A chook born in Alaska this previous summer season just lately flew to the opposite facet of the planet, a distance of almost 8,500 miles. It’s known as a bar-tailed godwit, and the closest factor it has to a reputation is “B6.”
That’s what it says on a tag on its leg, anyway, and it’s the tag that allowed researchers to trace the little shorebird’s 11-day flight from the Seward Peninsula in Alaska all the way in which to Tasmania, the island state of Australia.
The epic journey additionally captured the eye of each informal and hardcore chook fanatics all over the world.
However earlier than it was internationally well-known, B6 was simply one other godwit chick in Alaska, the place wildlife biologist Dan Ruthrauff with the U.S. Geological Survey discovered it.
Ruthrauff says, for the people, discovering it to place a tag on it was the toughest half.
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The next transcript has been flippantly edited for readability.
Dan Ruthrauff: The concept was that we’d comply with these chicks till they had been sufficiently big to place a giant fancy transmitter on them. After which we wave goodbye to them and, you recognize, watch all these chicks fly to New Zealand. And in follow, they only walked quite a bit additional than we might and we couldn’t sustain with them. And so we had been tremendous fortunate, we did deploy these fancy tags on B6 and two brood mates, two siblings. The issue was these birds dropped their radios, as a result of we put these tags on very loosely, as a result of the chicks had been nonetheless rising.
Casey Grove: Yeah, I imply, I wasn’t certain if, like, when the migration begins, for those who’re monitoring a number of birds, and B6 simply occurred to be the one which made it that far, but it surely feels like that was the one to trace, proper?
DR: It was the one one. And we had been very grateful that we even had one, you recognize, after we retreated from Nome, like, “Effectively, that didn’t work so properly.” We had been joyful to have this one chook. We thought, “This will likely be nice. We’ll monitor it to New Zealand.” However it actually stunned us and went a lot, a lot additional than New Zealand. So generally, you recognize, a pattern measurement of 1 can present a number of the most superb insights. So this was undoubtedly not one thing we anticipated, a chook going that far.
CG: Yeah, I imply, perhaps that even signifies that it’s not that unusual, proper, for them to fly that far?
DR: Yeah, I believe that’s a humorous human notion we’ve got, that, “Why would these birds fly nonstop over the Pacific Ocean? That appears very harmful.” And it could be loopy for you or I to do that, proper? And so we will’t even conceive of what an overwater, nonstop flight is like. To people, that appears very harmful. However to those birds, I believe it’s dependable, that, you recognize, the Aleutian low units up each fall, they take off on a giant low-pressure system, they get an enormous tailwind. I imply, it’s a protracted flight. They usually’re, you recognize, a number of the solely animals that do that. It’s the longest nonstop chook migration on the planet. However the inhabitants’s secure, they’re doing properly, they appear to have the ability to assist this and in order that this chook went to Tasmania speaks volumes about their capability. I’m certain this chook might search for a shorter cease the subsequent time it does this migration. You already know, ideally, you need to expend as little vitality as doable, and this chook went as just about so far as you’ll be able to presumably go.
CG: I imply, I simply needed to giggle whenever you stated that, as a result of it’s like, if the headline is, “An Alaska chook flew to Tasmania,” that appears ridiculous, proper?
DR: It’s completely ridiculous, yeah. And, you recognize, my predecessors on the U.S. Geological Survey, they documented this migration again in 2005. They tracked a chook that did this, and it by no means fails to amaze folks, as a result of it simply appears so inconceivable. And, particularly, you’ll be able to form of anticipate the surprise of a juvenile chook. So this chook was like 4 months outdated. It’s loopy. It had hatched on the Seward Peninsula in early July, and it needed to develop into an grownup measurement and placed on, you recognize, 50% fats so it might gasoline this migration. So it’s doing simply superb, incomprehensible issues in its first 4 months of life, and tops it off by flying to Tasmania.
CG: Yeah, and you may’t actually overstate that both, proper? As a result of, I imply, we’ve heard about godwits earlier than, I’ve, and flying this superb distance from, you recognize, Alaska to the southern hemisphere. However they’re adults. Like, presumably they’ve carried out it no less than as soon as, proper?
DR: Yeah.
CG: However this chook was simply born final season, then migration season got here. My understanding is the adults take off earlier, proper? To present the chicks extra time? In order that they’re it’s not like they’re flying with them, exhibiting them the way in which.
DR: That’s right.
CG: How on the planet does that work? How do they try this?
DR: Actually, we do not know. I want I might provide you with a greater reply. However you’re precisely proper, that the adults are inclined to precede the juveniles, that, simply primarily based on observations from New Zealand and jap Australia, the adults begin to — and you recognize, I’ve spent loads of time on the Kuskokwim Delta within the fall — the birds begin to depart in late August. These are the adults. Fairly quickly, it’s solely juveniles that stay in Alaska. And shortly they disappear as properly. And this chook left fairly a bit later than we thought. It departed the Yukon Delta on October 13, and we had been beginning to get apprehensive, we thought, “This chook’s not going to fly.” And that simply exhibits you the way little we all know. However yeah, we realized quite a bit from this one chook.
CG: And I assume a part of this, too, is that so far as we all know, the bar-tailed godwits that breed in Alaska are doing fairly properly, proper? However godwits elsewhere are usually not, and I perceive that’s a part of why you’re you’re taking a look at them.
DR: Yeah, that’s the final word motivation for this, is that shorebirds in North America, there’s been actually steep, documented declines during the last 50 years. And 50 years is a very long time. It’s lengthy sufficient that people won’t even understand it, until that they had any individual amassing information within the Nineteen Seventies, Nineteen Eighties, Nineteen Nineties, taking a look at these stopover websites and what number of birds are coming by. So there’s actually strong info that these populations have declined. And but it’s exhausting for us to understand that, however our colleagues in Australia (and) New Zealand, have carried out actually good monitoring of the bar-tailed godwits throughout our winter, which is the summer season in New Zealand. And the inhabitants counts are inclined to fluctuate. They usually had been perhaps greater 25 years in the past by 20,000 birds or so. However they’ve been fairly secure at about 125,000 bar-tailed godwits for the final, oh, say 5 to seven years. That’s nice. A number of the different subspecies of bar-tailed godwits are declining precipitously. They’re bar-tailed godwits that dwell in Western Australia that breed in Siberia. Their populations are declining very quickly. So precisely what you stated, we’re attempting to raised perceive why one godwit inhabitants is secure whereas others are declining.
