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The Conversation
The Conversation
Peter Marra, Dean of The Earth Commons, Professor of Biology and the Environment, Georgetown University

More than half of Earth’s migratory bird species are declining – here’s how we can still save them

The spoon-billed sandpiper, a small wading bird, flies nearly 5,000 miles (8,000 km) on its annual migration. Tareq's Photography/Wikimedia, CC BY-SA

Every year, billions of migratory birds connect the world’s continents, oceans and ecosystems as they undertake epic journeys between their foraging habitats and their breeding grounds.

A bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus) leaves its breeding grasslands of North America for the Pampas of South America. A Newell’s shearwater (Puffinus newelli) spends months soaring across the North Pacific before returning to the Hawaiian Islands to breed. A spoon-billed sandpiper (Calidris pygmaea) travels from Arctic Russia to the rapidly disappearing tidal mudflats of Southeast Asia for its nonbreeding season.

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