Bring Our Birds Back

A research published recently by the journal Science suggests that the total breeding population of birds across the United States and Canada has declined by 29 per cent over the last five decades.

Grassland birds are specifically worst hit, with approximately 53 per cent contraction in their population - around 720 million birds. Shorebirds, which were already at precariously low numbers, have lost more than thirty per cent of their population.

The Magpie (1868) by Claude Monet

The findings indicated that of around 2.9 billion birds disappeared since 1970, ninety per cent belong to twelve bird families, including finches, sparrows, swallows, and warblers – widespread, common species that play important roles in food webs and the functioning of ecosystem, from seed dispersal to pest control. Habitat loss is believed to be among the driving factors in these declines of avifauna population.

However, Ken Rosenberg, an applied conservation scientist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and who is also the lead author of the research, has optimistic views about all this. He says, ‘Even if thirty per cent of North America’s birds are lost, there are still seventy per cent left to spur a recovery if conservation measures can be implemented. I don’t think any of these really major declines are hopeless at this point, but that may not be true ten years from now.’

The disappearance of almost three billion birds bespeaks an imminent crisis that we have the ability and means to stop. The need of the hour is to bring a societal shift in the significance and values we place on living alongside healthy and sustainable natural systems.

To begin with, we can do our bit by following some simple actions to help birds, as suggested by the #BringBirdsBack movement, which is spearheaded by various agencies and groups including American Bird Conservancy, Smithsonian, The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and Georgetown University, which have all come together to create better protections and support for birds.