Numbers of woodland birds declining in South Australia

David Paton, The Advertiser

October 26, 2017 10:30am

BIRD week is a time to celebrate our feathered friends. But the cacophony of diverse calls that makes a dawn chorus special is diminishing.

Woodland birds are disappearing from our landscapes. We are heading towards a “Silent Spring”.

Rachel Carson in the 1960s used these emotive words to draw attention to losses of birds to pesticides.

And the world acted. Now, if we are to save our woodland birds, we must act.

Adelaide’s Mount Lofty region is a biodiversity hotspot, one of just 15 recognised in Australia.

Biodiversity hotpots should be the last place where species are disappearing — but disappearing they are. They are heading towards extinction.

Surveys of the distributions of woodland birds in 2012-14 showed most species had declined since 1984-85, many by 30-50 per cent.

Read on