Unregulated and unmonitored recreational shooting swamps in the Caribbean have claimed perhaps their most notable bird victims, two Whimbrels.  One, named Machi, had been tracked by satellite for two years over a distance of 27,000 miles. The other, named Goshen, had been tracked for about one year over nearly 14,000 miles. The birds were likely exhausted after navigating through severe weather – Machi having navigated through Tropical Storm Maria, and Goshen through Hurricane Irene,  and were forced to land in Guadalupe, an area they had avoided in previous recorded migrations.

Both Goshen and Machi were born in the Arctic, and were part of a collaborative tracking project involving The Center for Conservation Biology, The Nature Conservancy, The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, the Virginia Coastal Zone Management Program, and Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences.

Machi had been tracked over 27,000 miles through a total of five spring and fall migrations between its breeding grounds in Canada and wintering grounds in Brazil since 2009. On seven different occasions, the bird flew nonstop more than 2,000 miles, and in the spring of 2010, it flew more than 3,400 miles directly from Brazil to South Carolina without rest. Goshen began with the tracking program in the fall of 2010 and was tracked over a total of three migrations.  Prior to the deaths of these birds, the program was tracking a total of four birds.

“The unrestrained sport killing of migrating birds for fun at these shooting swamps must be stopped by local authorities. The practice is not only untenable from a wildlife conservation perspective, but it also robs communities that tolerate it of the potential economic benefits from wildlife tourism,” said George Fenwick, President of American Bird Conservancy, the leading national bird conservation organization in the United States.

According to American Bird Conservancy, shooting swamps are one of several threats birds face in the Caribbean. Wetlands throughout the islands are vanishing due to increasing tourism development, agriculture and urban expansion. More than half of the wetlands that remain are seriously degraded by the cutting of mangroves and coastal forest, pollution, water mismanagement, and natural catastrophes such as droughts and hurricanes. Many threatened birds that rely on these Caribbean wetlands are now declining.

While the Migratory Bird Treaty Act was passed, in part, to protect dwindling numbers of birds that migrate across country borders, both Guadeloupe and Martinique are part of the European Union and are not party to the Treaty. Barbados, which also has the distinction of being the place where the last Eskimo Curlew in the world was shot in 1963, is an independent state and also not party to the Treaty.