Last week I talked about big cat conservation. This week I will talk about something that is also extremely important to me: bird conservation. When I was younger, I was obsessed with birds. I wanted to become an ornithologist (bird scientist), learned basically all I could from the internet, and even today, I have a bird identification app on my phone. For months at a time in middle school, I obsessively watched a bald eagle nest camera on my computer, loving every minute I got to observe those gorgeous birds of prey.
Fig. 2 Habitat Destruction
These amazing animals are currently under threat from many factors. Hundreds of bird species are on the fast track to extinction because of factors created directly by humans. Habitat loss is one of the most threatening factors of bird extinction. Forests and other habitats are being destroyed at alarming rates for agriculture, mining, and urban development, leaving the birds with no food and no shelter. Historically, the biggest factor causing extinction was the introduction of new species. As people migrated to different regions at increasing rates, they brought with them new species that were not native to the areas. The native birds were used to the predators native to their area, but when new ones were introduced, they could not defend themselves and were driven to extinction. Diseases were also introduced by this method, further endangering many species.
Many people have heard of the extinction of the passenger pigeon. This happened because they were overhunted until there was not enough of their population left to recover. What many people don’t know is that this process has occurred many times and is even occurring now to other species. Currently, parrots are being captured and sold in the illegal pet trade, causing their populations to decrease dramatically and many species of parrot are now on the endangered species list.
There are numerous other ways that humans have endangered the lives of birds, such as power lines, oil-spills, and now climate change. Things look bleak for many species if something isn’t done soon. To fix this problem, people need to support bird conservation groups and all the good they do for the bird populations around the globe. Bird conservation groups do work such as running breeding programs, reintroduce bird populations to their native areas, monitor bird populations and intervene when necessary, and fight for habitat protection by governments.
In my opinion, birds big and small are some of nature’s greatest creations, and with so many species going extinct, I feel like this is a highly important topic to spread awareness about. You see birds every day, whether it is in your backyard or in a park in the city, but bird populations are suffering because of human actions, and it is up to humans to fix this.