1.5 billion birds missing from North American skies, ‘alarming’ report finds
▻https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/09/14/15-billion-birds-missing-from-north-american-skies-alarming-report-finds.ht
Evening grosbeaks are down 92 per cent since 1970. Snowy owls have lost 64 per cent of their numbers. The Canada warbler has lost 63 per cent of it population.
Tally it all up and there should be another 1.5 billion birds perching in backyards and flying around in forests than there are, says the report.
Nor are the declines stopping. Among those 86 species, 22 have already lost at least half of their population since 1970 and are projected to lose another 50 per cent of their numbers within the next 40 years.
For at least six species, this “half-life” window is fewer than 20 years.
The culprits are familiar.
#Agriculture disturbs habitat of grassland birds and introduces #pesticides into the landscape. Logging fragments the intact forests birds use as refuelling stations as they migrate. Domestic cats are thought to kill more than two billion birds a year.