Urban Growth Disrupts Habitat Of The Gaviotìn Chico

[struggle4progress]

(Jan. 2, 2008) Time appears to be running out for the Gaviotín Chico (Sterna Lorata), a small bird whose coastal habitat extends from northern Chile to southern Peru.

According to the organization BirdLife International, the birds – also known as the Peruvian Tern – nest on broad sandy beaches and dunes. But as houses, hotels, industries and even shanty towns continue to set up shop along the Chilean and Peruvian coastline, the birds are being displaced, leading to a precipitous population decline. BirdLife International, which reports a 70 percent population decline in the past decade, red-listed the species as “endangered” starting in 2005. At the time the organization estimated its total population at 1,000-2,500.

Chilean ornithologists, however, fear the total population may be smaller still – maybe even as low as 200. “The way that people use the beaches make then unattractive to the birds. A lot, therefore, can’t nest and thus they have a very low population,” Juan Aguirre Castro, president of the Union of Chilean Ornithologists (AvesChile), told the Santiago Times.

After studying the coastal area between northern Chile and southern Peru, AvesChile associates identified just three breeding grounds north of the border. In each of the sites they were able to identify no more than a few nests. Their findings were similar on the Chilean side with the one exception being the beaches just north of Mejillones, in Region II. Considered the world’s last sizeable Gaviotín Chico breeding ground, Mejillones could be home to approximately 80 percent of the remaining birds, said Aguirre ...

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