Recently, conservation efforts spanning continents and thousands of miles have sprung up. One seeks to protect buff-breasted sandpipers. As they migrate 18,000 miles to and from the High Arctic where they nest, the birds experience extreme hunger—hyperphagia—that compels them to voraciously devour insects in short grasses where the bugs proliferate. But many stops along the birds’ round-trip route are threatened. There are water shortages affecting agriculture in Texas, where the birds forage at turf grass farms; grassland loss and degradation in Paraguay; and in Colombia, conversion of forage lands to exotic grasses and rice paddies these birds cannot use.
Conservationists say it’s critical to protect habitat for “buffies” all along their route, and to ensure that the winters these small shorebirds spend around Uruguay’s coastal lagoons are a food fiesta. To that end, Manomet conservation specialist Joaquín Aldabe, in partnership with Uruguay’s agriculture ministry, has so far taught 40 local ranchers how to improve their cattle grazing practices. Rotationally moving the animals from pasture to pasture means grasses stay the right length for insects to flourish.
There are no easy fixes in the North American northwest, where bird conservation is in crisis. Extreme drought is causing breeding grounds, molting spots, and migration stopover sites to vanish. It is also endangering the livelihoods of farmers, who feel the push to sell land to developers. From Southern Oregon to Central California, conservation allies have provided monetary incentives for water-strapped grain farmers to leave behind harvest debris to improve survivability for the 1 billion birds that pass through every year, and for ranchers to flood-irrigate unused pastures.
One treacherous leg of the northwest migration route is the parched Klamath Basin of Oregon and California. For three recent years, “we saw no migrating birds. I mean, the peak count was zero,” says John Vradenburg, supervisory biologist of the Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuge Complex. He and myriad private, public, and Indigenous partners are working to conjure more water for the basin’s human and avian denizens, as perennial wetlands become seasonal wetlands, seasonal wetlands transition to temporary wetlands, and temporary wetlands turn to arid lands.
Taking down four power dams and one levee has stretched the Klamath River’s water across the landscape, creating new streams and connecting farm fields to long-separated wetlands. But making the most of this requires expansive thinking. Wetland restoration—now endangered by loss of funding from the current administration—would help drought-afflicted farmers by keeping water tables high. But what if farmers could also receive extra money for their businesses via eco-credits, akin to carbon credits, for the work those wetlands do to filter-clean farm runoff? And what if wetlands could function as aquaculture incubators for juvenile fish, before stocking rivers? Klamath tribes are invested in restoring endangered c’waam and koptu sucker fish, and this could help them achieve that goal.
As birds’ traditional resting and nesting spots become inhospitable, a more sobering question is whether improvements can happen rapidly enough. The blistering pace of climate change gives little chance for species to genetically adapt, although some are changing their behaviors. That means that the work of conservationists to find and secure adequate, supportive farmland and rangeland as the birds seek out new routes has become a sprint against time.
This story originally appeared at Knowable Magazine.