Posted by Jeff Hertrick of National Geographic Society in Weird & Wild on August 26, 2014
As National Geographic this week presents a special series on the plight of threatened bird species around the world, Winged Warnings, we highlight some of our most recent and best videos about species facing extinction.
With fewer than 800 adult Cape parrots left in the wild, National Geographic grantee Steve Boyes is doing his part to save the species. In the video above, Boyes rehabilitates birds that have psittacine beak and feather disease, caused by a virus. Boyes describes this as a particularly nasty airborne virus that destroys the skin and feathers while opening large, painful fissures in the beak that eventually break it apart.
Polar Bears Threatening Birds
Sometimes trouble for one species spells trouble for another. The loss of sea ice is forcing polar bears to search for food on land more often, and that endangers birds, whose eggs become high-protein snacks for the bears. In this video, researchers watch a pair of polar bears eat the eggs from more than 250 nests of eider ducks. And the bears don’t stop with eggs; they eat the birds, too, especially the threatened arctic ducks.
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