I don't understand why the surprise. US + Canada population in 1970 = 225 million. Expected in 2020 = 370 million. If you account for the increase of population of domesticated cats and dogs, bovines, poultry and other animals associated with humans, and take into account the fact that natural resources are not infinite, then the natural world has to decline. Not only birds, but natural reptiles, mammals, amphibians, and fish are declining overall, and such decline is more alarming when considering the incremental population of some invasive species at the expense of the natural ones. I will venture to say that the biomass of native species in North America has reduced over 40% since 1970, and that reduction is simply tied to biomass increase in humans and associated animals, plus invasive species we have release irresponsibly. Obviously there has been some successes (buffalo, alligators, etc) but overall nature has suffer a significant decline in a world where humans are so far the largest winners in terms of biomass increment in the last 50 years (either nature will eventually revert this tendency with climate change, and associated natural catastrophes or we will in our fight for limited resources).
93
@LAP That is a good point. The successes you mention are akin to modern medicine's ability to treat emergencies and other acute conditions, while ignoring all the contributing factors (poor diet, lack of exercise, stress) leading to chronic diseases. Until we address the underlying causes of widespread Eco-devastation, there will not be much change.
7
@LAP: Very interesting observation. This should be a Times pick.
4
There are plenty of birds; we don't need more and a few less would be just fine.
1
“On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird voices, there was now no sound.”
Not my experience in the populated suburbs. Robins, sparrows, chickadees, tufted titmouse, Northern goldfinch, white-breasted nuthatch, downy woodpecker, red-bellied woodpecker, bluejays, grackles, starlings and many others all come to my lawn and feeders. Do I want millions of them? Nope. Has the world ended? Nuh-uh. Is this another apocalyptic piece from the increasingly hysterical Times? Yup.
14
This is horrifying. My father, a biology professor at a midwestern college, banded birds in his youth, before he was killed in WWII. Is this ecocide what he died for? What are we doing to our environment? If we are Earth's custodians, we should be fired.
66
A magnificent evolution of aviafauna will occur following the demise of H. sapien.
27
Yeah, and how many of everyone boo-hooing still: use single-serve plastic yogurt containters and ziploc bags; put produce in plastic bags at stores; expect to be able to continue driving v-8 and v-6 engines; idle engines because "it's so hot I need the AC"; and on and on and on. Sorry, but it's our own laziness and refusal to do things the "harder" way (what? You expect me to buy a tub of yogurt and scoop it into reusable containers for my kids and THEN to have to wash those? HORRORS!) that have gotten the world so polluted. Yes, corporate ag and mfg are wholly to blame as well, but until we look at and change our own behaviors and expectations we'll just keep reading more of these type stories (on our screens that are made in factories we'd never sanction here in the uh, beautiful USA).
66
Its not just pesticides in fields and parks. What is he feral cat population in North America? They are decimating bids as well.
34
Stated in the article - ..... "bird advocacy groups ... suggest things that individuals can do. They urge keeping cats inside, so they don’t kill smaller birds. Vast numbers of birds die each year after flying into windows; there are ways to make the glass more visible to them."
Yet there is no mention of how many birds are killed EACH year by cats and windows, which are:
Cats have been estimated to kill over 1 BILLION birds (maybe up to 4 BILLION) - https://abcbirds.org/article/outdoor-cats-single-greatest-source-of-human-caused-mortality-for-birds-and-mammals-says-new-study/
Windows on tall buildings are estimated to kill up to 1 Billion birds - https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-met-migratory-bird-collisions-chicago-20190402-story.html
And over the last 50 years there has been an increase in the US cat population and in the number of tall buildings.
Additionally, it is reasonable to expect there has been an increase in cats and tall buildings in other developed countries, which on a global scale could boost the number of birds killed by cats and windows into the tens of BILLIONS,
Lastly, it has been reported that deer are having a negative impact on habitat of forest birds and thus are contributing to their decline https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/deer-decreasing-forest-bi/
So why were these readily found facts not reported in the article?
33
In Seattle, there has been enormous development in the past two decades. In each case, most or all the trees in the yard of a small old house get cut down. In place go four townhouses with no trees. Birds need migration pathways and a large tree canopy. Cities should focus on tree planting and green pathways for birds.
