CAFF Assessment Series Report September 2015 Arctic Species Trend Index: Migratory Birds Index ARCTIC COUNCIL Acknowledgements CAFF Designated Agencies: • Norwegian Environment Agency, Trondheim, Norway • Environment Canada, Ottawa, Canada • Faroese Museum of Natural History, Tórshavn, Faroe Islands (Kingdom of Denmark) • Finnish Ministry of the Environment, Helsinki, Finland • Icelandic Institute of Natural History, Reykjavik, Iceland • Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Greenland • Russian Federation Ministry of Natural Resources, Moscow, Russia • Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, Stockholm, Sweden • United States Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service, Anchorage, Alaska CAFF Permanent Participant Organizations: • Aleut International Association (AIA) • Arctic Athabaskan Council (AAC) • Gwich’in Council International (GCI) • Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) • Russian Indigenous Peoples of the North (RAIPON) • Saami Council This publication should be cited as: Deinet, S., Zöckler, C., Jacoby, D., Tresize, E., Marconi, V., McRae, L., Svobods, M., & Barry, T. (2015). The Arctic Species Trend Index: Migratory Birds Index. Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna, Akureyri, Iceland. ISBN: 978-9935-431-44-8 Cover photo: Arctic tern. Photo: Mark Medcalf/Shutterstock.com Back cover: Red knot. Photo: USFWS/Flickr Design and layout: Courtney Price For more information please contact: CAFF International Secretariat Borgir, Nordurslod 600 Akureyri, Iceland Phone: +354 462-3350 Fax: +354 462-3390 Email: [email protected] Internet: www.caff.is This report was commissioned and funded by the Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF), the Biodiversity Working Group of the Arctic Council. Additional funding was provided by WWF International, the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS). The views expressed in this report are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Arctic Council or its members. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/. All photographs are subject to a separate restricted copyright and may not be reproduced without explicit consent, which should be sought directly from the copyright holder. CAFF Designated Area Table of Contents Acknowledgements ...........................................................................................................................5 A note from the authors ....................................................................................................................5 Terminology .....................................................................................................................................6 Key findings .....................................................................................................................................7 Introduction .....................................................................................................................................8 Arctic migrants ....................................................................................................................................................................8 This report ........................................................................................................................................................................8 Method ..................................................................................................................................................................... 11 Results and Discussion ....................................................................................................................14 The final data set ............................................................................................................................................................. 14 Coverage ..................................................................................................................................................................... 16 Taxonomic coverage ............................................................................................................................................ 16 Spatial and temporal coverage ........................................................................................................................ 16 Flyway coverage .................................................................................................................................................... 19 Data quality and robustness ....................................................................................................................................... 22 Trend descriptions ...........................................................................................................................23 Overall ..................................................................................................................................................................... 23 Flyway regions .................................................................................................................................26 Overview ..................................................................................................................................................................... 26 Americas ..................................................................................................................................................................... 28 Africa-Eurasia .................................................................................................................................................................... 29 Central Asia ..................................................................................................................................................................... 29 East Asia ..................................................................................................................................................................... 30 Taxonomic subgroups ................................................................................................................................................... 30 Trend comparisons ..........................................................................................................................31 Americas ..................................................................................................................................................................... 31 Africa-Eurasia .................................................................................................................................................................... 32 Central Asia ..................................................................................................................................................................... 33 East Asia ..................................................................................................................................................................... 33 Case studies ...................................................................................................................................34 Waterfowl ..................................................................................................................................................................... 34 Geese/swans ........................................................................................................................................................... 34 Ducks ..................................................................................................................................................................... 36 Wadden Sea ..................................................................................................................................................................... 37 Species trends ..................................................................................................................................39 Long-tailed duck ............................................................................................................................................................ 39 Greater white-fronted goose ..................................................................................................................................... 40 Red knot ..................................................................................................................................................................... 41 Grey plover ..................................................................................................................................................................... 42 Snow bunting .................................................................................................................................................................. 43 Conclusions ...................................................................................................................................44 References ...................................................................................................................................45 Appendices ...................................................................................................................................52 Additional trend figures ...............................................................................................................................................