Conservation of North Pacific shorebirds Robert E. Gill, Jr., Robert W. Butler, Pave/S. Tomkovich, Taej Mundkur & Colleen M. Handel Gill, R.E., Jr., Butler, R.W., Tomkovich, PS., Mundkur, T. & Handel, C. 1995. Conservation of North Pacific shorebirds Wader Study Group Bull.77: 82-91. (Reprinted,with amendments,from Trans. 59th North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference(1994), with kind permission of the publishers.) Robert E. Gill, Jr., National Biological Service, Anchorage, Alaska; Robert W. Butler, Canadian Wildlife Service, •Delta,British Columbia; Pavel S. Tomkovich, Zoological Museum, •Moscow State UniversityMoscow, Russia;Taej Mundkur, Asian WetlandBureau, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia;Colleen M. Handel, NationalBiological Service, Anchorage,Alaska INTRODUCTION In his introduction to the 1979 symposiumproceedings entitled "Shorebirds in Marine Environments," Frank Pitelka stressed the need for studies and conservation programs that spanned the westernhemisphere (Pitelka 1979). In the 15 years since Pitelka's'call to arms,' the locations of many importantmigratory and wintering sites for shorebirds have been identified in the Americas (Senner & Howe 1984; Morrison& Ross 1989; Morrison & Butler 1994) and in the East Asian-Australasian flyway (Lane & Parish 1991; Mundkur1993; Watkins 1993). However, assessments of Central America, the Russian Far East, and most of Oceania remain incompleteor lacking. The recognition that shorebird conservation required the protection of habitats throughout the birdsrange (e.g. Morrison 1984; Davidson & Evans 1989; in Ens et al. 1990) prompted the establishment of the Western Hemisphere Shorebird ReserveNetwork (WHSRN) in the Americasin 1985 (Joyce 1986). This program complemented the 1971 Convention on Wetlands of International ImportanceEspeciallyfor Waterbirds (Ramsar Convention, Smart 1987), recognized by over 50 countries world-wide. Our purposein writingthis paper is to: 1) describethe distribution of North Pacific shorebirds throughout their annual cycle, 2) reviewthe locations of and threatsto important sites used by North Pacific shorebirds during the breeding, migration,and winteringperiods,and 3) outlinea programfor international conservation of Pacific shorebirds. DISTRIBUTION IN THE NORTH PACIFIC The NorthPacificregion is the area bounded by British Columbia, Alaska and the Russian Far East. The status, distribution and scientific names of the 93 speciesand Table 1. Status of shorebirds within the North Pacific Region. subspecies of shorebirds that occur in this regionare shown in Table 1. Breeding The North Pacific regionrepresents a relatively small portionof the Holarcticlandmass, but it is one of the world's most important breedingareas for shorebirds. The regionnot only supports a disproportionately large assemblage of species with a high degree of endemism, but also hosts the majority of the global populations for many other more widespread taxa. Comparedto the world'sshorebird fauna, that breedingin the North Pacific is represented by 4 of 12 families, 22 of 55 generaand 75 of 212 species(Table 1). This region, more so than anywhere else in the world, is characterized by the Scolopacidae, the largestand most diverseof the shorebird families. Within the North Pacific, the Scolopacidae are represented by 17 of 22 genera(77%) and 65 of 87 species (75%). The polytypic genera within this familyare especially well represented within the region. All species of godwits, shanks,phalaropes, dowitchers and turnstones (genera Limosa, Tringa, Phalaropus, Limnodromus and Arenaria),7 of 9 species of curlews (tribe Numeniini), and 17 of 19 species of typical sandpipers (genusCalidds) breed in the NorthPacific. Lastly, several of the genera and many of the species withinthis family are largelyendemic to the regionor the majority of their populations occurthere. These include the monotypic genera Eurynorhynchus (Spoon-billed Sandpiper)and Aphdza (Surfbird), both species of tattlers (Heteroscelus incanus and H. brevipes),BlackTurnstone Arenariamelanocephala, Bristle-thighed CurlewNumenius tahitiensis, Western Sandpiper Calidds maud, all five races of Eock Sandpiper C. ptilocnemis, Great KnotC. tenuirostds, AmericanBlack Oystercatcher Haematopus bachmani, and the endangered Spottedor Nordman's Greenshank Tdngaguttiler. The biogeographic distribution of shorebirds breeding within the NorthPacific is depicted in Figure1. Fifty-eight 82