Use of radio telemetry in studies of shorebirds' past contributions and future directions

The use of radio telemetry in wader studies has grown exponentially in the past decade, and more than 40 species from four different families have been radio-marked. We summarize these studies and find that nearly all of them have used Very High Frequency radio transmitters to study individuals for periods from a few days to a few months. In the past five years, there has been tremendous growth in studies of larger birds with satellite telemetry, but currently there is only one published satellite telemetry study of a wader, the Eastern Curlew. We discuss technical details including the various methods that have been used to affix transmitters to waders. Telemetry studies of waders have made significant contributions to understanding space use, distribution, migration, survival, and population size. A recent, January 2003, workshop on "The use and future of automated radio-tracking systems in bird migration studies", indicated that these have the capacity to gather tremendous amounts of data pertaining to wader ecology in relatively short amounts of time. Through the innovative use of telemetry, it is likely that new information on wader ecology that has previously been unattainable will soon emerge.