{"id":140457,"date":"2018-08-16T13:55:28","date_gmt":"2018-08-16T17:55:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=140457"},"modified":"2023-06-27T12:17:44","modified_gmt":"2023-06-27T16:17:44","slug":"chris-elphick-myanmar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2018\/08\/chris-elphick-myanmar\/","title":{"rendered":"Snapshot: Chris Elphick in Myanmar"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Gulf<\/a>
Gulf of Mottoma (1 Feb 2018) (71)<\/div>
Survey team members observing from one of the two boats they lived on during the surveys in the Gulf of Mottoma, Myanmar. (Chris Elphick\/UConn Photo)<\/div><\/div>\"Gulf<\/a>
Gulf of Mottoma (2 Feb 2018) (22)<\/div>
Waterbirds taking flight over the Gulf of Mottama. (Chris Elphick\/UConn Photo)<\/div><\/div>\"Gulf<\/a>
Gulf of Mottoma (Feb 2018) (350)<\/div>
At low tide, the survey team would leave the fishing boats and search the surrounding mudflats for flocks of waterbirds, Gulf of Mottama. (Chris Elphick\/UConn Photo)<\/div><\/div>\"Gulf<\/a>
Gulf of Mottoma (2 Feb 2018) (47)<\/div>
Shorebird footprints in the mud, Gulf of Mottama. (Chris Elphick\/UConn Photo) <\/div><\/div>\"Gulf<\/a>
Gulf of Mottoma (31 Jan 2018) (26)<\/div>
A view from the survey boats, while waiting for the tide to come in and allow travel to the next location, Gulf of Mottama. (Chris Elphick\/UConn Photo)<\/div><\/div>\"Ayeyarwady<\/a>
Ayeyarwady (Jan 2018) (80)<\/div>
A pair of sarus cranes. These cranes are the world\u2019s tallest flying bird and are a vulnerable species that rely on rice fields for nesting sites. (Chris Elphick\/UConn Photo)<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n

On a trip earlier this year to the Gulf of Mottama, Myanmar, associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology Chris Elphick helped with surveys organized by the Biodiversity and Nature Conservation Association (BANCA), a nonprofit based in Myanmar, and the Spoon-billed Sandpiper Task Force. The surveys were primarily for looking for critically endangered spoon-billed sandpipers, but were also for counting all other species of waterbirds.<\/p>\n

Surveys like this are vital for conservation efforts, such as designating and managing protected habitats.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Gulf of Mottama is one of the most important wintering areas for shorebirds in Southeast Asia and it is thought to be where a large proportion of the world\u2019s spoon-billed sandpipers spend the winter,\u201d says Elphick. “We only found four spoon-billeds, fewer than in recent years, but there are probably only a couple of a hundred left in the world.”<\/p>\n

The other half of Elphick\u2019s trip to Myanmar focused on studying birds in rice fields, another main area of his research. If managed appropriately, rice fields can serve as regular nesting areas for birds, including endangered or vulnerable species such as the sarus crane.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Researcher Chris Elphick shares photos from Myanmar, where he helped survey species of waterbirds, including a critically endangered sandpiper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":118,"featured_media":140461,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2226,69,88,2076,2387,2225],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2093],"class_list":["post-140457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-clas","category-gallery","category-global-affairs","category-research","category-sustainability","category-uconn-storrs","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-23 11:57:59","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/118"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140457"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140675,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140457\/revisions\/140675"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/140461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140457"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=140457"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=140457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}