He is a splash of brilliance
on a gloomy, overcast day. Sunshine yellow body feathers standing out
stunningly against deep black wings and forehead.
It has been a long time
since I have seen a goldfinch at the feeder. They used to come in flocks, along
with troupes of pine grosbeaks, nuthatches, chickadees and others. Not any more, regretfully.
I am no expert, or even
especially knowledgeable in the matter of birds. I sense, however, a general
absence in numbers and species. They just are not around in large numbers any
more, at least not at my lake place.
The lone goldfinch stays at
the feeder a long time and the more I watch him, the more I wish we could talk.
I’m sure he would have much to tell me about goings on in the bird world.
We cannot talk, of course,
so I turn to a next best source, the State of the World’s Birds report 2018. The
report was done by BirdLife International, a conservation group working to
conserve birds, their habitats and global biodiversity.
“The data are unequivocal,” said Tris Allinson,
BirdLife’s Senior Global Science Officer, and Editor-In-Chief of the report. “We
are undergoing a steady and continuing deterioration in the status of the
world’s birds. The threats driving the avian extinction crisis are many and
varied, but invariably of humanity’s making.”
Forty per cent of the world’s 11,000 bird species
are in decline, says the report. Forty-four per cent are holding steady, while
seven per cent of species are increasing. The other eight per cent or so have unknown
trends.
BirdLife believes that a mass extinction event is
occurring, the sixth in the world’s 4.5-billion-year history. However it would
be the first mass extinction driven by a single species. You guessed it –
humans.
“Scientists estimate that species are
disappearing at a rate 100 to 10,000 times faster than the natural rate,” says
the report, “with perhaps dozens of species going extinct every day.”
Not all the news is bad. The seven per cent that
are increasing is positive news even if some of the species create smelly
messes in our parks and on our lawns. Conservation efforts are believed
responsible for increases among those species.
Conservationists believe that 25 more bird
species would have gone extinct in recent decades if not for massive
conservation efforts by government and many individual groups.
You don’t have to go to school and take courses
to understand what is killing the birds. Agriculture expansion and the use of
insecticides is a main cause, followed by urbanization and logging and climate
change, which is developing into a major future threat.
The BirdLife report says that the earth once held
six trillion trees. The number now is believed to be three trillion and the
report says the planet is losing 10 billion trees every day.
Saving trees and growing more of them is an
important way to stop this tree loss, which is a huge factor is declining bird
numbers.
Thankfully we live in a society that seems to
understand that. Roughly two billion trees are planted every year in the
United States and Canada.
BirdLife, along with the Wildlife
Conservation Society and the World Wildlife Fund plans to have one
trillion trees re-grown, saved from loss or receiving better protection by
2050.
The
BirdLife report says that as well as saving and planting trees we need to
restore more of birds’ other habitats and eradicate or control invasive
species. It has been estimated that 1,500 of various animal, plant and insect
species have become established outside their natural areas because of human
acts, making them invasive species.
It
is not hard to watch the decline of bird life, shrug and move along. There are
many other things to think about. Our lives really haven’t been changed that
much because the passenger pigeon or Dodo bird no longer exist.
However, what is happening to the birds is a
warning for our planet. Some scientists believe that biodiversity on earth
already has dropped to unsafe levels.
When one species of anything disappears, others
are affected. We are all connected, humans, other animals, plants and insects. When
some start disappearing, especially at the rate we see today, we all need to
become concerned.
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