The National Institute of Ecology released the results of its 2026 nationwide detailed survey of black-faced spoonbill breeding sites on the 6th. During this year's breeding season, domestic black-faced spoonbill breeding pairs were confirmed at about 3,300. That is about 700 pairs more than last year, when the figure stood at about 2,600. It is the highest number ever recorded for domestic breeding pairs.
The breeding range also extended southward. The first black-faced spoonbill breeding on the south coast was confirmed on Janggu Island in Suncheon, South Jeolla Province. Until now, black-faced spoonbills have bred mainly on uninhabited islands along the west coast. Breeding was also detected on Maedorang off Yeongjong Island in Incheon, where a tip from the Korea Waterbird Network provided the lead.
The black-faced spoonbill is a Class I endangered wild species and an internationally endangered species. The world population is counted at about 7,700 birds. More than 90 percent of them breed on the Korean Peninsula. Korea's tidal flats and uninhabited islands effectively sustain the survival of this species.
It measures 60-78.5cm in length, with a white body and a black bill and legs. The breeding season runs from April to July. In April and May it lays two or three eggs, at most four, and incubates them for about 25 days. Raising the chicks until they fledge takes another 40 days.
The city of Suncheon said on the 7th that it had confirmed 15 nests on Janggu Island. Birds incubating eggs or raising chicks were also caught on camera. About 50 black-faced spoonbills were observed in the restored wetland created by de-reclamation at Suncheon Bay. It is a place where land once walled off as rice paddies was returned to the sea.
Since 2020 the National Institute of Ecology has formed the "Incheon Black-Faced Spoonbill Coexistence Council" and, together with related agencies, local governments and civic groups, has carried out detailed surveys of breeding sites nationwide and improved habitat conditions. An environmental improvement project was also carried out at Gaksiam in Ganghwa County. Set against records showing only about 300-500 birds left worldwide in the early 1990s, the scale of the change is clear.
Of course, it is too early to read a single year's increase as a trend. How much of it is owed to a wider survey area and denser observation will only become clear as more annual figures accumulate. Even so, the fact that a new breeding site has appeared on the south coast is not explained by survey methods.
In autumn the black-faced spoonbills leave for Hong Kong, Taiwan and Vietnam to spend the winter. The August tidal flats are where the chicks put on their final weight. Whether at Suncheon Bay or Yeongjong Island, anyone visiting the tidal flats in this season would do better not to step off the embankment path and to keep to binocular distance. Every step people take back changes the number of birds that will be written into next year's survey table.