30
I don't use pesticides in my yard. However, many in my neighborhood spray for mosquitoes multiple times throughout the year. These pesticides kill many of the bugs that birds live on. Something that should be reviewed here as this is a relatively new phenomenon.
22
I know we want the decline to be tied to pesticides and climate change, but there is a wealth of research on this topic. The main decline is due to cats based on my readings. Either feral or 'outside' cats - they murder birds by the millions and have been responsible for the extinction of hundreds of species. Why wasn't that presented here?
Also, wind turbines and solar panels are wiping out migratory birds as well as bats, who are in severe decline. May not be PC to point out, but true.
23
To protect ourselves and the birds, restore ecosystems. Restored ecosystems like coral reefs or mangrove swamps or oyster reefs or wetlands reduce the damaging potential of hurricanes.
Right now everyone can make an immediate improvement: cut your heating and electric bill in half, grow flowers and vegetables wherever you can. They’re the best thing for bees, birds and your health.
4
Silent seasons = silent humans.
As a child living on Long Island long before Rachel Carson wrote "Silent Spring, I would wake up each morning to the deafening tweets and songs of the birds outside my window. The meme of the canary in the coal mine is our modern Aesop's fable.
14
Most birds feed their young insects, even if the adult birds are seed-eaters. Mosquito spraying is becoming more popular in my neighborhood, but the insecticides sprayed are not mosquito-specific. They will kill the caterpillars that feed on the sprayed leaves, and even some insects that just land on the leaves. In killing mosquitos, we are starving birds. We must learn the lesson of "Silent Spring" all over again.
18
Birds are thriving in NYC. I see and hear more species of birds than ever before. Can't speak for the rest of the world, though.
3
Wind farms? Why no mention?
6
Animal rescue folk work always to protect all animals. Cat rescuers LOVE birds and support the Audubon Society! The Dutch brought domestic cats to NYC. The feral cat "problem" is truly the PEOPLE PROBLEM. Cats don't show up to a location by bus, subway, or train and decide "Oh lovely, this place looks good, we want to live here!" They are abandoned, dumped, and discarded. They are done so without care or knowledge of spay/neuter care. To fix this AND save taxpayer money across a variety of agency oversight is to have free spay/neuter. The "benefit" of such a policy is tremendous. There is no need to waste time and philosophy blaming the animals. Protecting birds is in everyone's interest.
13
Humankind is a blight on the world. What a (large set) of disaster(s).
6
Our planet is in a real crisis. Trump just decided to roll back environmental rules that keep our waterways clean.
We need to do something ourselves. There is a climate strike going on in most areas on different dates see the link:
https://globalclimatestrike.net/
We should all do our part and make sure this Faux POTUS is not re-elected to continue to destroy our country and planet.
5
Not a word about windmills ....
1
I love cats......but OMG!
2
I learned long ago that you can either be part of the problem or try to solve it. I have impartted the same belief to my sons. However, when I see the ferocious onslaught that President Trump has made against all things related to the environment it is getting harder to remain optimistic about my sons and my grandchildren's future. This story confirms my own anecdotal observations based on over 40 years study of the birds of North America. I truly mourn for the future.
10
We need to believe we can turn things around and aggressively behave in manners to reverse the damage.
4
The hood of my car disagrees with this report.
1
@dan p.
We’ll go clean it then.. maybe the few birds left have your car pegged.
7
In 1970 I was a little girl in the NE, in a wooded area filled with songbirds equally beautiful to look at and listen to. Fireflies tickled our imaginations all summer, while mosquitoes annoyed us but entertained our revengeful tendencies as we tried to slap and zap as many as we could. On the annual trips I have taken back East, it is noticeably different now.
20 years ago we started a tiny vegetable farm in the PNW mountains, using no synthetic fertilizer or chemicals of any kind. We had bats, bees, mosquitoes, beautiful birds, and plenty of native animals. As of 10 years ago, the bats and mosquitoes were gone. The birds have noticeably declined the last 3 years as well. The huge blossoming tree 30 feet from my deck would hum with thousands of bees. I could hear the tree buzzing from the deck and even inside. For 14 years the buzzing accompanied my morning breakfast on the deck. 6 years ago I awaited the arrival of the bees, only to walk over to the tree every day and find none, crying by the third week when I knew they weren't coming. The tree has been silent ever since.
