Identificação das ameaças às aves limícolas (Charadriiformes) migratórias e residentes do banco dos cajuais, um stopover de importância internacional no Ceará

Abstract

Shor ebirds are one of the groups of birds in major decline worldwide, and species that visit Brazil coming from Canada have already had a population decrease of at least 52%. One of the three sites of Brazil participating on the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Re serve Network (WHSRN), important to the conservation of those birds, is the Cajuais's bank, a sediment bank placed on the coast of Barra Grande Mangrove Environmental Protection Area (BGMEPA), in the municipality of Icapuí, located at Ceará state, Brazil. In BGMEPA we have four national threatened shorebird species, two of them critically endangered (Red Knot and Short billed Dowitcher), one endangered (Semipalmated Sandpiper) and one vulnerable (Wilson's Plover) that breeds in the area. The areas used by t hose shorebirds in BGMEPA are surrounded by human infrastructures and used by many types of extractivist and recreational activities, that subject shorebirds to many anthropogenic impacts that alters their resting and feeding behavior, possibly affecting t heir migratory success and survival. Thus, the present research aimed to identify the anthropic activities and their respective impacts that are capable of negatively interfering in biological or behavioral aspects of BGMEPA’s shorebirds. Data collection w as done through visits to BGMEPA and by semi structured interviews to members of the Non Governmental Organization Aquasis’ Migratory Birds Program. Also, researches about environmental impacts in the area were done in literature. For both migratory and re sident shorebirds, 13 threats classes (with emphasis on dogs and cats, recreational activities, mangrove degradation and salt production) were identified potentially causing 27 types of impacts (mainly disturbance of feeding or resting adult shorebirds) to these birds. Seven of those threats classes (with emphasis on dogs and cats, cattle and recreational activities) were responsible for five additional types of impacts (mainly disturbance of nesting adult shorebirds) potentially capable of exclusively affe cting resident shorebirds. A proper management of threats is necessary to ensure quality areas for staging and living of migratory and resident shorebirds at BGMEPA. This will mainly contribute to conservation of the four threatened shorebirds species that uses that area as a refuge.