The status of Curlew Sandpipers Calidris ferruginea on the Namib coast

The Namib Desert coast stretches 1,450 km from Baia dos Tigres in southern Angola to the mouth of the Orange River in southern Namibia. Maximum counts along the coast and at adjacent wetlands show that the Namib coast supports as many as 120,000 Curlew Sandpipers, 8.8 % of the estimated global population and a third of the eastern/southern African flyway population. Most (90%) occur at two Ramsar registered wetlands, Sandwich Harbour and Walvis Bay, both of which are vulnerable to modest sea level rise. There are indications that numbers at these wetlands have increased during the past 30 years.