This is the first year I have noticed a decline in ALL the insects on my tiny farm. The aphids, earwigs, slugs, whiteflies, ladybugs, green lacewings, praying mantises, bees; they are all but missing. The birds have nothing left to eat.
It is not just the birds; but the bees, the insects, the bats, all the native wildlife that used to be the web of life everywhere around us, that is collapsing.
43
Silent spring. Silent summer. Silent autumn. Silent winter.
188
@MotherM very silenl planet in 150 years from now.
12
Doesn't anyone remember "Silent Spring"? Well, overpopulation is a huge part of robbing birds (songbirds, birds of prey, etc.) of their food sources. GEESH. And here in Canada I witness our great "economy" based on slashing down forests and putting up crappy homes so that we can keep accommodating the world's overpopulation issue.
I, for one, long ago lost hope when we can equate ecological devastation with "progress".
12
I live in Portland, OR. I find walking in our 10,000 acre Forest Park deeply disturbing due to the utter lack of birds there. I have heard and seen only 1 bird there in 5 years. I just cannot go anymore. it is too haunting. This year, despite having feeders out, I only have pine siskins, chickadees, jays and crows in my back yard, the occasional hummingbird, flock of bushtits, and a few, rare scattered finch, downy, or flicker. Sparrows are rare. No wrens anymore. Or titmouse. I used to get 15 species of bird throughout each spring and summer Last year's goldfinches and juncos are nowhere to be seen. Very few robins last spring. It is heartbreaking and ominous.
167
Interesting no one has commented on the increase in air traffic since the 1960s which can kill them at low altitude with bird hits or all the polluted exhaust spewing out the engine that birds then inhale; plus the big increase in high rises in many cities and increase in bright lights at night in cities that can confuse migratory birds, causing them to become confused and exhausted or killing them if they crash into overly lit high rise buildings. This on top of pesticides, polluted streams and other water sources, etc., and lastly the misplacement in some places of wind turbines they can sometimes hit
98
This is frightening. I have been blaming the local crows for the decreasing number of songbirds we have nesting in our trees in the spring and summer, but perhaps it is something more global.
About a month ago, we were camping near Lake Tahoe. Not only did I see no birds, but in our group of six, there were only three mosquito bites, no flies, and only a few yellow jackets buzzing around our food. On the way there and back, we had no squashed insects on our windshield. Could the decline in birds be related to the decline in insects, often a main food source for our smaller feathered friends?
136
@Kathleen H
Yes, all related.
Anger, sadness, frustration all boil up at once.
With the quesioning of climate change and Trump's rollback of environmental regs it is hard to know what to do and how to spend one's time fighting for earth.
On the other side of the county because of a wet spring we had a real explosion in the sighting of animals and birds..black bear, bobcat, coyote, possum, racoon, redtail and marsh hawk, red fox, bald eagle , hummingbirds, swallow tail butterflies were all sited around my property ...I still do not question the efficacy of trying to change the way we live and work ASAP.
23
An additional factor, scarcely mentioned (if at all) in the article: destruction of stopover points that birds use during migration, and destruction of habitats in Central and South America where birds overwinter (winter in North America, that is).
6
Most birds feed their young insects, even if the adult birds are seed-eaters. Mosquito spraying is becoming more popular in my neighborhood, but the insecticides sprayed are not mosquito-specific. They will kill the caterpillars and other insects that feed on the sprayed leaves, and even insects that just land on the leaves. In killing mosquitos, we are starving birds. We must learn the lesson of "Silent Spring" all over again. To enjoy butterflies, moths, dragonflies, and lightning bugs, we must tolerate a few mosquitoes. (Spray yourself, not your yard!)
7
We have had to threaten lawsuits to get a local Audubon Society to stop abusing acreage that has been donated to them for habitat conservation. National Audubon will do nothing to help- NAS claims they only have "advisory" status with their chapters. Amazing! So what do they do? Sap money for pretty pictures while real conservation efforts go unaided.
