The coast of Bohai Bay, north-western Yellow Sea, is critical for waterbirds migrating along the East Asia-Australasian Flyway. Between 1994 and 2010, a total of 450 km2 of offshore area, including 218 km2 of intertidal flats (one third of the original tidal area in the bay), has been reclaimed along the bay for two industrial projects. This has caused the northward migrants to become concentrated in an ever smaller remaining area, our core study site. The spring peak numbers of two Red Knot subspecies in the East Asia-Australasian Flyway, Calidris canutus piersmai and C. c. rogersi, in this so far little affected area increased from 13% in 2007 to 62% in 2010 of the global populations; the spring peak numbers of Curlew Sandpiper C. ferruginea increased from 3% in 2007 to 23% in 2010 of the flyway population. The decline in the extent of intertidal mudflats also affected Relict Gulls Larus relictus, listed by IUCN as ‘Vulnerable’; during normal winters 56% of the global population moved from the wintering habitats that were removed in Tianjin to the relatively intact areas around Tangshan. Densities of wintering Eurasian Curlew Numenius arquata, and spring-staging Broad-billed Sandpiper Limicola falcinellus and Sanderling Calidris alba have also increased in the remaining areas. With the proposed continuation of land reclamation in Bohai Bay, we predict waterbird densities in the remaining areas to increase to a point of collapse. To evaluate the future of these fragile, shared international resources, it is vital to promote an immediate conservation action plan for the remaining coastal wetlands in this region, and continued population monitoring to determine the effects of this action.

Approximately 75% of the East Asian Flyway Tundra Swan Cygnus columbianus bewickii population winters in the Yangtze River floodplain, China. Historically the species was more widely distributed throughout the floodplain but now most of the population is confined to five wetlands in Anhui Province and to Poyang Lake in Jiangxi Province, where the majority (up to 113,000 birds) occur. Within-winter counts suggest that swans congregate at Poyang Lake before dispersing to other sites later in the winter. Counts show large between-year fluctuations, but suggest declines at Shengjin and Fengsha Lakes (both in Anhui) during the last five years. Declines at Shengjin Lake are likely due to decreases in submerged vegetation (particularly tuber-producing Vallisneria, a major food item) perhaps linked to eutrophication. Range contractions throughout the floodplain may also be linked to reductions in submerged vegetation coverage elsewhere. Changes in water quality and lake hydrology post-Three Gorges Dam may have adversely affected submerged vegetation productivity. Key information needs for the effective implementation of conservation measures for Tundra Swans include: (1) annual surveys of all major wintering sites throughout each winter to establish the importance of different sites during the non-breeding period; (2) more information on swan diets at important sites; and (3) an assessment of adverse effects of water quality and lake water levels post-Three Gorges Dam on submerged vegetation productivity at Poyang Lake and other important sites.

The Chinese Crested Tern Thalasseus bernsteini is a Critically Endangered species and very little is known about its breeding biology and behaviour. Only two small breeding colonies have been recorded on the eastern coast of China. Between 2004 and 2009, their breeding biology was studied in two mixed species colonies on the Jiushan and Wuzhishan archipelagos in Zhejiang province. Chinese Crested Terns started breeding in late May and departed in late August, and nests were generally found within large colonies of Greater Crested Terns T. bergii. The nesting grounds of the mixed colony included grass, rock and interlaced zones on small, uninhabited islets. A total of six Chinese Crested Tern nests were identified, four of which were monitored. In these, the average clutch size was one, with an incubation period of 22–28 days and a fledging period of 31–35 days. The chicks subsequently joined chicks of the Greater Crested Tern, forming the same crèche. Adult Chinese Crested Terns foraged within approximately 5 km of the breeding islets and fed their chicks mainly with small and/or young shoaling fishes. The breeding success of Chinese Crested Tern was 100% in both 2008 and 2009. In addition to mixed nesting, other traits of breeding biology, such as breeding site shifts and re-nesting, provide valuable information for surveying, monitoring and conservation of the Chinese Crested Tern.

A small colony of Northern Bald Ibis Geronticus eremita breeding in the Syrian desert is the only wild remnant of the eastern population of this ‘Critically Endangered’ species. Since its discovery in 2002, the colony has not increased in size despite being protected on the breeding grounds and exhibiting good productivity until recently. Although it appears that the population is being limited during migration and/or wintering, maintaining maximum breeding productivity is a priority for saving this colony to offset poor survival away from Syria. The ibises have a large home range but forage at a relatively small number of sites within it, despite having access to larger areas of apparently suitable habitat. We sampled potential prey using transects, pitfall traps and searches under stones at sites used by the birds to compare with unused sites. Analysis showed that used sites were twice as rich in vertebrate and invertebrate prey than the surrounding areas. Prey levels halved over the course of the breeding season, but we found that they remained higher in the preferred locations compared with the unused areas. Sites closer to the breeding cliff tended to have lower levels of prey available, which perhaps explained the long commutes that the adults undertook when foraging.

