The travel times, stopovers and breeding patterns of
Singapore's avian tourists are being placed under scrutiny here, as
the National Parks Board launches a two-year satellite tracking
project of migratory birds which travel to Singapore during the
winter months.
The data will play a critical role in the survival of
various species which use the Republic as a stopover point to feed
up and rest before continuing their arduous journey as far north as
the arctic circle.
"Before we started using tracking technology, we did
not know where the birds go and could not collaborate with other
countries on conservation efforts," explained Mr David Li, senior
conservation officer at NParks.
"With these studies we know which countries they go to
for major stopovers for instance, and sharing such information with
those countries will help in setting up bird conservation projects
there," he added, speaking on the sidelines of the first Arctic
migratory birds workshop held in Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve on
Sunday (Jan 8).
The shorebirds being tracked include Whimbrels,
Bar-tailed Godwits, Common Greenshanks and Grey Plovers. With the
new satellite trackers, researchers will be able to tell exactly
where they are in real time, without the need to capture them again
to find out.
The devices weigh either 5g or 9.5g and are
solar-powered. The study is likely to start in March.
The upcoming project builds on NParks' efforts to tap
on technology to obtain previously unknown information about birds.
Between September 2015 and last March (2016), NParks recaptured
seven Common Redshanks tagged with geo-locators - which can detect
light and are used to record the location of the birds based on
sunset and sunrise.
It learnt that the birds' main stopovers include the
Inner Gulf of Thailand and that they breed at the Tibet-Qinghai
Plateau in China. However, the birds had to be caught again for the
data to be analysed.
Over 100 delegates from 35 organisations and 22
countries attended the workshop yesterday, where they discussed the
conservation of arctic birds along the East Asian-Australasian
Flyway, which extends from within the Arctic Circle southwards
through East and Southeast Asia, to Australia and New Zealand.
ST
