State of World?s Birds Report

State of World’s Birds Report

News: The State of the World’s Birds, an annual review of environmental resources has revealed that the population of 48% of the 10,994 surviving species of birds is declining.
• The report is published by the Manchester Metropolitan University.
• It gives an overview of the changes in the knowledge of avian biodiversity and the extent to which it is imperilled.
• The study draws from BirdLife International’s latest assessment of all birds for the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List.

Key Findings:
• The threat has been attributed to almost half of the 10,994 recognised extant species of birds to the expanding human footprint on the natural world and climate change.
• While 4,295 or 39% of the species have stable trends, about 7% or 778 species have increasing population trends.
• It shows 1,481 or 13.5% species are currently threatened with global extinction.
• The more threatened bird species (86.4%) are found in tropical than in temperate latitudes (31.7%).
• Such hotspots are concentrated in the tropical Andes, southeast Brazil, eastern Himalayas, eastern Madagascar, and Southeast Asian islands.

Threats:
• Degradation and loss of natural habitats as well as direct overexploitation of many species are the key threats to avian biodiversity. The use of 37% of the surviving bird species as common or exotic pets and 14% as food are examples of direct overexploitation.
• Also, humans eat 14% of the world’s surviving species of birds.
• Apart from tropical forests, the threat of natural grasslands has been particularly worrying for North America, Europe and India.
• The other factors are habitat fragmentation, degradation, hunting and trapping.

Recommendations:
• Conducting reliable estimates of population abundance and change.
• Novel and more effective solutions applied at scale for demand reduction for over harvested wild birds.
• Monitoring green energy transitions that can impact birds if inappropriately implemented
• Eradication of populations of invasive alien species.
• Shifting human societies to economically sustainable development pathways.