公益財団法人 日本鳥類保護連盟は野鳥をはじめとする野生生物の保護と普及啓発を目的とする団体です。

Of the same order as plovers and the same family as gulls, at 28cm in total length considered a miniature tern.　They travel thousands of kilometers from Australia and New Zealand to breed.

　　　

The Current Situation with Little Tern

From May till August little terns create colonies on sandbars and sandy or rocky shores of river banks and ocean coastlines but these habitats are decreasing due to human contact.　Also, natural disasters and predation causes a reduction in colonies and causes further injury by inhibiting reproduction within the population.　For this reason, the little tern is declared a Class II Endagered species by the Ministry of the Environment version of the Red Data list.　45 Prefectures aside from Hokkaido and Iwate have declared the little tern as concerned in their version of the Red Data list.　Furthermore, the little tern being a species which crosses borders such as Australia, Russia, China and America to migrate; is protected by the Consevation of Migratory Species.　And finally, the little tern is deemed an international rare plant and animal species by the Act on Conservation of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna nad Flora.

　　

To Protect the Little Tern

The little tern being a migratory bird, requires not only a welcoming breeding area but a habitable wintering and stopover area as well.　Little terns require all of these areas in order to successfully migrate. Conservation and maintenance of nesting sites have been supported by NPO groups and volunteers throughout Japan.　Banding surveys show little terns migrate to Australia for their wintering site, we also carry out conservation measures for the Australian breeding population as well.　However, where exactly the stopover sites are located is uncertain, this is not yet a target for conservation of the species.　Stopover sites are very important to a species that travel thousands of kilometers because they provide an area for little terns to conserve energy.　Until now we were not able to research and discover these areas due to the little tern’s size. GPS devices are too heavy to use on small species but thanks to an ever evolving technology we now have the ability.　Accomplished by the Geolocator.

Geolocator

Geolocators are data loggers capable of receiving all sorts of information.　For the little tern, we chose a device to log light intensity and time.　Daily sunrise and sunset based on light intensity and time is how we receive the latitude and longitudinal coordinates.

Attaching the Geolocator

The geolocator was decided based on the size and ecology of the little tern.　The device and the recognizable flag must weigh no more than 1.2g in order to be mounted to the little tern.　In 2013 we attached geolocators to 100 individuals throughout Osaka, Chiba, Tokyo, Shizuoka and Ibaraki.

　

Information Retrieved by Geolocator

By use of geolocators we determined that little terns were not heading south by way of the shortest distance.　Instead they make round trip migratory routes along island chains and other possible areas where they might rest. However, data from the geolocator surfaced an area surrounding the wintering site which was unclear.　The geolocator data showed wintering sites were not in south-eastern Australia as we believed but in the north-east of Australia as well as the Philippines and Papua New Guinea.　Due to low amounts of data we cannot yet draw any conclusions but we do know where some individuals are wintering.　To increase our data, we must find the individuals with geolocators attached out of the entire flock and recover the devices.　If you see a little tern wearing a geolocator please contact us. We look forward to your information.

　
　　Geolocator with a white flag　　　　　Geolocator with a blue flag　

Contact: Japanese Society for Preservation of Birds　
Tel: 03-5378-5691 　E-mail: fujii☆jspb.org（please change ☆ to ＠） 　To Fujii

　
　　　　　　　　　　　　　Individuals attached with a geolocator　　

　
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Geolocator　　




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