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North America has lost
nearly 3 billion birds since
1970, according to a new
analysis of bird survey and
radar data from across the
continent.
The sharp decline, de-
scribed in a study published
this week in the journal
Science, is not just bad for
birds. It also bodes ill for the
ecosystems those birds
inhabit, and points to a need
for action to halt and per-
haps reverse the drop, sci-
entists said.
“Three billion was a
pretty astounding number
for us,” said lead author
Kenneth Rosenberg, a
conservation scientist at
Cornell University and the
American Bird
Conservancy.
Many animals are threat-
ened with extinction be-
cause of human activity, but
that’s not the only way we
do harm. The loss of abun-
dance spells trouble too
because it can have pro-
found consequences for the
ecosystems they inhabit.
Conservationists study-
ing North American birds
had known that at least
some species were declin-
ing, but they didn’t know
what the net loss, or gain, for
all birds might be.
“Previously we didn’t
have good estimates of
population size,” Rosenberg
said. “We knew the trends,
but we didn’t really know
how many birds of each kind
were out there.”
To find out, he and his
colleagues analyzed more
than a dozen bird survey
data sets that covered 529
species across a host of
ecosystems in the U.S. and
Canada. These data sets,
such as the North American
Breeding Bird Survey, rely
on citizen scientists who fan
out along North American
roadsides every year to
conduct their counts. The
records go back decades.
The researchers were
also able to track feathered
fliers with a network of 143weather-radar sites, which
often catch migrating birds
on their nighttime routes.
The data added up to a
grim conclusion: Over
nearly half a century, bird
populations in North
America experienced a
steep decline. There are 2.
billion fewer birds today
than there were in 1970 — a
reduction of 29%.
Steven Beissinger, a
conservation biologist at
UC Berkeley, called the
results and their implica-
tions “dizzying.”
“I was pretty surprised,”
said Beissinger, who was not
involved in the study. “We
don’t usually think in bil-
lions of birds.”
Of those lost birds, 90%
came from just 12 bird fam-
ilies that include common
and widespread species
such as sparrows, swallows,
warblers and finches.
Declines in the abun-
dance of common species
may not seem as dramatic
as the endangerment of rare
ones, but it is a very serious
form of ecosystem erosion,
the scientists said.
That’s because abun-
dant species often play
important roles in theirbiomes, whether they con-
trol pests, pollinate flowers,
disperse seeds, provide food
for other animals and even
contribute to the natural
beauty of an area that draws
tourists who support local
economies.
“When you’re losing
abundance, you’re losing
the fabric of the food chains,
the fabric of the ecosystems
— more perhaps than losing
one rare species,” Rosen-
berg said.
It’s hard to say what
ecosystem services have
been lost or degraded be-
cause of the loss of birds
over the last half-century,
Beissinger said. For exam-
ple, if there were more birds
around to eat bugs, farmers
might be using less pesti-
cide.
Other formerly common
species have fallen from
mere loss of abundance to
elimination.
Rosenberg pointed to
the example of the passen-
ger pigeon. Once it was
probably the most abun-
dant bird on the planet, but
it was hunted into extinc-
tion by 1914. He added that
the trend line of passenger
pigeons’ losses looks similarto the trend seen in the new
study, according to work by
one of his coauthors, Jessica
Stanton of the U.S. Geo-
logical Survey.
“Nobody ever thought
the passenger pigeon would
go extinct — and it did in a
relatively short period,”
Rosenberg said. “We’re not
saying these other birds are
on their way to extinction,
but it certainly should give
us pause.”
Across ecosystems,
grassland birds — a group
that includes sparrows and
meadowlarks — were hit the
hardest, the researchers
said. Since 1970, their num-
bers have fallen by more
than 720 million, represent-
ing 53% of the initial popula-
tion.
Taken together, more
than 1 billion birds have
been lost from all forest
biomes. Shorebirds, long
threatened by the draining
of coastal wetlands and
urbanization, saw declines
of more than 37%. Even the
10 nonnative species
counted in the paper experi-
enced a population loss of
63%.
The researchers did not
weigh in on specific causes
for these declines. But Ro-
senberg said other work has
pointed to habitat loss,
pollution, pesticides, and
the intensification and
expansion of agriculture as
likely culprits.
There were a few success
stories in the data that
could offer a road map for
aiding other bird popula-
tions, Rosenberg said. Wet-
land birds, such as ducks
and geese, have increased,
primarily because of conser-
vation efforts that protected
wetland habitats over the
last few decades. (Much of
that conservation was driv-
en by hunters, who wanted
to maintain healthy popula-
tions, he added.)
And raptors such as bald
eagles, ospreys and per-
egrine falcons have also
improved since the 1970s,
when their numbers had
been decimated by the use
of the pesticide DDT. It was
banned for agricultural use
in 1972, and laws that pro-tected the birds of prey
allowed them to recover.
“It’s yet another example
of resilience in the bird
population itself if we can
remove the threats and give
them a chance,” Rosenberg
said.
Such policies and protec-
tions need to be put in place
for other birds in other
habitats, said Hillary Young
, a conservation biologist at
UC Santa Barbara.
“It’s kind of a glimmer of
hope because it shows that
when you do put in policies
to protect these species,
they do show long-term
trends of recovery,” Young
said.
But it’s not just a few
kinds of birds that are suf-
fering, she added: “We’re
seeing really across-the-
board suffering.” The
breadth of that suffering
shows that humans will
need to do more to reduce
their environmental foot-
print.
“We’re going to have to
protect everything better if
we want to see recovery,”
she said.
There are things people
can do to help halt the de-
cline, Rosenberg said. For
example, keeping cats in-
doors, choosing products
(such as shade-grown cof-
fee) that don’t profit off the
destruction of avian hab-
itat, and planting more
bird-friendly native shrubs
and trees are small steps
that can make a difference.
The next step, Beissinger
said, will be to figure out
which factors are having the
biggest effect on bird num-
bers. “It’s going to be impor-
tant to try and understand
what’s causing this,” he
said.
Rosenberg, who has
been an avid bird-watcher
since the age of 3, said he is
choosing to view the new
numbers as an opportunity
for action.
“It’s time for us to raise
our voices and act and
change that way we behave
and then ultimately try to
enact changes in society and
in policy,” he said.
“That’s the way I’m
thinking of it.”SCIENCE FILE
Missing: billions of North American birds
Sharp decline across
the continent bodes
ill for ecosystems,
a new analysis says.
AMINA KHAN
OVER NEARLYhalf a century, bird populations in North America experienced a
steep drop. There are 2.9 billion fewer birds today than there were in 1970.Gary Mueller Cornell Lab of Ornithology