Disclaimer

Please note that all photographs,records and descriptions remain the property of the person(s) posting them.Permission must be obtained from the relevant owner before they may be reproduced or copied.


Membership of the blog is free.To participate simply email your details to swalesbirding@gmail.com
Note: if you click on Photographs then press F11 images will become larger. Please post a max of 3 shots/day,unless the shots are of rarities.















Friday 20 April 2012

Save the Cardiff Bay Curlew - An Emergency Appeal

Background

The incredible Cadiff Bay Curlew is hurtling towards extinction perhaps faster than any other bird species, with fewer than 2 pairs remaining and the population in freefall. Without urgent action, it will be gone before Christmas 2012.


The Cardiff Bay Curlew is one of the world’s rarest and most unusual birds. It is a wading bird, barely resembling a Eurasian Curlew, born with a body made of highly valuable bronze and the ability to remain motionless during daylight hours. No other bird hatches with such an adaptation.


Breeding nocturnally on Rhymney Great Wharf, a coastal wasteland, and spending the remainder of it's year motionless 'on the rocks' in Cardiff Bay, the Cardiff Bay Curlew faces a multitude of threats. The Cardiff Bay Curlew, unlike the Spoon-billed Sanpiper and many other species, do not rely on the soft mud along natural shores for their food, instead their survival is strongly related to the soaring prize of scrap metal which is devastating the adult population.



Saving the Cardiff Bay Curlew


Cardiff Bay Curlews now number only 2 pairs worldwide. The population of spoon-billed sandpipers number 100 pairs and nene geese, a favourite of WWT founder Sir Peter Scott, fell even lower before his pioneering breeding programme at Slimbridge saved the species from extinction.

WWT and other groups are attempting to do the same for the spoon-billed sandpiper and in 2011 completed what appeared to be an impossible mission to collect eggs from the few nests still being built at breeding grounds and transfer them back safely to purpose-built facilities at Slimbridge. What about the Cardif Bay Curlew?

We call upon the WWT, RSPB, Cardiff Council and the Cardiff Bay Harbour Authority to take an angle grinder to the remaining 4 birds and set up a purpose built foundry to create a breeding programme for these critically endangered birds.

Our aim is to build up the population of these magnificent birds in captivity to the numbers present in 2000 when they first arrived at Cardiff Bay, ready for release into the wild in the future.
Please help by writing to your local politician/ noddy/ local councillor/ sooty/ Cardiff Council to help us to help the Cardiff Bay Curlew.

7 comments:

Alex said...

Randal, that looks a bit like a Slender-billed Curlew. Paint a few spots on the flanks and take some shaky video, and I doubt BBRC will be put off by minor factors such as the metallic shine to the plumage. As with D Bay there even appears to be a second bird. Looks like SBC could soon be joining Issy Wheatear & Black Stork onto the Glamorgan. List.

MauriceC said...

No doubt those behind the Cardiff Bay project put them there because of a twinge of conscience about removing the habitat for real Curlews. Maybe that's also why the pub was named the Oystercatcher. Or was it a sick joke ?
Will the commitee review the record after they've been nicked ?

Slaphead said...

I am going to write a stern letter to my MP,Mrs Thatcher (the evil bastard),the county recorder and give them a piece of my mind. Anyway how much do you get for a cwt. of brass?

steve howcroft said...

Would look tidy in my garden, then when times are hard, meltdown..

Jeff said...

Awesome shot,lovely light,did you use a hide ?....

Phil B said...

...rest assured Randal I shall be writing a stiff letter to the lead singer of Echo and the Bunnymen!

Randal M Snowdrop said...

Thanks Rick