and spreading of technical material in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

BREEDING GROUNDS REMAIN UNDISCOVERED

It is unanimously agreed that conservation measures would be most effective if they were conducted in the breeding area. Therefore, in late years, efforts have been directed towards finding the first nests in over 70 years (the last nest was found in 1924 in West Siberia). A number of expeditions were undertaken in the spring of 1997, 98 and 2000 and all failed to find any trace of breeding Slender-billed Curlews.