Living Planet: Connected Planet

Opportunities for ecological networks Protecting key refueling sites and their associated food resources along the migration routes of the red knot is vital to its survival. Major progress has been made in this regard along the East Atlantic flyway as part of the African-Eurasian Waterbird Agreement (AEWA). C. c. canutus , C. c. islandica , and several other shorebird species benefit from the protection of key areas along this flyway. The present partnership development between countries along the East Asia-Australasian flyway

system could potentially lead to similar levels of protection. Efforts are also needed to protect the food resources associated with these stopover sites. Mechanical shellfish harvesting was terminated in the Wadden Sea in 2006, but smaller-scale manual harvesting practices always run the risk of increasing again for economic reasons. Discontinuation of the harvesting practices of horseshoe crabs in Delaware Bay are imperative to help the recovery of C. c. rufa red knots and other shorebirds along the West Atlantic flyway.

Global flyways of the six subspecies of red knot

C . c . r o s e l a a r i

Gulf of California

North Pole

C. c. piersmai

C. c. islandica

Yellow Sea

C. c. rogersi

Porsanger Fjord

Delaware Bay

Iceland

C. c. canutus

Wadden Sea

Roebuck Bay

C. c. rufa

Banc d’Arguin (Mauritania)

Guinea-Bissau

C. c. canutus

Breeding area for different subspecies Knot staging and non-breeding area

Sources: personal communication with Dr. Peter Prokosch, GRID-Arendal; Piersma, T., Davidson, N., The Migration of Knots, WSG Bulletin 64, 1992.

Note: circles are intended to indicate qualitative proportion of red knot popuation using the area.

Langebaan Lagoon

Figure 22: Red knot flyways.

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