Godwits - long distance travel

I have been researching the migratory patterns of shorebirds and came across this article about the godwit. The information taken from the article contributes to this latest blog post on their journey and the sites they visit, it highlights their ever diminishing habitats and I hope, raises awareness of the importance of conserving these sites for both their future and ours.

The bar-tailed godwit is one of the greatest travellers with over 90,000 of them flying non-stop for eight days without rest food or water. Every year they  make this epic journey across the Pacific from Canada and Alaska to their wintering sites in New Zealand. On their return journey, they stopover at grounds along the coast of China and the Korean Peninsula

This image was taken by Lawrence Smith of Fairfax New Zealand and records godwits at the Pukorokoro Miranda Shorebird Centre in Mirance, Hauraki Plains. It shows over 4,800 godwits eating and resting on the ground.

However, the Yellow Sea stopover grounds are suffering from 'the creep of human endeavour' Knight, (2015). Since 1950 more than one million hectares of intertidal wetlands have been lost from the coasts of China and the Korean Peninsula and this development is contributing to the decline of the world's migratory shorebirds.
Whilst there are nature reserves along the Chinese Coast such as the Dandong Yalu Jiang National Nature Reserve, which covers 60km of the coastline, the birds have to fight for space alongside the 30,000 people who live there.
Climate change will have an enormous effect on migratory birds at every stage of their lifecycle, if the habitat in the Yellow sea is not preserved then a lot more birds will be lost.
In 2006 over 40,000 great knots and 1193 godwits were recorded at the  Saemangeum site in South Korea,  a year later there were just 600 knots and 503 godwits found there due to the development of a 33 km seawall which encompassed 41,000 hectares of the coastline (Knight, K. 2015).
In New Zealand, the most important shorebird site is the South Manukau Reserve, access and disturbance to the site is minimal due to its location, but an increase in recreational activities such as kite surfing, and the growing demand for housing in the area is a huge concern. If the land around the reserve is built upon it will disturb roosting birds and if they choose to move to the next major roost (Mangere) they will have to fly across the airport to do so causing havoc and certain death.

The Pukorokoro Miranda Shorebird Centre, located an hour from Auckand, New Zealand, was formed 40 years ago by a group of Auckland Ornithological Society members.
The trust has a sister site relationship with the Dandong Yalu Jiang National Nature Reserve in North Korea and in 2014 a bilateral agreement was reached with both centres to open up the coast near Pyongyang to four annual shorebird counts, this will enable researcher to see exactly what is happening to the godwits in one of their most inaccessible stopovers. A team from Queensland University have indentified multiple species showing signs of trouble and plan to follow the flight path of the godwits to include the site in North Korea to see what is happening.

All information has been taken from the article written by Kim Knight in March 2015.