FWD: Birds on the decline

[Guest guest]

***************************Advertisement***************************

eCentral - Your Entertainment Guide

http://www.star-ecentral.com

 

 

*****************************************************************

This message was forwarded to you by yitzeling.

 

Comment from sender:

 

 

This article is from The Star Online (http://thestar.com.my)

URL:

http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2005/1/25/features/9658361 & sec=f\

eatures

 

________________________

 

Tuesday January 25, 2005

Birds on the decline

 

 

 

 

<b>An American study finds that we will lose 10% of bird species.</b>

 

By the end of this century, 10% of all bird species are set to disappear and

with them the services they provide such as cleaning up carcasses and spreading

seeds, US researchers said recently.

 

A careful study of extinction rates so far, conservation measures under way and

climate and environmental change shows that at least 1,200 species of birds will

be gone by 2100. And that is a conservative estimate, the team at Stanford

University in California said.

 

“Even though only 1.3% of bird species have gone extinct since 1500, the global

number of individual birds is estimated to have experienced a 20% to 25%

reduction during the same period,” they wrote in their report, published in the

Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences.

 

This can have severe consequence for people.

 

 

 

“In 1997, 30,000 of the world’s 35,000 to 50,000 rabies deaths took place in

India, where feral dog and rat populations have exploded after the decline of

vultures,” they wrote.

 

Cagan Sekercioglu of the Stanford Centre for Conservation Biology and

colleagues analysed all 9,787 living and 129 extinct bird species. They examined

conservation efforts, bird distribution, their ecological functions and life

histories. “The result is one of the most comprehensive databases of a class of

organisms ever compiled,” Sekercioglu said.

 

They then ran three scenarios in a computer programme designed to forecast

population changes – one really bad, one moderately severe and one that presumed

conservation measures would be enough to save any more birds from becoming

endangered but not enough to stop the already threatened species from going

extinct.

 

“Our projections indicate that, by 2100, up to 14% of all bird species may be

extinct and that as many as one out of four may be functionally extinct – that

is, critically endangered or extinct in the wild,” said Sekercioglu.

 

“These assumptions are conservative, since it is estimated that, every year,

natural habitats and dependent vertebrate populations decrease by an average of

1.1%,” the team wrote. “Important ecosystem processes, particularly

decomposition, pollination and seed dispersal, will likely decline as a result.”

 

In November the World Conservation Union reported that it found 12% of all bird

species were threatened with extinction, along with nearly one-fourth of the

world’s mammals, a third of amphibians and 42% of all turtles and tortoises. –

Reuters<p>

 

________________________

Your one-stop information portal:

The Star Online

http://thestar.com.my

http://biz.thestar.com.my

http://classifieds.thestar.com.my

http://cards.thestar.com.my

http://search.thestar.com.my

http://star-motoring.com

http://star-space.com

http://star-jobs.com

http://star-ecentral.com

http://star-techcentral.com

 

1995-2004 Star Publications (Malaysia) Bhd. All rights reserved.

Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written

permission of Star Publications is prohibited.