A record-breaking 4,228 black-faced spoonbills wintered in Taiwan proper this year, the Forestry Bureau and Taiwan Wild Bird Federation said.
Citing a Hong Kong Bird Watching Society study on the species, they said this figure means Taiwan sheltered 64 percent of the total recorded global population of the species, which was 6,603 last year.
It also represented an increase of 404 spoonbills in Taiwan over the previous year, they said.
Photo courtesy of Bird Society of Tainan
The research underscored the importance of spoonbill habitats in Taiwan and the nation’s efforts toward their conservation, they said.
The habitats in Taiwan proper that saw the greatest increase in the number of the migratory birds were Tainan, Kaohsiung and the estuary of the Jhuoshuei River (濁水溪) on the border of Changhua and Yunlin counties, they said.
Other major wintering areas for the black-faced spoonbill include China, which sheltered 19.8 percent of the population, Japan with 9.2 percent, Hong Kong and Shenzhen with 4.5 percent, and Vietnam with 1.2 percent.
The species is one of six endangered spoonbills, most often seen in East and Southeast Asia. Due to its migratory nature and as its habitats include several countries when wintering, its conservation and monitoring often require international collaboration.
Black-faced spoonbill numbers in Taiwan are continuing to increase, underscoring that the bird’s habitats in the country can support a growing spoonbill population, the Forestry Bureau and the Wild Bird Society said.
However, a bird monitor in Tainan said that due to the scarcity of rain in southern Taiwan over the winter, the dry environments around the birds’ preferred habitats — salt fields and fish farms — have dispersed the population over a wider area.
This has dramatically increased the time and difficulty of locating black-faced spoonbills in the areas, they said.
Twenty-six black-faced spoonbills were this year found weakened or poisoned by Clostridium botulinum, which is higher than last year’s 16, Endemic Species Research Institute data showed.
This could be due to the environment around the birds’ preferred habitats, which highlights that researchers must continue to monitor how a habitat environment, as well as climate change, affect the black-faced spoonbill, the institute said.
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