This work highlights the vulnerability of the birds at this site. Degradation of the patches they use could reduce food supply below critical levels and alternative sites may be hard for the birds to identify, being relatively scarce. The birds are also vulnerable to shortening of the season in which adequate food is available. There is already little time post-fledging to prepare for migration. Low food availability later in the season makes the birds dependent on key resources found around local reservoirs and these have failed recently. Breeding failures in 2008 and 2009 may have been mitigated by improved feeding conditions on the breeding area. The successful management of the site for ibises should include measures to improve their food security through range management, and possibly reservoir rehabilitation.

Eight years after the discovery of the last survivors of the eastern population of Northern Bald Ibis in Syria, their breeding grounds within the Palmyra steppe remain threatened by habitat degradation, human disturbance and uncontrolled infrastructural development whilst the ibis colony size has continued to decline. This study is aimed at assisting national and international stakeholders in strengthening the Ibis Protected Area, established in 2004 and still lacking a clear boundary and management zonation, by quantitatively establishing the range used by these birds through use of satellite tracking and field observations collected between 2006 and 2009. The core breeding range used by the ibises is 224–253 km2 while the full home range is c.1,500 km2, encompassing a mountainous area north of Palmyra, ranging from 400 to 1,000 m asl. Locations from satellite tracking also revealed an important unknown post-breeding site. The ibis breeding area is also home to a range of other rare and endangered fauna as well as significant landscape, cultural and recreational assets, establishing it as an area of international importance. The Syrian steppe is a crucial socio-economic asset for the country, not only for the indigenous pastoralist people, but also because Syria seeks to develop and promote ecotourism in the Palmyra region. The steppe is increasingly suffering from damaging desertification. The need for investment in protection and management of key biodiversity and landscape assets is a precondition that needs greater recognition by the authorities. Recommendations are provided for decision makers and conservationists aimed at mitigating threats and making the Ibis Protected Area fully functional.

Electrocution on power lines is one of the principal problems facing raptors and other medium- and large-sized birds at the global scale. The recent European-based Spanish state legislation on avian electrocutions has focused on Special Protection Areas (SPA). Here we evaluate whether this policy has been successful, using the Community of Valencia, Spain, as a regional model. We compiled a database of 400 electrocution events from information on electrocuted birds taken into Wildlife Recovery Centres and incidents registered by the main local power company during the last decade. A small proportion (c.18%) of electrocution casualties occurred within SPA boundaries but the 5 km wide belt immediately surrounding the SPAs produced more than three times the number of avian electrocutions (c.60% of the total recorded). This was probably caused by higher densities of both power lines and susceptible birds, and higher use of the pylons for perching and roosting in the areas surrounding the SPAs. We therefore conclude that the focus on preventative measures being applied within SPAs is inefficient and that action should be targeted in these peripheral areas. Our results illustrate a classic problem of an edge effect associated with a protected area, where external human influences directly affect the persistence of protected species within reserves. Equally, they support the idea that management strategies within parks cannot be independent of the human activities surrounding them.

Ludwig’s Bustard Neotis ludwigii, endemic to Africa’s south-west arid zone, is susceptible to collisions with overhead power lines. Limited data from the south-eastern part of its range suggest that this factor may threaten its survival. We estimated transmission line collision rates for Ludwig’s Bustard across its South African range to assess the effect of this mortality on the population. Conservatively, collision rates averaged at least 0.63 ± 0.12 fatal collisions per km of transmission line per year, with relatively little regional variation. Despite being less abundant, the larger males were more collision-prone than females, which might account for the female-biased population. Extrapolating collision rates across the range of the species suggests that 4,000–11,900 birds are killed annually on high-voltage transmission lines. Actual mortality on overhead lines is probably much greater, given biases in carcass detection (crippling, scavenging and habitat biases), as well as the fact that our estimate excludes mortality on lower voltage distribution lines and telephone wires. Given an estimated global population of 56,000–81,000 birds in the late 1980s, the demographic invariant method suggests that such mortality is unsustainable. This result supports the recent upgrading of the conservation status of Ludwig’s Bustard from ‘Least Concern’ to ‘Endangered’, and highlights the need for further research on this problem.