1
You’d think that a President who has ten grandchildren and one young son might want to occasionally pretend that he cares about our birds, water, air and climate, but you’d be wrong.
8
Once humans go extinct the my guess is the birds will come back.
5
From America the beautiful to America the polluted wasteland -- that is the legacy we are leaving. Lets take a minute to mourn all of those creatures we are destroying every day. It's sickening to see what this country has become. I'm ashamed.
112
While I was living in London, England, the sparrows simply disappeared.
Gone.
When something as common and everyday and abundant as sparrows vanishes, it's terrifying.
Now it's happening here, too. I sit out in the evening and watch the birds flying past...but where are the clouds of starlings that used to form and reform in past years ?
3
Blaming humans, jumping the gun as always. Figure out the cause first. We've been creating wetlands for some time. I doubt there's more farmland now than forty years ago. Make some real comparisons first. This nihilistic attitude to our own species is not only damaging, but it is traumatizing to children. We are also the solver of problems, the creative species. Cultivate genius.
2
I suspect the reason that the declines have been lower on the coasts is that the coasts have had greater populations for a longer period than the interior. That the coastal declines largely happened before the record keeping started.
I have 15 bird feeders in my back yard appealing to as many types as possible. Birds have preferences in food. Blue birds like dried meal worms, finches especially Gold Finches like thistle seed.
While you're at it put out a few cups of raw peanuts for squirrels so they won't eat the bird seed. Plant some flowers and a hummingbird feeder. The three I have I filling up to go further south right now.
This year I have 11 deer feeding at two bowls set up out back. Three of those are fawns born this year. This in spite of losing another 22 acres of adjoining land to apartments and fast food joints.
It's not really expensive. I spend about $30 a month.
I forgot the three chipmunks.
5
I live along a migratory flyway, in one of the most biologically intact areas in my state. It's paradise. But I see what is happening in the world around my beyond the far hills, and I know one day the birds will not return.
This prospect is sad beyond belief.
5
20 years ago, my father-in-law (then 95 y/o) was complaining about how few birds there are compared to his youth. He blamed fertilizers. Then he went on to discuss fertilization and pest control methods used on his family's orchard. All natural, of course, as that's what was available and what they could afford.
9
Amazing and gratifying this article got so many comments. I'm on LI and a huge bird lover and have actually seen a big increase in the past year in blue jays and cardinals at my feeders.. as well as pidgeons and black birds. But maybe that's because natural food sources are getting more limited. I've always though educational systems should include 'nature' of the local area as part of the curriculum so young kids begin to love and appreciate local species and waterways and instill a sense of protection for it all.
4
The wild birds are my comfort animals. I mourn for the future generations who may not have their solace.
8
I was in Sciacca, Sicily this summer living above a working port. In bed, one morning, I recorded the cacophony of bird sounds that was waking me daily. There were at least three species. In the recording, there are crescendos and waves of different voices. The birds and insects that we are destroying are not expendable nuisances, but civilizations that we need to share the planet with.
Even growing up in the city I knew the changes of the seasons by the chirping, squawking or buzzing outside. We had better act quickly or the will to return the environment to normal will only exist as an abstract, intellectual project for those who are not emotionally or experientially connected to it.
Who will fix this? Children, the adults of the future, do not know what is missing. They've been deprived of nature.
At least some of the culprits are obvious:
Pesticides
Astro-turf
Over-development
Microwaves?
I fear I might have already seen my last sparrow. Who could have imagined that? And what will the poets do without them? Would we even have had an Emily Dickinson?
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -
I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.
7
I remember the windshield of my Dad's car being plastered with dead insects every summer when I was a kid (1960s)--just from driving around. Now my windshield is clean and I wonder what the birds that used to depend on all those insects for food, have to live on. I'll take the mosquitoes if I can have the birds back.
10
I drove across the country this summer and was amazed to see corn growing in places that were native grasslands thirty years ago. Fields extend from the shoulders of each road right up to the next and right up to the banks of each slough or stream. Miles of corn, yet not one pheasant across the entire state of South Dakota. All the food in the world, but no place to nest. Agriculture destroys every major species on the landscape affected, when intensively-farmed monocultures extend for tens of miles in all directions.
