Salton Sea pelican population declining at startling rate

Bird populations threatened.

By: 

Sam Benson Smith 

Posted: Apr 25, 2019 04:04 PM PDT

Updated: Apr 25, 2019 05:09 PM PDT

SALTON SEA, Calif.- - A new report paints a grim future for birds that rely on the Salton Sea habitat. Audubon California-released report uses bird-monitoring data from several different sources to show just how the destruction of the Salton Sea ecological habitat has decimated the populations of both pelicans and cormorants endemic to the area.

As the Salton Sea recedes, the body of water's salinity increases, which kills off its tilapia population. Without tilapia, the birds starve. 

According to surveys, there were approximately 20,000 American White Pelicans in 2008. According to Aerial surveys conducted by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, that number now sits at 100. Audubon's own research backs up this decline. 

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Dramatic drop in native bird numbers spotted in gardens

There's good and bad news for stay-at-home bird spotters across the country.

The latest State of New Zealand Garden Birds report has been released - and shows that while the number of some native species spotted in gardens is on the rise, there has been a dramatic drop in others.

And researchers say the numbers show birds could be a sign of major environmental change.

You may not recognise the sound of the tauhou - or silvereye - but in the last eleven years, the number of the native birds spotted in New Zealand gardens has dropped by 43 percent.

And it's not just the silvereye bird enthusiasts are struggling to spot in their gardens - the number of starling, song thrush and goldfinch has also dropped.

According to Landcare research associate Dr Eric Spurr the birds could be signalling major environmental changes.

"We don't know what changes they are signalling, but they are signalling that something is going on - whether it's increased human population, increased urbanisation, increased use of herbicides, insecticides, pesticides - we don't know, and that's what we need to find out," he said.

These findings are part of the annual State of New Zealand Garden Birds report produced by Landcare research.

For the past eleven years, 31,000 volunteers have taken part in the survey - recording the birds they see in their garden for an hour, for seven days in winter.

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Basque Red-backed Shrike population in free fall

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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'Backpack birds' return with data to solve mystery of purple martin population decline

Nature Canada's Purple Martin Project is part of an international effort to restore declining population

By Chloé Fedio with files from All In A Day, CBC News Posted: Jun 04, 2016 6:00 AM ET Last Updated: Jun 04, 2016 10:07 AM ET

Purple martins equipped with tiny GPS backpacks have returned to Ottawa from as far as Brazil with data Nature Canada researchers hope will help solve the mystery of the bird's declining population.

Nature Canada conservation manager Ted Chesky was part of a team that extracted the backpacks from the migrational birds at the Nepean Sailing Club in May where the birds live in individual apartment-like man-made roosts. 

"We put specialized traps just on the holes where we were pretty sure we had backpack birds," Chesky told Alan Neal on CBC Radio's All In A Day on Monday.

After the birds are trapped, their itty-bitty tracking devices, no bigger than a thumbnail, are removed, he said.

"Basically, there's a little harness, a little tether that goes around their body and we just clip it off with scissors. It comes off and we measure the bird and a few things like that then let them go," Chesky said.

Nature Canada's Purple Martin Project is part of an international effort by researchers and naturalists to restore the declining population. A thread-like antenna on the so-called backpack tracks the migration of a bird.

"With the geo-locators, we learn how fast they can do it and how much time they take at different points along the way, which is very interesting," he said, explaining the journey south is slow but the return north is quick in the spring.

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African Grey Parrot close to extirpation in Ghana

Ghana has lost 90–99 per cent of its African Grey Parrot (Psittacus erithacus) population in the past two decades, according to a study recently published by a team of researchers from Ghana and the United Kingdom.

The population decline of Grey Parrot, a heavily traded cagebird species, is evidenced by the near-total loss of the major roosts known in 1992. Further evidence indicates an almost a tenfold reduction in bird encounter rates observed in the 1990s compared to 2014, as well as the perceptions of 96 per cent of the almost a thousand residents that were interviewed during the study.

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Half of North American bird species threatened by climate change

8th September 2014

Half of all bird species in North America — including the bald eagle — are at risk of severe population decline by 2080 if the swift pace of global warming continues, the National Audubon Society concluded in a study released Monday.

"The scale of the disruption we're projecting is a real punch in the gut," said Gary Langham, chief Audubon scientist.

Langham led an Audubon study that examined more than 500 bird species and determined that more than 300 in Canada and the United States face large climate shifts that could reduce their habitat by half or more by 2080. The changing environment will force birds to adapt to new habitats with different temperature and precipitation rates if they are to survive.

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Birders seek cause of Rusty Blackbirds' decline

BY AMY WOLD

The Advocate March 22, 2014 

BATON ROUGE -- Rusty blackbirds do not have flashy plumage and their songs can be likened to the sound of a VHS tape rewinding or a squeaky door, but they are the focus of birders from Canada to Louisiana as researchers try to find out why their populations have declined dramatically.

The Rusty Blackbird Spring Migration Blitz is going on in Louisiana through March and is part of a larger effort to enlist birders along the rusty blackbirds' migration route to track what habitats the birds are using and where those are, and even as important, where the birds are not found this spring.

Volunteers are still needed in Louisiana.

Although the population decline of rusty blackbirds is thought to have been going on for decades, it was brought to the attention of ornithologists and birders after a 1999 report. Russ Greenberg was one of the authors of the report.

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Read more here: http://www.sunherald.com/2014/03/22/5437164/birders-seek-cause-of-rusty-blackbirds.html#storylink=cp

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Mesmerising murmurations tell story of starlings' decline

It's often billed as the greatest daily movement of animals anywhere in Europe, but the annual starling murmurations – which have just started in the Somerset Levels – could be seen as vast flying banners advertising the bird's demise.

That is a claim being made by the RSPB, which says that for every three birds today, there would have been 10 just 30 years ago. The charity owns and manages reserves like Shapwick Heath where incoming European starlings roost during winter.

After photographer Richard Austin took these dramatic shots this week, the RSPB's Graham Madge said: "Starlings have undergone a huge population decline in recent years and we are doing research to find out why…

"Starlings are specially adapted to feed on grass," he explained. "They have a special adaptation on their beaks – which are almost like a mechanical device helping them to break open the ground for leatherjackets and beetle larvae.

"We suspect that with 'improvement' of a lot of pasture land there are fewer areas for these birds to feed.

Read more: http://www.thisisdevon.co.uk/PICTURES-Mesmerising-murmurations-tell-story/story-20032879-detail/story.html#ixzz2k4lqlDpz