Tag Archives: endangered birds

What is your Extinction-Risk Footprint?

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A new study quantifies how the consumption habits of people in 188 countries, through trade and supply networks, ultimately imperil more than 5,000 threatened and near-threatened terrestrial species of amphibians, mammals and birds on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. For the study, recently published in Scientific Reports, researchers used a metric called the extinction-risk footprint. The team found that 76 countries are net “importers” of this footprint, meaning they drive demand for products that contribute to the decline of endangered species abroad. Top among them are the U.S., Japan, France, Germany and the U.K. Another 16 countries—with Madagascar, Tanzania and Sri Lanka leading the list—are designated as net “exporters,” meaning their extinction-risk footprint is driven more by consumption habits in other countries. In the remaining 96 countries, domestic consumption is the most significant driver of extinction risk within those nations.

African trees logged in gorilla habitat, for example, could end up as flooring in Asia.  Other species highlighted in the study include the Malagasy giant jumping rat, a mammal that can jump 40 inches high and is found only in Madagascar. Demand for food and drinks in Europe contributes to 11 percent of this animal’s extinction-risk footprint through habitat loss caused by expanding agriculture. Tobacco, coffee and tea consumption in the U.S. accounts for 3 percent of the extinction-risk footprint for Honduras’s Nombre de Dios streamside frog, an amphibian that suffers from logging and deforestation related to agriculture.

Excerpt from Susan Cosier, How Countries ‘Import’ and ‘Export’ Extinction Risk Around the World, Scientific American, May 31, 2022

Who Is Responsible for the Death of Birds?

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Oil industry groups and wildlife conservation advocates are squaring off over Biden administration plans of 2022 to adopt new federal rules for the accidental killing of migratory birds…The measures being considered could include a permit process for new skyscrapers, power lines, wind turbines and other structures that birds fly into, often with fatal results. Businesses that secure a permit would limit exposure to steep fines for inadvertent bird killings under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Fish and Wildlife officials are also considering assessing a conservation fee as part of that permit process, with the money going to help mitigate habitat loss that has contributed to declining bird populations.

The agency said the rules are needed to protect declining populations of migratory birds, noting that nearly 10% of roughly 1,100 species protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act are threatened or endangered. While much of that is because of habitat loss from new development and agriculture, the agency says that “millions of birds are directly killed by human-caused sources such as collisions with man-made structures,” according to a Fish and Wildlife document.

Environmentalists are backing the effort, along with some businesses that say existing regulations are ambivalent and need clarification. But the permit system, even in its infancy, is being opposed by the American Exploration & Production Council and several other oil and gas production groups. They say no data exists to show that a permitting program will protect birds “over and above our industry’s operational practices and conservation measures.” Oil and gas drilling contributes to accidental deaths of birds in several ways, including when birds fly into the colorless flames as excess methane gas is being burned off from wells.

Pits used for disposal of mud, wastewater and other liquids in connection with oil drilling are estimated to kill hundreds of thousands of birds annually, according to a Fish and Wildlife report….The American Petroleum Institute, the industry’s top lobbying group, said the Biden administration should limit criminal punishments to intentional killings following court rulings that the law doesn’t apply to accidents. If regulators create a permit program, they said it should be general, not project specific, to minimize “undue administrative burdens or delay.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups raised concerns that the permit process could obstruct projects funded by the bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure plan—along with new wind and solar energy projects that the White House wants to reduce U.S. dependence on fossil fuels and help combat climate change…Wind turbines are estimated to kill between 140,000 and 500,000 birds a year, according to Fish and Wildlife, and a major expansion of those turbines could push bird deaths over 1 million annually, wildlife researchers have estimated.

Duke Energy Corp., whose subsidiary was fined $1 million in 2013 after dozens of birds died at a wind-turbine project in Wyoming, said it supports the new rule-making effort.

TOP THREATS TO BIRDS
Hazard type — Average annual deaths (est.)

