South African bird populations have never been in a worse shape

NEWS / 10 MARCH 2018, 6:35PM / SHEREE BEGA

Waning waterbirds, declining raptors, seabirds under pressure and large terrestrial birds running out of space.

This is the alarming new assessment of South Africa's birds, which warns how the country's bird populations have never been in a worse shape.

"South Africa’s bird populations are in trouble," says Martin Taylor, the special projects programme manager at BirdLife South Africa. "The increase in extinction risk faced by our region’s bird species needs to be of concern to all South Africans."

Taylor compiled the State of South Africa's Birds 2018, a landmark report, scheduled to be released next week. 

He explains that the report, the first of its kind, draws on national survey and monitoring data to provide a highly visual snapshot of the conservation status of birds as well as the biomes they reside in. 

The report shows how the conservation status of birds has declined drastically over the past 30 years with 132 species now classified as regionally threatened with the number of critically endangered and endangered bird species increasing significantly since the 2000 assessment.

Continued