THE last Spoon-billed Sandpiper in the conservation breeding programme at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust's Slimbridge HQ has died.
Its sad demise was on November 11 - exactly 13 years to the day that it arrived in a batch of 13 chicks as part of a captive breeding project known as headstarting.
The scheme attracted worldwide publicity and enjoyed widespread global support, not least in Russia where this endangered species breeds and in China where some spend winter on the coastal mudflats.
An apparent consequence of the Russia-Ukraine conflict is that, for political and logistical reasons, it has not been possible in recent years to continue raising chicks in confinement, subsequently to be returned to the wild.
But the organisation, Birds Russia, is continuing to monitor the fortunes of released birds at their breeding grounds on the coastal tundra in north-eastern Russia.
And good news came, pre-Christmas, from Jodie Clements, conservation breeding officer at Slimbridge. . . .
Full report at:
www.thewryneck.blogspot.com