Cats — 2,400,000,000
Building glass collisions — 599,000,000
Vehicle collisions — 214,500,000
Poison — 72,000,000
Power line collisions — 25,500,000
Communication tower collisions — 6,600,000
Electrocutions — 5,600,000
Oil Pits — 750,000
Wind-turbine collisions (land-based) — 234,012
Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 2017

Excerpts from Katy Stech Ferek, Battle Looms Over Bird Protection, WSJ, Apr. 15, 2022

The Disappearing Birds

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North America’s birds are disappearing from the skies at a rate that’s shocking even to ornithologists. Since the 1970s, the continent has lost 3 billion birds, nearly 30% of the total, and even common birds such as sparrows and blackbirds are in decline, U.S. and Canadian researchers reported in the September 2019 Issue of Science Magazine…  Five  years ago, PM Rosenberg a conservation biologist decided to take a broader look at what is happening in North America’s skies.

“I frankly thought it was going to be kind of a wash,” Rosenberg says. He expected rarer species would be disappearing but common species would be on the rise, compensating for the losses, because they tend to be generalists, and more resilient. Indeed, waterfowl and raptors are thriving, thanks to habitat restoration and other conservation efforts. But the declines in many other species, particularly those living along shorelines and in grasslands, far exceeded those gains, Rosenberg and his colleagues report. Grassland birds have declined by 53% since 1970—a loss of 700 million adults in the 31 species studied, including meadowlarks and northern bobwhites. Shorebirds such as sanderlings and plovers are down by about one-third, the team says. Habitat loss may be to blame.

The familiar birds that flock by the thousands in suburbs were not exempt. “There’s an erosion of the numbers of common birds,” Rosenberg says. His team determined that 19 common species have each lost more than 50 million birds since 1970. Twelve groups, including sparrows, warblers, finches, and blackbirds, were particularly hard hit. Even introduced species that have thrived in North America, such as starlings and house sparrows, are losing ground.  “When you lose a common species, the impact will be much more massive on the ecosystem and ecosystem services,” says Gerardo Ceballos, an ecologist and conservation biologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City. “It’s showing the magnitude of the problem.”

Some of the causes may be subtle. Last week, toxicologists described how low doses of neonicotinoids—a common pesticide—made migrating sparrows lose weight and delay their migration, which hurts their chances of surviving and reproducing. Climate change, habitat loss, shifts in food webs, and even cats may all be adding to the problem, and not just for birds. 

Weather radar data revealed similarly steep declines. Radar detects not just rain, but also insect swarms and flocks of birds, which stand out at night, when birds usually migrate. “We don’t see individual birds, it’s more like a big blob moving through airspace,” explains Cornell migration ecologist Adriaan Dokter. He converted “blobs” from 143 radar stations into biomass. Between 2007 and 2017, that biomass declined 13%, the Science paper reports. The greatest decline was in birds migrating up the eastern United States….

Excerpts from Elizabeth Pennisi, Billions of North American Birds Have Vanished,  Science, Sept. 20, 2019

Saving the Scarlet Macaw

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“Apu Pauni” is the name for the scarlet macaw in the indigenous Miskitu language.  This brightly coloured parrot is the national bird of Honduras. It is said that it once traveled the skies throughout the country and that its song was heard by the ancient Mayans.

Today, the largest wild population of macaw in the country is believed to be in the eastern region of ​​La Moskitia, …The “Apu Prana” (“the beauty of the scarlet macaw” in theMiskitu language) Community Association responsible for the initiative and the centre received training in hospitality, eco-tourism and business management….Although most of the bird monitoring processes are carried out by men, who walk up to six hours into the forest on the edge of the community, it is the women are responsible for caring for the birds in the rehabilitation centre.  “This is where we bring the captured scarlet macaws*, those that do not have wings, those that are sick, even abandoned chicks.

The Mavita community has been recognized internationally by the Mesoamerican Society for Biology and Conservation for its efforts in the conservation….The “La Moskitia” project was implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and financed by the Global Environment Facility (GEF).

Excerpts from Guardians of the scarlet macaw, UN Development Program, Press Release,  May 9, 2018

*Poachers climb trees where the parrots nest and pinch the chicks before they learn to fly. People in China, Australia and Middle East pay $6 000 online. In 2014 not one newborn parrort reached adulthood in its native land, Economist, Jan. 12, 2019, at 30