BRAZIL - Chasing an endless summer, one shorebird species undertakes a grueling annual journey from the Arctic to the tip of South America and back -- a feat increasingly fraught with peril.
The Hudsonian godwit (Limosa haemastica) is one of the world's most remarkable travelers, but its population has plunged 95 percent in four decades due to a complex mix of environmental changes across multiple countries. It is one of 42 species proposed for international protection at a meeting of parties to the UN Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species (CMS) that started this week in Brazil. Iconic creatures like the snowy owl -- of Harry Potter fame -- striped hyena and hammerhead shark are also on the list deemed in danger of extinction and needing conservation by the countries they pass through. Migratory birds are facing "rapid and dramatic declines," said Nathan Senner, an ecologist and ornithology professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who has studied the Hudsonian godwit for 20 years. Scientists are still unraveling the mysteries of the shorebird -- which can fly up to 11,000 kilometers (6,800 miles) in one stretch without stopping to eat, drink or sleep. And it is only part of the 30,000 kilometers (18,600 miles) that the godwit travels every year from their breeding grounds in the Arctic to Patagonia where they spend the southern summer. (Bssnews)
