Photo: Long-tailed Duck, Barbara Saffir/Audubon Photography Awards
Greg Butcher
Birdlife International’s State of the World’s Birds 2022 (SOTWB 2022) concludes that the world’s birds are in a fragile condition: One out of 5 of the world’s 11,000 species is threatened or near threatened with extinction.
BirdLife has been working on global bird conservation for 100 years, so members assembled in September for a big party. Of course, that celebration was tempered by the fact that the world’s birds have been declining and require major assistance to assure a positive future. So, in addition to celebrating 100 years of work, BirdLife’s partners, which include the National Audubon Society and the American Bird Conservancy, planned the next 10 years of conservation action.
BirdLife provides the analysis for birds for the Red List of Globally Threatened Species published by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). There are also Red Lists for mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and fish, with assessments beginning for flowering plants, corals, mollusks, insects, and mushrooms. Here is the status of some North American, Puerto Rican, and Hawaiian birds, according to BirdLife and IUCN:
Black Rail, Scott Bowers/Audubon Photography Awards
Long-tailed Duck, Barbara Saffir/Audubon Photography Awards
231 bird species are Critically Endangered, including California Condor, Puerto Rican Parrot, and more than a dozen Hawaiian species.
423 species are Endangered, including Gunnison Sage-Grouse, Black Rail, Whooping Crane, Black and Brown-capped Rosy-Finches, Saltmarsh Sparrow, Tricolored Blackbird, Golden-cheeked Warbler, several seabirds, and more than a half-dozen Hawaiian birds.
755 species are Vulnerable, including Long-tailed Duck, Horned Grebe, Chimney Swift, Atlantic Puffin, Snowy Owl, Bicknell’s Thrush, Evening Grosbeak, Rusty Blackbird, and others not found in or near Virginia.
1,002 species are Near Threatened, including Northern Bobwhite, Common Eider, Black Scoter, Eastern Whip-poor-will, Chuck-will’s-widow, King Rail, Piping Plover, Red Knot, Semipalmated Sandpiper, Loggerhead Shrike, Eastern Meadowlark, Common Grackle (!), Golden-winged, Cerulean, and Blackpoll Warblers, and others not found in or near Virginia.
Forty-seven species were classified as Data Deficient (none in the United States), and the rest of the birds are classified Least Concern.
Island birds have suffered the most extinctions, and islands host the most birds on the brink of extinction today, but bird populations are in decline throughout the world.
The pressures (threats) acting on birds are legion: industrial agriculture, unsustainable logging, invasive non-native species (especially, but not only, on islands), fisheries by-catch of seabirds, climate change (especially drought and sea-level rise), urban and suburban development, and energy production. An issue that is of greater concern globally than in the United States is harvest of almost all bird species for consumption and the capture of some birds for the pet trade.
Luckily, BirdLife has 100 years of experience in bird conservation because there is a lot that needs to be done! For the past 30 years, BirdLife has been identifying and protecting Important Bird Areas (IBAs) throughout the globe. (IBAs are also called Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas and Key Biodiversity Areas when they include other taxa in addition to birds.)
SOTWB 2022 cites 10 BirdLife activities that have saved birds over the past 10 years and up to 32 species that likely would be extinct today without human intervention. Some of the most effective actions have included eradicating non-native invasive species from more than 36 Pacific islands, negotiating by-catch mitigations with the global ocean fishing communities, establishing key sites in Asia’s Yellow Sea as UNESCO World Heritage sites, and working with ranchers to put more than 500,000 hectares under bird-friendly management in southern South America.
The report does not stop at citing successes, but identifies other key actions needed to continue conserving birds:
Community management of sites
Habitat protection and restoration
Combatting illegal killing of birds
Minimizing negative impacts of energy infrastructure
Eliminating or managing non-native invasive species
Minimizing fisheries by-catch
Targeting recovery of globally threatened species
Getting people interested and involved in bird conservation
Improving laws and policies
Building the capacity of bird conservation organizations
Monitoring birds to evaluate the success of conservation actions
SOTWB 2022 helps us think globally; ASNV is here to help you act locally. Please join us this year as we work to protect, restore, and create bird-friendly habitat, improve laws to protect wildlife, and continue to collect and analyze information on birds that migrate through or make a home in northern Virginia.