We have subsidized our wildlife out of existence. And simply exercising cautious eating habits cannot reverse this pattern if we continue to feed and fuel an ever-expanding human population. There are dozens of politicians arguing over environmental policy, yet I haver heard no one address the root of the problem.
12
Also I noticed, in Italy, that the little worbler, once ubiquitous in our cities, is now scarce. People do not take notice. Now, with the opening of a five month hunting season, more birds will fall from the skies, even the tiny red robins hunted with barbaric methods (well, hunting is barbaric) that either glue them to a trap or break their legs.
5
Take comfort. The Trump administration is reversing all pollution standards so we can expect the decline in species to not only continue but to accelerate. Money over morals.
3
It is tragic to read of such a large decimation of the bird population, as well as the concurrent and causal effect with like decline in the insect population.
And it is galling to read so many of these comments! How tone deaf and myopic comments are from people who likely think of themselves as nature advocates yet are in the forefront of contributing to these population declines.
So many comments are from people who have noted the decline during their travels or at their summer homes. One commenter noted how he is migrating from the Pacific Northwest to Mexico each year! Really? How oblivious of these commenters to not realize their 1st world lifestyles of privileged global travel and second homes is so detrimental to the environment.
Others comment on how they are so heroic in placing feeders, especially hummingbird feeders, in their yards. I would venture most of those people are maintaining those yards to suburban standards, another large contributor to environmental decay. And most hummingbird feeders I’ve seen are plastic (!) and the sugar water they are filled with is likely from a Florida cane field.
The like decimation of human population is the only hope to save the planet.
5
"Where have all the robins gone, long time passing,
where have all the sparrows gone..." Away from our farm, anyway, which has been in the family since 1943. Where once there were robins, kissed by the sun, now, rarely one. A few crows, maybe a goldfinch or two, an occasional cardinal, a few nuthatches... Breaks my heart, the silence. Summer nights saw the kitchen screen door covered with insects, the gorgeous cecropia chief among them. Used to be turtles along the creek, too. lots of them. Especially the beautiful but timid box turtle. What a wondrous world it was...
7
The decline in insect and bird populations should be researched for correlations to specific herbicide chemical use. Yes, glyphosate/ roundup, I’m calling your name here. Entirely anecdotal but probably correlated, truck drivers driving the same routes at known times of year report a huge drop off in windshield bug accumulations.
Maybe a record of washer fluid use would support this hypothesis. It’s likely that bug and bird populations are intimately correlated.
9
There is much that individual states could do to ameliorate this crisis, mainly by adopting policies that preserve, improve and expand bird habitat, as well as by raising public consciousness of the magnitude of the crisis and of the direct threats that loss of bird populations pose to humanity. Birds, however, have no respect for state lines, so real progress will be difficult or impossible without significant federal action. Unfortunately, we have to expect that Hurricane Donald will do his worst to block or overrule progressive state actions wherever he can.
4
@Thomas N. Wies He does not support industrial wind. That is helpful.
There are so many positive things we can do as individuals:
This fall, avoid raking leaves in garden areas. Many insects overwinter in the leaves, and taking the leaves away means there will be less food for birds next spring.
Plant native trees & shrubs. Start with one, and it can be small! The key is native, and a quick internet search makes it easy to find out which ones are best for birds in each region. Native trees can provide proper nesting areas, fruit and seeds for food, and insects and caterpillars for next year's baby birds.
Shrink our lawns by adding shrubs on the edges, and stop using pesticides altogether.
Add native flowers to gardens and grow them in pots. Ask for native plants at the big stores. So many of the plants commonly available in these stores do absolutely nothing for wildlife.
Donate to organizations that preserve land for wildlife habitat. Lobby for our towns & cities to set aside undeveloped land.
If possible, buy organic food and drink shade-grown, bird-friendly coffee.
Don't despair, take action!
16
One very noticeable thing in my lifetime is the decline in the number of insects i.e. the food for the birds. In England 60 years ago car windscreens were spattered with dead insects. No longer. I suppose this could well be the result of pesticide use. There are other factors like habitat loss , water pollution , cats , hunting on the migration routes in Southern Europe and so on. I recall as a child there was a program in England to stop children egg collecting ( very successful ) So many factors.
