In 2019 the journal Science published a seminal report, “State of the Birds.” It concluded that over three billion birds had vanished since 1970 due to habitat loss, pesticides, climate change effects and other impacts on birds. Only wetland birds like diving and dabbling ducks were holding their own and, in some cases, increasing populations.
In 2022 a State of the Birds for the United States was released by the North American Bird Conservation Initiative, a group of 33 government agencies and conservation groups. ( https://www.stateofthebirds.org/2022/ ) It showed a continuing trend in decline for most species. The bright light in that dense gloom were trends coming from areas where a concentrated effort to restore habitats or remove invasives species had taken place. Populations of Cerulean Warblers and Wood Thrushes, overall in deep declines, showed an increase in Appalachian areas where forest restoration had taken place.
Restoring habitats for birds has a host of benefits, not just for the target species but all other birds, wildlife and insects in the area. The widest benefits are from additional carbon sequestration capacity by more healthy plants, which also increases oxygen production and regional cooling.
The report has a special focus on places where habitat creation helps humans and birds, like planting trees in urban areas, creating shelter and food resources for birds and cooling and lowering pollution in urban areas.
The report highlighted 70 “Tipping Point” species, ones that have lost 50% or more of their population over the last 50 years and are projected to continue that trend without intervention. None of these birds are currently protected by the Endangered Species Act, and given the up to 12 year timeline that is current for listing a new species, some birds may vanish before the paperwork is finished.
Of those listed birds, several either visit or breed on Long Island. The Saltmarsh and Seaside Sparrows nest in the marshes of the south shore. Nesting in the marsh grasses is a risky venture because one extra high tide or storm can wash away nests or unfledged young. And those events are happening more often due to climate change. Over time, marshes would build up to elevate above higher storm surges, but this change is happening too quickly.
The Least Tern nests on our beaches where they face disturbance by beach goers, unleashed dogs, feral cats, raccoons and foxes. The brilliant yellow and black streaked Prairie Warbler brightens shrubby woodlands during spring migration and there is a small population that breeds on the east end of the island. Their habitat is prone to be viewed as vacant land to be developed.
Several shorebirds that are on the list visit us during migration to feed up, including Semi-palmated Sandpipers, Short-billed Dowitchers, Hudsonian Godwits, Ruddy Turnstones, Stilt Sandpipers, Pectoral Sandpipers, and resident Great Black-backed Gulls. What most of these birds have in common is pressure on the places that they breed and feed from sea level rise due to climate change, human disturbance, shoreline hardening, and competition for resources, like the over harvesting of Horseshoe crabs and destruction of sandbar ecology by clammers.
BirdLife International’s 2023 report ( https://datazone.birdlife.org/2023-annual-update ) showed this decline is a world-wide trend. BirdLife is responsible for assessing and documenting the global extinction risk of all 11,000+ species on The International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species. BirdLife summarizes the problems as, “Analysis of data from BirdLife’s latest species assessments for the IUCN Red List shows that the threats affecting the greatest number of the world’s threatened bird species are (in descending order) agriculture, logging, invasive alien species, hunting and trapping, and climate change. These same threats also emerge highly from monitoring of Important Bird & Biodiversity Areas (IBAs) by the BirdLife Partnership.” They also had the same glimmers of hope found in the US report, “Since 1988, 93 species have been downlisted to a lower Red List category due to genuine improvement in status, but this is outweighed by the 436 species that moved to a higher category of threat because of genuine deterioration in their status.” That downlisting was due to habitat restoration or removal of invasive species like rats.
Amid the depressing statistics there is hope of reversing the downward trends with effort from impacted communities and outside support. These changes will benefit not only birds, but everything living in the area, including people.
