52 Percent of World's Birds of Prey Populations in Decline

Lorraine Chow

Sep. 11, 2018 01:16PM EST

Grim news for the world's raptors—an iconic group of birds consisting of hawks, falcons, kites, eagles, vultures and owls.

After analyzing the status of all 557 raptor species, biologists discovered that 18 percent of these birds are threatened with extinction and 52 percent have declining global populations, making them more threatened than all birds as a whole.

Comparatively, 40 percent of the world's 11,000 bird species are in decline, according to an April report from BirdLife International.

The new research, published last week in the journal Biological Conservation, was led by biologists at The Peregrine Fund and in collaboration with nine scientific organizations and is the first to focus specifically on the status of raptors, according to Stuart Butchart chief scientist at BirdLife International and one of the paper's coauthors.

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