3
I’ve given this topic a lot of thought and this is certainly not a scientific approach. There are less and less bird feeders these days with the younger generations no bird baths out in yards either. What is expected but a decrease in birds. I’m the only one in my neighborhood that still carries this tradition on. BTW I’m 72
3
Silent Spring is upon us.
How can we be surprised about this, with a polluter-in-chief in the White House? Very soon, the only tweets we hear come from his fingers.
Now we are waiting for an order from Trump to dismiss this report as Fake News and to sue the compilers for misleading the public, because, Trump will Tweet Tweet Tweet: Fake News! I just saw a bird in the White House garden this morning.
2
@Richard At least he has figured out that industrial wind is a boondoggle. Turbines are killing birds, bats and insects. They only spin fast enough to create energy 50% at MOST, the rest of the time we are using fossil fuels.
Anyone who cares about nature and birds will hardly be surprised at this news: pesticides that kill insects indiscriminately, loss of habitat, cats, children using birds as targets to learn markmanship with guns and slings, subdivisions with sterile grass and a couple of token trees, a landscape cut up by roads which can be a deterrent to genetic exchange for some birds, bright lights that disorient migratory birds..... It looks as though we were fighting an all-out war against these lives.
Only 25 years ago, I heard so many birds every spring morning, all kinds of calls, or when I fed birds in winter, there were masses that visited the feeders. Now? The spring chorus has become so feeble, it is depressing. My feeders? The local swarm of sparrows, a couple of chickadees, a blackbird or two....
Each single person has to consider what he or she is doing to cause this potential disaster as we are more dependent on birds that we would think as biological control of harmful insects, dispersers of seeds and nutrients (I use bird feces as plant food and it works great!)
Not to forget their beauty, and song and, I apologise to Creationists here, the fact that they are the diinosaurs who survived.
1
Just makes you wonder if we are near the end. Very apocalyptic and scary.
Trumpian response: what, I see plenty of birds.
2
I am not surprised as I can see it with my own eyes when out photographing bird at the refuge near me.
Use a real camera an Iphone does't do justice to what is happening in providing evidence around you.
In southern NJ this bird lover and her 12 bird feeders and bird bath must fight for the right to help birds. In my typical development one neighbor is constantly laying down huge amounts of weed killer, Roundup, pesticides, and overuse of
pool cleaning chemicals and algaecides while the other neighbor
has exterminators arriving with alarming frequency spraying
death mists all over the yard and trees. These suburbanites
share their killing habits into my yard to my constant frustration
all the while condemning my bird habitats and bird visitors.
Why do humans seem to think that people and their sterile
creature comforts are all that matters? These citizens sit on
their outdoor decks, grilling their meats, and act as if a bird or
insect is an invasion that must be eliminated. This landowner
will not back down, will continue to support and defend all
wildlife in my little corner of this distressed world. Birds are far
nicer than most people and deserve our help and protection.
13
Starlings on the decline? Not from what I see here in Oklahoma! More and more starlings and less of everything else. Although I still see plenty of buzzards, too.
Does anyone know of the state-subsidized solar panels covering the roofs in the suburbs? We don't see the world from the sky but how does a bird see these
1
All government buildings should be bird safe. I used to pass a newly constructed shiny glassed federal government building in the early morning on my way to work and there were all kinds of dead migratory birds on the sidewalk. I looked one up and it was relatively uncommon. It was a large beautiful, water bird, and from what I remember, it was on its way from the Chesapeake Bay to California. I cannot remember the name. It did not even make it out of the state. I felt so ill and I still do.
A bipartisan issue if I have ever seen one, The Bird-Safe Buildings Act would do what I speak of. The bill just sits collecting dust and has a very slim chance of passing.
Municipalities and the Feds should at least participate in Lights Out. City lights cause birds to become disoriented and confused, flying into buildings and becoming prone to predators. Report any birds you find, dead or alive to Lights out or a similar program. Every little flick of the switch helps.
