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Populations of 20 Common Birds Declining

 

 

 

WASHINGTON -- The populations of 20 common American birds -- from the

fence-sitting meadowlark to the whippoorwill with its haunting call -- are half

what they were 40 years ago, according to an analysis released Thursday.

 

Suburban sprawl, climate change and other invasive species are largely to blame,

said the study's author Greg Butcher of the National Audubon Society.

 

" Most of these we don't expect will go extinct, " he said. " We think they reflect

other things that are happening in the environment that we should be worried

about. "

 

Last month a different group of researchers reported that seven species had

dramatically declined because of West Nile virus. The species harmed by West

Nile are different from those listed in the new study -- except for the little

chickadee, hard-hit on both lists.

 

Many of the species listed as declining in the new study depend on open grassy

habitats that are disappearing, said Butcher, Audubon's bird conservation

director.

 

Some of the birds, such as the evening grosbeak, used to be so plentiful that

people would complain about how they crowded bird-feeders and finished off

50-pound sacks of sunflower seeds in just a couple days. But the colorful and

gregarious grosbeak's numbers have plummeted 78 percent in the past 40 years.

 

" It was an amazing phenomena all through the '70s that's just disappeared. It's

just a really dramatic thing because it was in people's back yards and (now)

it's not in people's back yards, " said Butcher.

 

For the study, researchers looked at bird populations of more than half a

million which covered a wide range. They compared databases for 550 species from

two different bird surveys -- the Audubon's own Christmas bird count and the

U.S. Geological Survey's breeding bird survey in June. The numbers of 20

different birds were at least half what they were in 1967.

 

Today there are 432 million fewer of these bird species, including the northern

pintail, greater scaup, boreal chickadee, common tern, loggerhead shrike, field

sparrow, grasshopper sparrow, snow bunting, black-throated sparrow, lark

sparrow, common grackle, American bittern, horned lark, little blue heron and

ruffed grouse.

 

The northern bobwhite and its familiar wake-up whistle once seemed to be

everywhere in the East. Last Christmas, volunteer bird counters could find only

three of them and only 18 Eastern meadowlarks in Massachusetts.

 

The bobwhite had the biggest drop among common birds. In 1967, there were 31

million of this distinctive plump bird. Now they number closer to 5.5 million.

 

" Things we all think of as familiar backyard birds ... they appear in books and

children's stories and suddenly some of them are way less familiar than they

should be, " said John Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell ornithology lab, who

was not part of the study.

 

Audubon Board Chairman Carol Browner, former head of the U.S. Environmental

Protection Agency, called the declines " a warning signal. "

 

" We are concerned. Is it an emergency? No, but concerns can quickly become an

emergency, " she said.

 

While these common birds are in decline, others are taking their place or even

elbowing them aside. The wild turkey, once in deep trouble, is growing at a rate

of 14 percent a year. The double-crested cormorant, pushed nearly to extinction

by DDT, is growing at a rate of 8 percent a year and populations of the pesky

Canada goose increase by 7 percent yearly.

 

Many of the birds that are disappearing are specialists, while the thriving ones

are generalists that do well in urban sprawl and all kinds of environments,

Butcher said. In a way it's the Wal-Mart-ization of America's skies, he said.

 

" The robins, the Carolina wrens, the blue jays, the crows, those kinds of birds,

are doing just fine, thank you, " Butcher said. " They really get along in

suburban habitats, most of them even like city parks, so they are not as

susceptible to the human changes in environment. "

 

But nothing matches the take-over ability of one invading bird.

 

" Right now the Eurasian collared-dove is conquering America, " Butcher said. A

dove-like bird that first entered Florida in the 1980s, it now is the most

prevalent bird in the Sunshine State and is in more than 30 states.

 

" Soon you'll be seeing Eurasian collared-doves in any city in the world, " he

said.

 

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On the Net:

 

http://www.audubon.org/

 

Source: Associated Press

 

 

When I see the price that you pay

I don't wanna grow up

I don't ever want to be that way

I don't wanna grow up

Seems that folks turn into things

that they never want