Bar-tailed godwits stand on the seaside at Marion Bay in Australia’s Tasmania state on Feb. 17, 2018. A younger bar-tailed godwit seems to have set a continuous distance file for migratory birds by flying no less than 13,560 kilometers (8,435 miles) from Alaska to the Australian state of Tasmania, a chicken knowledgeable stated Friday, Oct. 28, 2022. Credit: Eric Woehler by way of AP
A younger bar-tailed godwit seems to have set a continuous distance file for migratory birds by flying no less than 13,560 kilometers (8,435 miles) from Alaska to the Australian state of Tasmania, a chicken knowledgeable stated Friday.
The chicken was tagged as a hatchling in Alaska in the course of the Northern Hemisphere summer season with a monitoring GPS chip and tiny photo voltaic panel that enabled a global analysis workforce to observe its first annual migration throughout the Pacific Ocean, Birdlife Tasmania convenor Eric Woehler stated. Because the chicken was so younger, its gender wasn’t recognized.
Aged about 5 months, it left southwest Alaska on the Yuko-Kuskokwim Delta on Oct. 13 and touched down 11 days later at Ansons Bay on the island of Tasmania’s northeastern tip on Oct. 24, in accordance with knowledge from Germany’s Max Plank Institute for Ornithology. The analysis has but to be revealed or peer reviewed.
The chicken began on a southwestern course towards Japan then turned southeast over Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, a map revealed by New Zealand’s Pukoro Miranda Shorebird Center reveals.
The chicken was once more monitoring southwest when it flew over or close to Kiribati and New Caledonia, then previous the Australian mainland earlier than turning straight west for Tasmania, Australia’s most southerly state. The satellite tv for pc path confirmed it coated 13,560 kilometers (8,435 miles) with out stopping.
“Whether that is an accident, whether or not this chicken obtained misplaced or whether or not that is a part of a standard sample of migration for the species, we nonetheless do not know,” stated Woehler, who’s a part of the analysis undertaking.
Guinness World Records lists the longest recorded migration by a chicken with out stopping for meals or relaxation as 12,200 km (7,580 miles) by a satellite-tagged male bar-tailed godwit flying from Alaska to New Zealand.
Bar-tailed godwits fly over Marion Bay in Australia’s Tasmania state on Dec. 27, 2013. A younger bar-tailed godwit seems to have set a continuous distance file for migratory birds by flying no less than 13,560 kilometers (8,435 miles) from Alaska to the Australian state of Tasmania, a chicken knowledgeable stated Friday, Oct. 28, 2022. Credit: Eric Woehler by way of AP
That flight was recorded in 2020 as a part of the identical decade-old analysis undertaking, which additionally includes China’s Fudan University, New Zealand’s Massey University and the Global Flyway Network.
The identical chicken broke its personal file with a 13,000-kilometer (8,100-mile) flight on its subsequent migration final yr, researchers say. But Guinness has but to acknowledge that feat.
Woehler stated researchers didn’t know whether or not the most recent chicken, recognized by its satellite tv for pc tag 234684, flew alone or as a part of a flock.
“There are so few birds which were tagged, we do not understand how consultant or in any other case this occasion is,” Woehler stated.
“It could also be that half the birds that do the migration from Alaska come to Tasmania straight relatively than by means of New Zealand or it could be 1%, or it could be that that is the primary it is ever occurred,” he added.
Adult birds depart Alaska sooner than juveniles, so the tagged chicken was unlikely to have adopted extra skilled vacationers south, Woehler stated.
Woehler hopes to see the chicken as soon as moist climate clears within the distant nook of Tasmania, the place it would fatten up having misplaced half its physique weight on its journey.
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Alaska-Australia flight may place chicken in file books (2022, October 28)
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