WildSounds & the Spoon-billed Sandpiper

For the past 4 years WildSounds has been the BirdLife Species Champion for the Spoon-billed Sandpiper. We were the inaugural Species Champion for this bird and have been encouraged that it has been able to attract so much more support from the likes of Heritage Tours and even Disney.

The Spoon-billed Sandpiper is a bird in near terminal decline. Plans are afoot to breed it in captivity - a last ditch plan to save this species.

One of the reasons we supported the BirdLife Preventing Extinctions programme and specifically the Spoon-billed Sandpiper was because we recognised that the difficulties facing this particularly species is a mirror to hundreds of other species that follow the same migratory path as the Spoon-billed Sandpiper. From Russia to Asia the bird is falling prey to habitat destruction and indiscriminate hunting practices - problems that affect all the birds that use the East Asia flyway. Apart from the very specific problems faced by old Spoonie in its breeding grounds, the project headed by Species Guardians like Christoph Zoëckler will not succeed unless there is significant international co-operation and grass-roots effort to protect vulnerable wetlands in Asia.

We feel passionately that Spoonie can be saved and is worth saving. As Species Champion we do exactly that - tell everyone we meet about the bird, raise funds to help the Species Guardians and offer practical advice and assistance to them where possible. We have shaken buckets (rather vigorously) at the Celebrity Lecture at Birdfair; we've put out penny pots at all the events we attend; we have even added a virtual penny pot to our shopping basket and have been stunned by the level of support that it has received.

Now we've gone one step further. We have bought 2000 pin-badges of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper and will distribute them to shops up and down the country to raise awareness of the bird and its plight and also hopefully raise much needed cash to support the programme. We hope that the suggested donation of £2.00 per badge will only be the start of things to come and that the funds raised will exceed the projected amount of £4000 (At a recent meeting one person donated a staggering £50!).

So, if you see the badges, buy one - no buy two or three and donate generously.

For more information on the Spoon-billed Sandpiper and the Preventing Extinctions Programme visit www.birdlife.org.

Click here to download and print our "colour-me-in" Spoon-billed Sandpiper.

Thank you

Sue in our offices putting backing-plates on the pin-badges (only 1999 left to go)!

The first badge.