Black-tailed godwit joins NSW endangered species list as population dives

Australia Broadcast Center

2 days ago

Scientists fear a remarkable migratory shorebird, which flies vast distances each year to reach Australia, will become extinct in the near future.
The black-tailed godwit is capable of reaching speeds of 95 kilometres per hour as it flies from as far as Siberia to Australian coastlines and inland locations such as the Macquarie Marshes in western New South Wales.
"Black-tailed godwits are a truly impressive bird, flying more than 10,000km twice a year to and from the Northern Hemisphere where they breed," UNSW ecologist Richard Kingsford said.
"Not many other birds in Australia fly such long distances."
Despite its strength and endurance, the bird was classed as endangered by the NSW Threatened Species Scientific Committee in late July.
Its estimated population met the "endangered" threshold of a 50 per cent to 80 per cent loss over three generations, or 23 years.
The committee also added four other birds to the state's threatened species list for the first time, determining the grey plover, ruddy turnstone, sharp-tailed sandpiper, and red knot birds all met the "vulnerable" threshold of a 30 to 50 per cent population decline.
All five species are migratory birds that travel to Australia through the East Asian–Australasian Flyway, an internationally recognised waterbird travelling route stretching from the Arctic Circle to New Zealand via East and South-East Asia.
Citing several population studies, the committee report noted the Australian numbers of the black-tailed godwit had fallen by a minimum of 52 per cent to as high as 77.5 per cent in 23 years.
It outlined how its habitat at stopovers on its long-haul journey are shrinking, competing with humans for the preferred coastal locations, and climate change and water management impacting on inland wetlands.
Professor Kingsford said it was a similar story for all the birds newly added to the list, with the challenges echoed across forests and estuaries.
"They're all indicative of the same problems — habitat loss and altered ecosystems — but also things like pollution, diseases and over-harvesting," he said.
Using an analogy of biodiversity as an aeroplane, he described how each declining species "rattled" the ecosystem.
"It's the equivalent of thinking about a plane that's stitched together with little rivets. If you start to lose those rivets, there's some point where that plane might fall out of the sky," Professor Kingsford said.
Professor Kingsford said the black-tailed godwit played an important role in the ecosystem, such as its contribution to improved water quality as a predator of worms, crustaceans and molluscs in mudflats and shallow waters.
He said while it faced an "imminent risk of extinction in the next 10 to 30 years", its decline along the way had also had a detrimental impact.
"We depend so much on what biodiversity gives us," Professor Kingsford said.
Professor Kingsford encouraged people to consider the environmental changes needed by directly addressing policy and to think longer term.
"The environment, things like climate change and pollution, and flooding in rivers, these are all major threats, and most of those are really a reflection of policies by governments and communities," he said.
"There's no more important way of influencing that than through the political process … not just for the next election cycle, but the next 100 years."