The Global Flyway Network (GFN) is a partnership between researchers worldwide who are devoted to long term — usually demographic — work on long distance migrating waders/shorebirds.
The partnership aims to build on the strengths of comparative demographic shorebird studies worldwide, with the aim to understand and analyse the factors determining shorebird numbers in a rapidly changing world. In practice it also tries to fill major gaps in coverage of fieldwork of the world’s most threatened shorebird flyways.
The GFN has been monitoring Bohai Bay since 2010, visiting each spring to assess the impact of development on the migratory wader or shorebirds using the area. Bohai Bay is in the Yellow Sea and as such is an area of great conservation concern. 60-70% of the intertidal zone in the Yellow Sea region has been ‘reclaimed’ which has greatly affected many migrating shorebirds, the bulk of which breed in Siberia and a small number in Alaska, causing declines across nearly all species. Monitoring these decline is vital if we are to be able to assess the conservation needs of these species in order to mitigate, halt or, hopefully, even reverse these trends.
We will be serialising updates sent to us by the GFN from the beginning of the 2019 season. If you would like to read the updates prior to 2019 you can do so here.
2019 2020 2021