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Machi’s Legacy

The whimbrel is a gorgeous shorebird that breeds up in the arctic and then spends its winters in the south, including St. Martin. These birds will often return to the exact same locations each year, so the ones we see on St. Martin each winter may be coming back over and over, just like many of the tourists who visit each year.

When advances in technology allowed for satellite transmitters small enough to be carried by whimbrels, a number of birds were fitted with them and tracked during their migration. One of these birds, nicknamed Machi, was tracked for over 27,000 miles, before a storm forced her to change course into the Lesser Antilles. When she arrived on Guadeloupe, she was shot by hunters.

Find out how the death of Machi (and another transmitter-carrying whimbrel, Goshen) helped change hunting laws in Guadeloupe and Martinique: http://www.caribbeanbirdingtrail.org/she-did-not-die-in-vain/

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