The global population of the Cape Vulture Gyps coprotheres, a threatened southern African endemic, is known to be impacted by electrocutions and collisions on power line infrastructure, but to date this impact has not been estimated or quantified. Using data in a national database from the period prior to our study, conducted in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, we estimated a mean annual mortality rate from power line-related mortality of around 14 vultures per year. After applying an adjusted rate based on the results of a landowner survey, this estimate increased to around 80 vultures per year (i.e. a 5.7 fold increase). For a number of reasons, the estimated mean annual mortality rate is considered to under-represent the true situation, and must therefore be considered a minimum value. A simple model was constructed and run to investigate the potential impact of the mortality rate from electrocution on the study population. It distinguishes between vulture subpopulations in areas of high and low electrocution threat, and a migratory subpopulation that moves between these two areas. The model, simulated over 50 years and applying a constant theoretical maximum annual growth rate of 2%, indicates positive growth of the population in those areas where the electrocution threat from power lines is low, whereas the population in those areas where this threat is high is predicted to crash to extinction, from electrocution mortality alone, within a 20–35 year period. The regional population is predicted to show positive growth over the 50 year period. However, for a number of reasons that relate to the nature of certain parameters used in the model, the simulations must be considered to be conservative, at best. In addition, other unnatural mortality factors (notably inadvertent poisoning, drowning in high-walled farm reservoirs, harvesting for the traditional medicine trade, local food shortage), which are additive to power line-related mortality have not been taken into account. Management recommendations aimed at obtaining an improved estimate of the mean annual mortality rate from power lines, and at ameliorating the impact of electrocutions on the regional Cape Vulture population, are briefly mentioned. These address the former by documenting ways to improve the quantity and quality of the field data, and the latter by identifying areas where urgnt action needs to be taken to reduce or avoid the electrocution of vultures, by mitigating extant ‘unsafe’ power line infrastructure, and by ensuring that that only ‘safe’ infrastructure is used for new power lines.

Local changes in land use can influence patterns of habitat selection by farmland birds, thus biasing predictions of population responses to land use changes based on wildlife-habitat or niche modelling. This study, based in arable farmland in south-central Spain, determined whether habitat selection (use of agricultural habitats and the distance to roads, tracks and buildings) by Great Bustards Otis tarda varied between two nearby areas with differing land uses. The western sector has experienced a process of land abandonment and infrastructure development linked to an airport project that started in 1998 and finished in 2009, while the eastern sector maintains extensive dry farmland systems. Great Bustards avoided ploughed fields and selected short- and long-term fallows. Selection of fallows was more intensive in the sector suffering recent land-use changes, where these substrates were more abundant. Great Bustards were distributed further from roads, paths and buildings than would be expected if individual birds selected habitats at random. Avoidance of infrastructure was strongest in the area suffering recent land-use changes. Local patterns of habitat selection seemed to change in relation to agricultural abandonment and infrastructure development. Consequently, conservation measures based on knowledge of broad patterns of habitat use and selection such as agri-environmental schemes may fail to ensure steppe bird conservation locally if such local effects are overlooked. Specifically, schemes should include landscape-scale restrictions on the development and use of infrastructure (roads, tracks and buildings). Analyses of the patterns and causes of local and regional changes in habitat selection are essential to conserve populations of endangered farmland birds.

Negative effects of poaching on seabird populations are not usually evaluated quantitatively when assessing seabird colony conservation status, nor are they generally considered a major concern. We demonstrate that poaching is still intense in the Canary Islands, and has negative consequences for the conservation of seabird colonies. We quantified the effects of poaching of Cory’s Shearwater fledglings on breeding success on different islands in the Canaries, comparing colonies that suffer from intense, medium, or no poaching. Poaching reduced the breeding success of affected colonies to almost a third, potentially causing the future extinction of the colony. Only colonies with intense wardening campaigns reached high values of reproductive success, showing that government surveillance in conjunction with volunteers from different NGOs is a very effective approach in reducing poaching. A population sensitivity analysis was also conducted to provide data on the factors that most affect the performance of the model. Although population growth and mean final population size varied with increases and decreases in mortality and carrying capacity, only harvesting resulted in a probability of 100% of extinction in 20–40 years. To promote seabird conservation in regions such as the Canary Islands, a core archipelago for seabird species in the Atlantic, poaching control should be elevated by society to a level of urgency, requiring dedicated funding and mobilisation of experts and volunteers to adequately address it through education, prevention and enforcement.

Recent evidence indicates that insectivorous birds in shade coffee farms provide economically significant ecosystem services by reducing insect pests, which should encourage cultivation practices favouring birds and other wildlife. However, the provisioning of this service may be dependent on landscape composition and movement patterns of these mobile consumers. Very little information is currently available on bird movements in coffee-dominated landscapes. We examined roosting behaviour in Black-throated Blue Warblers Dendroica caerulescens on two Jamaican coffee farms using radio telemetry in order to determine whether birds commute between nocturnal roosts and diurnal foraging ranges in coffee habitat. Nocturnal tracking revealed most birds moved outside diurnal foraging ranges on the farms to roost in forested habitat patches, sometimes up to 1 km away. Of 42 roost locations, only eight roosts were within the coffee farm perimeter: one individual in a coffee bush, and seven others in shade trees or vegetated riparian strips. Logistic regression confirmed that birds strongly selected continuous forest and individual trees over coffee for roosting. These findings reflect the ecological connectivity between coffee habitats and the adjacent landscape and raise the possibility that the provisioning of pest reduction services could be at least partly dependent on a farm’s proximity to forest patches.