Changing tide for shorebirds

There is a great story on a Question of Balance about the work being undertaken by Chris Hassell, a long term researcher with the Global Flyway Network in Broome to better understand the pressures that face migratory shorebirds on their annual breeding migration. Read the story »

Dutch Nobel prize for researcher

Nobel Prize laureate Professor Piersma releasing a satellite tagged migratory shorebird on Roebuck Bay.

Professor Theunis Piersma has won the Dutch Nobel Prize (Spinoza) for his work on migratory shorebirds »  Heartiest congratulations from the RBWG.  Theunis’ work on Roebuck Bay has been outstanding, not only with migratory shorebirds, but also with the invertebrates in the bay’s mudflats that are the food source that fuels their extraordinary migrations each year.

Theunis is the leading authority on global shorebird and benthic ecology, and being forward thinking, started the Roebuck Bay benthos monitoring program in 1999.  This long term monitoring study is still underway today and being carried out by Yawuru Rangers at DPaW and Wardens at the Broome Bird Observatory.  Theunis (Team Leader of the Global Flyway Network) employs Chris Hassell, the only on ground researcher focused on Roebuck Bay’s shorebirds and benthos.  Theunis is a Professor of Animal Ecology, Head of the Animal Ecology Group, Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Studies (CEES), book author (Life along lands edge and many more) and supervisor of many doctoral and  post-doctoral students.  And as you would expect, as well as the Dutch Nobel Prize, Theunis is the recipient of many other illustrious scientific awards – an exemplary example is the internationally acclaimed Luc Hoffmann Medal for Excellence in Science and Conservation, awarded by Wetlands International.