Chapter 28 - The East Asian–Australasian and other migration systems

Abstract

This chapter discusses some of the limited information available for three main migration systems, the East Asian–Australasian, the Central Asian (trans-Himalayan) and the Central Pacific. The first holds more bird species, and many more rare species, than any other major migration system but runs through regions of dense human populations and massive recent habitat destruction, so most of the species it holds have inevitably declined in recent years. These declines have been best-documented for those shorebird species that breed in northern Asia and winter in Australasia, and have been attributed to destruction of important mud-flat stopover areas around the Yellow Sea. For the Central Asian migration system, many more species routinely cross the Himalayas than previously thought, some reaching flight altitudes well over 7000m. The Pacific system involves mainly long oversea flights, the main participants being shorebirds and, in smaller numbers, ducks.