Bar-tailed godwits perform the longest non-stop migration of any bird, flying 12,000 km from Alaska to New Zealand, with welfare implications at staging sites where body condition determines survival.
Bar-tailed godwit welfare is fundamentally threatened at Yellow Sea staging sites, where tidal flat reclamation for land development has removed up to 65% of available foraging habitat. Birds arriving from New Zealand or Alaska to find reduced feeding areas cannot accumulate sufficient fuel for the next flight stage, increasing mortality risk on continuation of migration. Welfare harm from habitat loss at a single staging region affects millions of birds that depend on those sites during a physiologically critical period. No alternative foraging habitat of equivalent value exists within their migration route.