The endangered Far Eastern curlew, the world s largest migratory shorebird, is passing through the Korean peninsula once again on its annual migratory journey south. In the last three decades, the curlew s population has dropped by 80 percent, largely due to development around the ecological wonder that is the West Sea, pertaining to the largest body of tidal flats on the planet. In the last 50 years, 66 percent of the tidal flats in the West Sea have been reclaimed for human use. This is in the face of millions of shorebirds who rely on them for survival.