3
@prokedsorchucks You may think its a bipartisan issue but the Republicans are the party of big business, and there are few businesses bigger than the likes on Monsanto who sell the type of pesticides and weed-killers that are directly implicated in this apocalypse. Their billions in profits can buy a lot of political influence and that is exactly what they do, even though they have lost civil suits that have shown that their infernal concoctions also cause cancer in humans. I couldn't agree more about the Lights Out initiative. We don't even have a proper night time anymore.
2
@Mark Crozier: The Democratic Party is ALSO the party of big business. Why were the Clintons and Obama so popular on Wall Street?
1
This article is so disturbing, especially taken in conjunction with what’s happening to the bees. It’s amazing work by everyone involved and great reporting by the Mr. Zimmer. Keep doing what you’re doing. Let’s hope the people in power eventually listen. I think most of the general population already has.
3
Contributing, driving long haul I see a significant decline in bugs dying on my windshield. No bugs, no birds.
7
I was surprised that this article did not include industrial wind. In Iowa we have only 1% of the US population yet 1,480,000 acres of our land is covered with industrial wind. Each turbine has large wakes and vortexes that impact birds and bats yet the only organizations doing any sort of monitoring is the energy companies and they have proven to be bad neighbors in the past- why does anyone trust them now? On the ground we are hearing reports of wildlife disappearing yet too many people are still supporting this industrial boondoggle.
5
I am seeing far fewer butterflies and pollinators this year in my botanical garden inthe suburbs of Atlanta, too. I attribute it to the widespread use of 'mosquito fogging' which blankets the neighborhood daily with fogs of cypermethrin chemicals. It must be impacting the birds too!
3
What is the relationship between bird decline and insect decline? I've read that habitat loss and neonicotinoid pesticides are killing off the bugs. Does bird loss parallel insect loss? Should we zero in on insecticides, and limit their use in the name of saving both of these animal types?
3
We must create a movement. One backyard, landing, balcony at a time. Role model it. Tell a friend about the beauty of bird songs and natural plantings. Give kids a pair of binoculars as a gift.
The era of perfectly manicured landscaping must become passé.
We have been so blessed by the previous homeowners of our home. They had tremendous foresight and long-term-view thinking. The yard was an extension of their loving home.
They planted a mix of tree seedlings from the Audubon Naturalist Society along the borders of the property. We are now enjoying these mature, awe-inspiring trees. All so different! We have privacy and can enjoy the yard freely and barefoot. Watching and hearing the birds is a delight! There are not many but they come. The serenity among these trees and our bird friends brings us a tremendous amount of joy and peace.
High in the trees humming birds take refuge. They swoop down to the feeder. Absolutely arresting. Magical. You must stop whatever you are doing to just “see.” Gratitude for life fills me up when I see this. A much needed slow down.
Short-termism is driving this disruption. Time frames are shorter and shorter. In any small way we must act.
Today and moving forward, I will put out birdseed more frequently. (Along with other new habits: no straws, no plastic bags, paper to-go only. I bring containers with me, too. Containers over zip-locks.)
The Audubon Naturalist Society still has this Plant-a-Tree program.
www.anshome.org
5
One “ exhaustive study”. How bout risk factors increasing over these past many years too.
Earth will be here long after species come and go.
Stop the hysterics.
We have an average life span of 78 to 82 years plus our genes.
There have been many climate cycles and extenuating events to effect bird populations.
Ebb and Flow in nature exists without human intrusion.
My lifetime and yours are too short to worry or make statements about a study that hasn’t been held up to scrutiny.
Birds will make a comeback.
Humans are gods experiment and maybe we won’t be returning.
Seems the trajectory lately.
5
@nursejacki - Yup, and the rest of the dinosaurs are already dead.
Over the past few years, I've also noticed far fewer bugs squashed across my car's windshield. Have you? Used to be, in summer every time I'd stop to get gas, I'd have to really scrub the windshield to get rid of bug splatter. No longer. I wonder if there is a connection between fewer bugs splatters and the decline in bird populations?
I'm confused as to why the role of cats is so diminished in the article. Studies have shown that cats kill several billion birds a year, and it's really no surprise when you see cats in the wild more often than birds.
