Don’t let Alfred Hitchcock fool you: We need more birds.
Cardinals, crows, and chickadees are all becoming rarer in the United States and Canada. In fact, the bird population has declined by nearly 3 billion over the past 50 years, according to a recent study, which also pointed to the primary culprits.
Our cities are spreading and taking up more and more of America. This urbanization, combined with the massive swaths of farmland across America, leaves less space for birds to thrive, according to an alarming study on bird populations published by Science in September.
Birds have other problems, too. House cats, you will not be surprised to learn, kill birds regularly. Some studies suggest this slaughter is significant enough to harm populations measurably. Also, the chemicals we spray to kill bugs end up inside the birds that feed on those bugs. And your home’s sliding glass doors or lovely, big, clean windows are deadly traps to a barn swallow swooping at full velocity.
For the study, researchers analyzed five decades of bird surveys, discovering that the bird population has declined by more than 29% since the last century. “A full-blown crisis,” David Yarnold, president and CEO of the National Audubon Society, called it. “The connection between birds and humans is undeniable — we share the same fate,” he said in a statement.
One of America’s prominent conservationist societies, the Audubon was founded in 1905 in honor of John James Audubon, the painter who once said, “I feel I am strange to all but the birds of America.”
In response to the commercial trade of bird feathers in the early 1900s, the society lobbied for the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, which protects nearly 1,000 species of North American birds to this day. Now, Audubon argues that a few locales will serve as important refuges for the diminishing bird population: the Arctic Refuge, Great Lakes, Everglades, and the Colorado River.
As for help on a micro-scale, the Audubon Society explains that “growing native plants is an easy and effective way to provide food, shelter and safe passage for many of the birds in decline.” Another solution, of course, is getting rid of all the cats.
