Martin Hale Black-faced Spoonbill Platalea minor Zoom In

Record spoonbill count in Taiwan

05-01-2006

The total population of the Black-faced Spoonbill in the Tainan area of Taiwan has reached a historical high, with a record count of 939 birds on 21 November 2005.

In the winter of 1989-1990, the known global population of Black-faced Spoonbill Platalea minor was just 294 birds. The species recovered slowly during the 1990s, before suffering a setback at the end of 2002 with an outbreak of botulism that killed 73 birds. Subsequently however, numbers of the species have shown an excellent increase.

The species was classified by BirdLife for the IUCN Red List as Critically Endangered from 1994 until 2000, when it was donwlisted to Endangered.