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 The researchers said on Thursday they tracked the migratory
routes, stopover locations, breeding grounds and wintering locations
of 1,451 migratory species and assessed about 450,000 protected
areas like national parks and other reserves.
They found 1,324 species, about 91 percent, journeyed through
locales that were not safeguarded from threats like development.
"This is important because migratory species cover vast distances
and rely on an intact series of habitats in which they can rest and
feed on their long journeys," said conservation scientist Richard
Fuller of the Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for
Environmental Decisions (CEED) and the University of Queensland.
"If even a single link in this chain of sites is lost for a species,
it could lead to major declines or even its extinction."
 The birds traverse many different countries where conservation
efforts vary.
The problem was most acute in North Africa, Central Asia and along
the coasts of East Asia. Countries in these regions maintain
relatively few protected areas, and existing ones do not overlap
sufficiently with the routes of migratory birds.
For small birds, the opportunity to feed and build up energy
reserves for the next leg of their journeys is essential for
survival, said conservation scientist Claire Runge of CEED, the
University of Queensland and the University of California, Santa
Barbara.
"Loss of these critical sites means they no longer have the energy
needed to make the journeys, and they simply perish along the way,"
Runge said.
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The bar-tailed godwit is a bird that migrates from Arctic breeding
grounds to Australia and New Zealand. Along the way, the birds stop
to rest and feed at Yellow Sea mudflats in China, North Korea and
South Korea.
"Many of these critical sites have been lost to land reclamation
owing to urban, industrial and agricultural expansion, and the
species is undergoing a rapid decline," Runge said.
Runge called for creating new protected areas in key locations,
improving management of existing protected areas and coordinating
conservation actions across international borders.
"Common migratory species have been lost in the past, for example
the Eskimo curlew, and our world gets poorer every time we lose a
species," Fuller said.
The research was published in the journal Science.
(Reporting by Will Dunham; Editing by Sandra Maler)
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