Nearly half of the world’s bird species are now in decline: Report
Nearly half of the world’s bird species are now in decline, with only six per cent having increasing populations. One in eight species (or 1,409 species in total) are now threatened with extinction. Nearly three billion birds are estimated to have been lost since 1970 in North America alone, and a further 600 million have been lost in the European Union since 1980, an area five times smaller, says the latest edition of State of the World’s Birds. BirdLife publishes its landmark State of the World’s Birds report every four years.
Across the world, birds are impacted by an array of different threats, nearly all of which are caused by human actions. Agriculture – both through its expansion into important habitats and the increasing use of machinery and chemicals as it intensifies – is the leading threat to bird species, impacting at least 73 per cent of threatened species.
The unsustainable logging and management of forests is another significant threat. Over seven million hectares of forest are lost every year – an area larger than the Republic of Ireland– and this impacts nearly half of the world’s threatened bird species. Species that depend on large, old-growth trees are particularly affected, such as the Harpy Eagle, the world’s most powerful bird of prey. Resident of the rainforests of South America, where it hunts on prey such as monkeys and sloths, 90 per cent of the trees it prefers for nesting are targeted by logging, and it has recently been uplisted by BirdLife to Vulnerable on the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List.
Worryingly, climate change is already having a substantial impact, affecting 34 per cent of threatened species. Already driving unprecedented levels of storms, wildfires and drought, its impact will undoubtedly increase rapidly over the coming years. Alongside this, threats such as bycatch from fisheries, overexploitation and invasive species, which throughout history have been the leading cause of avian extinctions, continue to drive population declines, the report said.
“There is no denying that the situation is dire, but we know how to reverse these declines. Our research shows that between 21 and 32 bird species would have gone extinct since 1993 without the conservation efforts undertaken to save them,” says Dr Stuart Butchart, Chief Scientist at BirdLife International. “Species like the Echo Parakeet, California Condor, Northern Bald Ibis and Black Stilt would no longer exist outside museums were it not for the dedicated efforts of the many organisations in the BirdLife Partnership and beyond. If we give nature a chance, it can recover.”