Why the spoon-billed sandpiper's luck might change

The spoon-billed sandpiper faces extinction. But a last-ditch breeding programme might just save this extraordinary-looking species

If prizes were awarded for the world's unluckiest bird, the spoon-billed sandpiper would be a leading contender. It breeds along the coast of Chukotka province, in easternmost Russia, where snow, floods and predators may foil its short window of opportunity to raise a family.

If any chicks do survive, they must undertake one of the most perilous journeys of any migratory bird: 8,000km (5,000 miles) to their wintering grounds in Myanmar and Bangladesh. On the way they pass through the world's industrial powerhouses – Japan, China and South Korea – where the reclamation of coastal wetlands for economic development is proceeding at a terrifying rate. To make matters worse, if the sandpipers do reach their wintering grounds, poor local communities trap them for food. It's hardly surprising the spoon-billed sandpiper is heading for extinction.

Never common – the world population in the late 1970s was estimated at 2,400 breeding pairs – the species declined to 1,000 pairs by 2000. Then the real nosedive began: it may now have dropped below 100 pairs, a fall of 90% in a single decade. Unless something can be done soon, extinction in the wild is virtually inevitable within 10 years. Hence the brave and controversial decision by the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT), along with conservation partners including the RSPB and Birds Russia, to take spoon-billed sandpiper chicks from the wild and raise them in captivity, at the trust's HQ at Slimbridge in Gloucestershire.

Brave, because although captive breeding works well with large, long-lived species such as ducks, geese and cranes, it is much harder to achieve with a small, migratory wader. Controversial, because some argue that scarce resources would be better spent on preserving wetland habitats for species more likely to survive in the long term.

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