The Amazing Migration of the Arctic Tern Visualized with Google Earth
Bonn,
10 February 2012 - A new Google Earth Tour visualizing
the incredible migration of the Arctic Tern (Sterna
paradisaea) has recently been published by the Encyclopaedia
of Life (EOL). These small birds travel distances of more
than 71,000 km annually, from pole to pole, crossing through
temperate and tropical regions along the way. The new web visualization presents a summary of the research results of an international study published in 2010 which successfully mapped the impressive migratory movements of the Arctic Tern, using geo-locators - tiny tracking devices mounted on the legs of the birds.
The results from this ground breaking study not only confirmed the Arctic Tern as the champion of long-distance migration, but also held a few surprises in store for the research team. As the new visualization nicely shows, the study also revealed some very interesting new insights with regard to the migration patterns of the Arctic Tern.
It turns out that the birds did not immediately travel south, but spent almost a month at sea in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, approximately 1,000 km north of the Azores. After this lengthy stop-over, the birds continued their long journey south down the coast of northwest Africa, but around the Cape Verde Islands the birds’ behaviour surprised the research team again.
Approximately half of the birds continued down the coast
of Africa, while the other half crossed the Atlantic Ocean
to follow a parallel route south along the east coast of
South America.
The Arctic Tern is listed under AEWA (Table 1 / Column C / Category 1) and Appendix II of the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) and has a circumpolar breeding distribution, breeding colonially in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions of Europe, Asia and North America. It is a trans-equatorial migrant, and can be found wintering throughout the Southern Ocean to the edge of the Antarctic ice and the southern tips of South America and Africa.
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The original study was carried out by a team of researchers led by Carsten Egevang of the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources with experts from Denmark, the United States, the United Kingdom and Iceland. The results of the study were first published in the U.S. journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in January 2010. The new EOL Google Earth Visualization is narrated by Ari Daniel Shapiro and was produced by Atlantic Public Media (www.atlantic.org) and Eduardo Garcia Milagros.
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