Avian Decline
Mike Ruzich
A few weeks ago, someone was wondering about the sounds of, perhaps not silence, but quieter. Disturbing article about bird decline.
https://apple.news/A-fkMTKYjTsutUe4Z3fiOgA
clever...@gmail.com
Mike,
Thanks for sharing this. The graph “Population Changes in North American Birds” was sobering. It showed trends for ten habitats. Grassland species have experienced the most precipitous population declines, which is usually the headline whenever these declines have been covered in the media. Less well known, I think (it was for me anyway) is that our boreal forest species are second on the list of declining habitat groups.
When dealing with such a diverse group of species there are no doubt myriad causes, but it’s probably a safe assumption that climate disruption plays a role for many. As if we needed another compelling reason to look for ways to reduce our carbon footprint and advocate for policies that do the same.
Steve Wilson
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Steve J Engel
The impacts of an undeniable rapidly changing climate, as myriad as they are (changing phenology of food resources, forest fires, severe storms, sea level rise, disease outbreaks, etc.) have been on "simmer" for half a century or more and the dial is being turned up at an increasingly rapid rate. But these are just the latest, and synergistic, assaults on bird populations. Cats, both feral and housed, have been taking a toll for...how long have humans harbored cats?...to the tune of billions of birds each year in the U.S. alone. Window strikes, combined with nighttime light pollution (especially during migration), also kill billions of birds each year. These two causes of avian mortality are second and third after habitat loss.
Pesticides have affected many species at the top of the food chain by curtailing their ability to breed (thankfully there are many success stories in turning that around among North American breeding raptors) but pesticides target the food resources of insect eating birds (just about all songbirds at some stage of their life) by design, and their use worldwide has gone up year after year since their introduction after World War II, with new ones (like neonicitoids - https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/widely-used-pesticide-makes-birds-lose-weight/) constantly coming on the market. One could go on and on (we haven't even touched the direct assaults on the marine environment).
In the mid otts I worked for Portland Audubon and took phone calls from residents asking "where are all the birds?" that used to be in my neighborhood, and I would stammer my way through various explanations of observation bias, but then National Audubon published a major report verifying significant ongoing declines in many species once considered common. That was fifteen years ago and when I search online for it now, I can't get past all the studies published since then saying the same thing. A friend who has been leading international birding trips for thirty years calls it "GAD21: the Great Avian Decline of the 21st Century".
There are many hopeful conservation stories developing as we learn, acknowledge, and apply what we know to further the cause. We need to keep these up, to feel better about ourselves if nothing else, but also because a little bit of good is always worthwhile. But in the end, what we are experiencing in this regard is to be expected of a world-wide society that is founded on infinite growth with finite resources. We are simultaneously participants and observers in GAD21 and, collectively and individually, we are all tasked with finding a way to deal with it.
Steve in Babbitt
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Steve Voiles
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Stephanie Hibdon
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Dolores Delaney
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Trisha *
On Jun 5, 2023, at 9:06 AM, Steve Voiles <home...@gmail.com> wrote:
Well said, and beneath it all is over-population. Why is this not constantly pointed out. If religious leaders took on this issue, they could do more good than all our science; working hand in hand with science, they could, perhaps, save the world.
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ALLEGRA DENGLER
Red-Alert Species
Ashy Storm-Petrel*
Audubon’s Shearwater*
Black-capped Petrel*
Craveri’s Murrelet*
Fea’s Petrel*
Florida Scrub-Jay* (ESA)
Guadeloupe Murrelet*
Gunnison Sage-Grouse* (ESA)
Hudsonian Godwit
Ivory Gull* (SARA)
King Eider
King Rail (SARA)
Kittlitz’s Murrelet*
Least Tern (ESA)
Lesser Prairie-Chicken* (ESA)
Lesser Yellowlegs
Long-tailed Duck
Mountain Plover (SARA)
Red Knot (ESA, SARA)
Red-faced Cormorant
Ruddy Turnstone
Saltmarsh Sparrow*
Scripp’s Murrelet*
Short-billed Dowitcher
Spotted Owl* (ESA, SARA)
Sprague’s Pipit (SARA)
Whimbrel
Wandering Tattler
Yellow-billed Loon
Orange-Alert Species
Bachman’s Sparrow
Band-rumped Storm-Petrel*
Bermuda Petrel* (ESA)
Bicknell’s Thrush* (SARA)
Black Rail*
Black Scoter
Black-bellied Plover
Black-chinned Sparrow
Bobolink (SARA)
Bristle-thighed Curlew*
Buff-breasted Sandpiper (SARA)
Clark’s Grebe
Chimney Swift (SARA)
Chestnut-collared Longspur (SARA)
Field Sparrow
Great Black-backed Gull
Glaucous Gull
Greater Prairie-Chicken (SARA)
Greater Sage-Grouse (SARA)
Harris’s Sparrow (SARA)
Henslow’s Sparrow (SARA)
LeConte’s Sparrow
LeConte’s Thrasher
Mottled Duck
Marbled Murrelet (ESA, SARA)
Murphy’s Petrel*
Piping Plover (ESA, SARA)
Pectoral Sandpiper
Pink-footed Shearwater* (SARA)
Prairie Warbler
Red-legged Kittiwake*
Ridgway’s Rail* (ESA)
Roseate Tern* (ESA)
Ross’s Gull* (SARA)
Rufous Hummingbird
Sanderling
Seaside Sparrow
Semipalmated Sandpiper
Spectacled Eider* (ESA)
Steller’s Eider* (ESA)
Stilt Sandpiper
Townsend’s Storm-Petrel*
Tricolored Blackbird*
Trindade Petrel*
White-rumped Sandpiper
Yellow Rail* (SARA)
Yellow-billed Magpie