Shrinking Bird Population

The State of the Birds has recently been released, which provides the pathetic condition of birds population. The report stated that the major populations of bird have plummeted over the past four decades as development transformed the nation’s landscape, but conservation efforts have managed to stave off potential extinctions of others.

The report, a sweeping analysis of data compiled through scientific and citizen surveys over the past 40 years, shows some species have made significant gains even as others have suffered. Hunted waterfowl and iconic species such as the bald eagle have expanded in number, the report found, as birds along the nation’s coasts and in its arid areas and grasslands have declined sharply.

Conservation Efforts
The fact that concerted conservation efforts have saved birds such as the peregrine falcon and allowed various wetland birds to flourish, according to the report. The report shows that other species can reverse their declines with sufficient support from federal agencies and private groups. The species in decline are being affected by climate change, habitat destruction, invasive species and disease, among other factors, the report found. More pedestrian threats, such as collisions with buildings and attacks by feral cats, have diminished birds’ numbers in some urban and suburban areas.

Hawaii, more than any other place in the country, highlights the challenge native American birds face. Seventy-one bird species have disappeared since humans populated the Hawaiian islands in 300 AD, and another 10 have not been spotted in years. At the moment, more than a third of the bird species listed under the Endangered Species Act are in Hawaii, but state and federal agencies spent only $30.6 million on endangered birds there between 1996 and 2004, compared with more than $722 million on the mainland.

The report stated that with sufficient funds, Wallace argued, federal managers could restore Hawaiian birds’ habitat and protect them against introduced species such as pigs, sheep and deer that threaten their survival. Bird advocates have enjoyed more success in raising money to protect North American waterfowl, which have a powerful political constituency among sport hunters.

The US Government has raised $700 million for wetlands conservation through the sale of Federal Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamps, better known as “duck stamps,” and a coalition of private groups and agencies in Canada, the US and Mexico have raised more than $3 billion over the past 20 years to protect more than 13 million acres of waterfowl habitat. Taken as a whole, the 39 species of hunted waterfowl that federal managers track have increased 100 percent over the past 40 years.

Bleak Future
The report stated that in some cases, however, public and private protections for conservation efforts are in jeopardy. The Conservation Reserve Programme provides federal dollars to farmers in order to preserve vital habitat on which species such as the lesser prairie chicken depend, but contracts encompassing 3.9 million acres are set to expire by the end of September. Michael J. Bean, who directs the wildlife program for the Environmental Defense Fund, an advocacy group, said losing these grasslands “could be the tipping point that makes an endangered species designation for the lesser prairie chicken unavoidable.”

According to the report, placing the bird on the endangered species list, Bean added, could make it more difficult for entrepreneurs to build wind projects in the southern Plains. As a whole, birds that breed only in grasslands have declined by 40 percent over the past four decades, the report concluded.