Conservation

Introduction

Waterbirds face an array of human induced threats including draining of wetlands, contamination of food supplies, mortality from oil spills, introduction of mammalian predators on nesting islands, and conflicts with aquaculture. Many of these issues have been summarized for the Americas in bird plans for shorebirds, waterfowl, wading birds, and seabirds.

The Waterbird Society has played an important role in the development of conservation plans for the Americas by providing a venue for discussion and a means to bring together groups of like-minded individuals from many countries. The Conservation Committee also promotes conservation decisions when based on scientific study. The Waterbird Society encourages scientists and managers to take advantage of our meetings to review information and formulate conservation plans through scientific discussion. Please contact the Chair of the Conservation Committee or the Vice-President.

Wading Birds

Wading birds occupy wetland habitats that are often heavily used by humans. For some people, wetlands directly provide them with a living. Sustaining wetlands and their ecological functions for the benefit of humans and wading birds is an ongoing concern of many conservation organizations. The ecological value of wetlands is now well established worldwide but drainage and pollution continue to be major issues. Among the major initiatives aimed at conserving wetland habitats and their birds include the ‘Ramsar’ Convention and the Important Bird Areas program.

At the 1995 meeting in Victoria, Canada, the Waterbird Society held a workshop that highlighted the need for coordinated conservation planning of wading birds. In the Americas, wading bird conservation took a big step forward in 2002 with the publication of the Waterbird Conservation for the Americas. Through an independent, international, broad-based, and voluntary partnership, work by individuals and institutions having interest and responsibility for conservation of waterbirds and their habitats in the Americas were linked together. The vision of Waterbird Conservation for the Americas is that the “distribution, diversity, and abundance of populations and habitats of breeding, migratory, and nonbreeding waterbirds are sustained or restored throughout the lands and waters of North America, Central America, and the Caribbean.”

Seabirds

There are a slightly more than 300 species of seabirds in the world including penguins, loons, grebes, albatrosses, petrels and shearwaters, storm-petrels, diving-petrels, tropicbirds, pelicans, gannets, boobies, cormorants, frigatebirds, phalaropes, sheathbills, skuas, gulls, terns, noddies, skimmers, auks and seaducks. Many issues related to how humans have exploited the oceans and their interaction with seabirds were discussed in the Waterbird Conservation for the Americas plan. The Conservation Committee has dealt with issues around culling of cormorants.

Waterfowl

Concern is mounting that several species of seaduck might have undergone large scale declines in the Americas. This comes after the establishment of one of the most ambitious international conservation programs aimed specifically at waterfowl. The North American Waterfowl Management Plan in the US and Canada was originally focused on prairie nesting ducks but more recently it has expanded to consider seaducks. The Seaduck Joint Venture is filling the gaps in the biological knowledge of seaducks with the purpose of providing advice for their conservation. The Waterbird Society provided one of the earliest venues for discussions about sea ducks through a symposium at the annual meeting held in Grado, Italy in 1999.

Shorebirds

There are about 212 species of shorebirds world wide including jacanas, snipes, crab plovers, oystercatchers, ibisbills, stilt and avocets, stoen-curlews and thicknees, coursers and pratincoles, plovers, sandpipers, godwits, curlews, dowitchers, stints, phalaropes, and seedsnipes. A recent review of shorebird (wader) populations worldwide suggested that many species were declining in abundance. The reasons are not entirely clear and might be how the censuses have been conducted or human exploitation of shorebirds (waders) and their habitats. In North America, the issues are discussed in the US Shorebird Conservation Plan and the Canadian Shorebird Conservation Plan. An important role that the Waterbird Society has played in North American shorebird conservation is to provide a venue for discussions on reported declines in shorebird populations in the Americas. These discussion have been held in symposia and workshops aimed at identifying and rectifying the potential problems. The attached document outlines five hypothetical causes for the reported declines for discussion. The Sister Shorebird Program is a community based program that introduces children to shorebirds and their migrations across the Western Hemisphere.

Habitats

The Waterbird Society periodically publishes symposia dealing with wetland and waterbird conservation. These publications include cormorants, managing wetlands, flamingos , and swans.

Contact the Treasurer to purchase copies of these special issues.