06/04/2018
Red-backed Shrike is undergoing a
severe decline in Spain’s Basque Country, with numbers having dropped
by 95 per cent over the last 40 years.
This is the conclusion reached by
researcher José Luis Tellería of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, after
analysing the status of two populations of the species over four decades.
The article, published in the
scientific journal of SEO/BirdLife, Ardeola: International Journal of Ornithology, also examines a series of
possible causes that could be behind the plummeting numbers in these
localities, as well as in the Euskadi region, where the bird has traditionally
been abundant in rural areas. In fact, in the Bilbao area it is part of a group
of 20 species of insectivorous birds, colloquially known as 'txinbos', hunted
by the locals in former times but all protected today.
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