The Last Curlew in the Coal Mine

By Scott Hecker, Director of Bird Conservation, Oct. 2024 

As you likely know, British miners used to carry chirpy little yellow canaries in a cage at their side they descended into mine shafts.  The invisible danger of carbon monoxide killed the canary before it could kill them.  The employment of the last 200 canaries in this practice ended in 1986.  However, these little bird martyrs and their famous metaphor lives on.   

Among wild birds, the shorebirds serve as a modern-day “canary in a coal mine.”   This time, however, they are a global indicator of the dangers facing all of humanity on our only home, planet Earth.  The cause is eerily similar, carbon dioxide generated from the burning of materials such as mined coal, and climate change is contributing to a steep decline in shorebirds across the globe.  Not only have their populations decreased by 40% or more over the past 50 years, but many species are now threatened with extinction.     

The IUCN has just released threat level updates that “up-listed” the following 16 species as more endangered than they were previously.  Categories range in severity from Critically Endangered (CR), through Endangered (EN), Vulnerable (VU), and Near Threatened (NT). 

The likely extinction of the Eskimo Curlew—tales of their survival persist—demonstrates that a bird numbering millions in the 19th century can decline to a single individual seen in Texas in 1987.   

As the Director of ICFC’s Shorebird Initiative, I am here to tell you it is not too late to save our shorebirds, and I am not giving up.  Since 1987, I have assisted the recovery of endangered shorebirds globally.  From 1987 to 2003, I directed the Coastal Waterbird Program at Massachusetts Audubon Society and saw the endangered Piping Plover increase from 126 pairs to 530 pairs through our efforts.  We can sometimes turn things around.  It is not too late.  

The ICFC Shorebird initiative employs a surgical approach targeting the clear threats to migratory shorebirds from their breeding grounds to their wintering areas in the Americas and Asia where shorebirds congregate.   Our focus is species “on the brink” and migratory staging areas of global importance to millions of shorebirds of diverse species.   

Species such as the Red Knot in the Americas and the Spoon-billed Sandpiper in Asia are focal species receiving our longer-term attention.  By protecting these “umbrella” species and their habitats, we also protect other species present.  (See Hecker, S. 2008)     

Our current and past shorebird work includes the following: 

Argentina & Chile: Saving the Magellanic and Diademed Sandpiper-Plovers of Patagonia 

Argentina: Protecting Red Knots and other shorebirds of Bahia de San Antonio 

Bahamas: Protecting the wintering habitat of Piping Plovers 

Bolivia: Managing grasslands for migratory buff-breasted Sandpipers 

Chile: Protecting Hudsonian Godwits and other Shorebirds at the Maullin wetlands 

Mexico: Protecting Red Knots a the Gulfo de Santa Clara 

Panama: Indigenous-led conservation from Maje Mountains to Panama Bay (Whimbrels) 

SE Asia (Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, China): Protecting the Spoon-billed Sandpiper 

By Supporting the ICFC Shorebird Initiative you will be helping us maintain and expand our efforts to protect some of the world’s most endangered shorebirds!   (Add donation button here)