Starlings and house sparrow numbers dwindling as survey reveals long-term downward trend despite overall boost to populations due to a warm winter and bumper harvests
Thursday 26 March 2015 06.01 GMTLast modified on Thursday 26 March 201506.03 GMT
The number of backyard researchers in the world’s biggest citizen science survey was up this year, but participants found populations of many bird species continued to decline.
More than 585,000 people took part in the RSPB’s Big Garden Bird Watch. The survey took place over a January weekend, as it has for the past 36 years.
The number of amateur scientists was almost 100,000 more than last year, falling just short of the record participation in 2011. The RSPB said friendly media coverage and support from celebrities had helped inspire Britons to be involved.
Citizen science allows scientists to tap the vast resources of an interested and passionate public by asking them to act as observers of nature. Dr Daniel Hayhow, a scientist at the RSPB Centre for Conservation Science, said the numbers of people taking the time to join the bird watch was “really exciting and the dataset that we have is a real goldmine”.
Hayhow said: “Personally its a really great privilege to have that many people as your research assistants. I know that it opens up the eyes of some people. I’ve seen the comments that they write alongside their entries saying how much they’ve enjoyed and how much they’ve gained from doing it.”
No comments:
Post a Comment