Photo of a Greater Yellowlegs shorebird via Canva Pro.

In December 2024, the non-profit international organisation BirdsCaribbean, which aims to conserve Caribbean birds and their regional habitats, raised the alarm over what it called “significant declines in shorebird populations,” highlighted in an update to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List just a month prior.

With as many as 16 shorebird species having moved to higher threat categories, BirdsCaribbean Executive Director Lisa Sorenson referred to the situation as “a wake-up call,” explaining that “the Caribbean is a lifeline for migratory shorebirds, providing critical stopover and wintering sites along the Atlantic Flyway. When these habitats are lost or degraded, or disappear, these birds face severe challenges.”

Jackie Cestero, a blogger and birding enthusiast from Anguilla, is paying attention, noting that at least six of the species with diminishing numbers — the short-billed dowitcher, killdeer, greater and lesser yellowlegs, ruddy turnstone, and black-bellied plover — spend part of every year on the island.

Of these, the short-billed dowitcher, black-bellied plover and lesser yellowlegs have moved from species of Least Concern to Vulnerable, while the killdeer, greater yellowlegs and ruddy turnstone have moved from Least Concern to Vulnerable ranking.

BirdsCaribbean noted the important role that wetlands and coastal habitats
like mangroves, swamps, beaches, sand and mud flats — which are “disappearing at an alarming rate” — play in the survival of shorebirds. The Caribbean Biodiversity Fund (CBF) estimates that approximately 12 percent of the world’s mangroves are located in the Caribbean, of which nearly 7,000 square kilometres (2,703 square miles) were lost over the last three decades (1980–2010). If the decline continues at this rate, it predicted, “the Caribbean’s mangroves could disappear in the next 60 years.”

From Cestero's perspective in Anguilla, tourism-related development has a lot to do with it. “The current Anguillan government,” she says, prioritises “development over conservation,” evident to her in a marina project at the Altamer resort in the south of the island, which is situated close to two salt ponds — Gull Pond and Cove Pond.

The eastern side of the island is also being impacted via a government Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to develop 87 hectares (215 acres) of coastal land for the Savannah Bay resort, which will be a 1,000+ unit development with an enclosed marina. Its website touts it as being set to become “one of the most significant projects in the history of the island, if not the entire Caribbean.”

Of concern to Cestero, however, is that the proposed development borders the Grey Pond Important Bird Area (IBA) as well as Junks Hole Pond, fuelling “little doubt that there will be severe impacts on these wetlands and the coastal area. Grey Pond IBA is a critical nesting habitat for Least Terns and resident Snowy and Wilson’s Plovers,” as well as other migratory shore and seabirds.

For its part, the government, whose catchphrase appears to be “Development for Today. Hope for Generations,” maintains that development projects like Sandy Bay are being put in place to benefit Anguillans: “[W]e require a social project along with a bond or an escrow account that any third-party contractor — foreign to Anguilla — will [agree] to protect the Anguillian workers.” Premier Ellis Webster even highlighted a social project attached to Savannah Bay in the form of “a boardwalk in the Island Harbour area.” The island is also in the process of upgrading its airport.

There are also human impacts to consider, however. Cestero, who called both Altamer and Savannah Bay “incompatible with responsible development in Anguilla […] especially true when we see many vacancies in existing high-end properties,” interviewed a fourth-generation fisherman from the east coast. He lamented the fact that the development would eliminate access to the property fisherfolk use to monitor fish movement, making it challenging for them to fish the area the community has relied on for generations to provide for their families.

In 2020, the Anguillan government hosted a public consultation on a proposed marina project in Sandy Ground that failed to materialise due to intense opposition. George Frazer, a developer who bid on the Sandy Ground project under the previous political administration, told The Anguillan newspaper that he reached out to Premier Webster after he was elected and “told him that we were determined to stay in Anguilla to develop a marina here […] we signed an MOU with Altamer, and today we are here breaking the ground for this marina.” The Altamar marina's infrastructure is scheduled to be completed by the fourth quarter of 2025, while its hotel component aims to open in the third quarter of 2026.

Cestero remains hopeful, however, that the government will seek to utilise the data gleaned from the island's annual bird counts “to manage Anguilla’s precious resources more responsibly.” The island just participated in the Great Backyard Bird Count, which concluded on February 17, 2025.