It maintains the Red List of Threatened Species, which provides an evaluation for each species and assigns it to 1 of 9 categories. The IUCN is the global authority on the status of wildlife, including birds and all the other critters, as well as plants and fungi. This organization then provides data to the IUCN, which stands for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. It’s called the State of the World’s Birds.īirdLife International conducts and coordinates research on bird conservation. I’m drawing a lot of my information from a report published in 2018 by BirdLife International. How do we know this is happening? Where are these statistics coming from? The situation is worse for Old-world vultures, with 68% of species in decline. For one reason or another, some types of birds are being hit harder.įor example, almost one third of all parrot species is in decline. Some bird groups are declining faster than others. Not surprisingly, these declines are not happening to all birds uniformly. Not just in North America, but all across the planet. We don’t have data for all birds, so these numbers are likely underestimates. And one out of every eight species is threatened with extinction. The populations of almost 4,000 bird species are shrinking. In any case, the number is in that ballpark, and this means birds are an incredibly diverse group of animals.īut current research tells us that worldwide 40% of these species are in decline. Some authorities put the number at more like 11,000. There are about 10,000 bird species in the world. We need to understand the many threats they face. Well, that’s what we’re going to talk about today, in terms of what’s happening to birds.īecause before we can decide what we can do to help birds, it’s important to understand why they need help. How did this happen? What are the causes? This has happened in less than one human lifetime.Ībsolute insanity. The World Wildlife Federation recently reported that global wildlife populations have declined almost 70% in the last 50 years, since 1970. This isn’t happening only in North America, and it isn’t just birds. But the overall trend is downward for our birds. Yes, some species are stable and a few even have growing populations. This study revealed that many species in North America have declined-not just the rare ones, but also some species we consider common. This sobering statistic comes from an October 2019 study published in the journal Science. ![]() If these declines continue, the end result may indeed be extinction for some or many species. Bird populations are getting smaller and smaller. To clarify, I’m not talking about the loss or extinctions of whole species here, but rather of individuals. There’s nothing natural about these declines. That's 3 billion birds wiped out.Īnd this was at the hands of humans. In other words, the total number of individual birds on this continent is only two-thirds of what it was just 50 years ago. However, I’m sorry to say that you and I share an unsettling truth: In the last 50 years, in your lifetime and a bit more than my lifetime, North America has suffered a net loss of 30% of its birds. Let’s say you were born a few years earlier, in 1970.
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