6
@Casey L. - Agreed, human's cat kill gazillions of birds. Plus, human's high-rise buildings kill more than cats, while human's gross over-consumption and over-population is killing off entire species. It's disingenuous to single out human's cats. We've met the enemy…
3
Paris, France, used to be home to sparrows and swallows; no longer, chased away by the rather unloveable crows and seagulls, rather large birds with unattractive screeches. Even the Paris Pigeons are rare.
2
My daughter and son in law invited me to live with them in Long Island, NY. I moved there in January of this year. I was thrilled by the number of little birds that were in the yards, but
I was surprised how few trees there were. I had been born in NYC, and raised in New Jersey. I am in my seventies. As the winter months passed a neighbor told my daughter there were too many birds living and nesting in the eves of our house, and on electrical boxes attached to the house, and she advised they were a menace. She explained that she had had a professional bird remover coming to bird proof her house, and expected it would be neighborly for my daughter to remove the bird nests around her home too. In total five houses in a row chased away all of the birds nesting in the only spots they could find. Over the next few months most of the little birds, little Starlings I think, had been chased away. People landscape with lovely bushes, and perennials, but they don’t plant trees. The prevailing thought is that the birds are intrusive-too burdensome to care for, too expensive-and THE BIRDS ARE A MENACE. There are fewer parks, and even fewer with trees than a decade or two ago. And the little birds trying to live through the winter are chased from the only homes they can find. There was evidence they were dying in the cold after their houses were destroyed. The birds are a menace is the prevailing sentiment. I think the home owners are a menace to the birds.
18
The loss of Bob-Whites (quails) and Blue Jays has been particularly noticeable to me over these past decades. Thickets, the habitat for quail in treed areas bordering meadows is often hard to find and is rarely maintained or even tolerated any more, instead being cleared, though there are many insect varieties and small wildlife that require thickets too. Insofar as the jays, once ubiquitous, I have no idea, But I miss them. As fighting pollution without destroying the job base and helping wildlife to thrive is a concern for many Americans across the political spectrum, I do hope that the NYT begins to engage our president rather than undermining Democracy by pushing partisan branding and "ownership" of issues to influence the 2020 elections.
This is highly disturbing. Birds are both an instrument of nature and wonderful co-inhabitants of our earth.
2
Outrageous that the agrar industry being one of the main factor for this horrific finding is not only going on using pesticides but is using tax payers' funds for it.
3
@Monika - Homo sapiens are the customers of Big Ag, always looking for the lowest cost food without consideration of Big Ag practices. As with Big Oil, the companies are only the Pushers - We are the addicts.
It is time to stop using Chemlawn, Roundup, Barefoot Grass and all those other nasty chemicals and chemical services on our lawns. They kill all the insects which in turn leaves nothing for the birds to eat. In addition the runoff of these chemicals goes into the waterway which then pollutes the environment of the frogs, fish, turtles, etc. In addition to all of this the pack of lies, distortion, fake news and more regarding the Fukushima reactor situation is unacceptable. That reactor meltdown is altering and destroying marine life all across the Pacific and the Japanese government and their enablers are covering it all up.
5
No mention of pigeons. They are birds too! Poor things. But for an urban dweller this is all shocking, if not surprising. Catastrophic.
Has our science education in our schools failed to teach students to love the natural world? You aren’t going to conserve what you don’t love.
2
It's a shame for the majority of the birds without doubt. Unfortunately the one that need to disappear, the pigeons , ie flying rats and disease carriers, are thriving like never before. The world's cities are over run by them. Well I should say overflown. London, NYC and Venice just to name three.
1
I just read that cats kill 1 to 3 billion birds a year in the USA. I personally prefer birds.
4
@Buster Dee
That may be so, but humans are a much more desirable demographic to vilify these days than animals. You won't see any cats on a climate strike today.
I'm surprised this article doesn't mention very similar findings about insects that were reported recently. Just disruption in the food chain is bound to effect every other type of animal.
4
See all that relatively inexpensive, perfect food lining the supermarket shelves? Insecticides made that possible. Good for us, bad for the birds. That's human beings for you.
4
We lament and lament and lament...
And then we vote business, growth and development.
And the we all act surprised
12
@Eric Exactly, Australians recently signed off on the Adani coal mine, a project that will negatively impact the already badly diminished Great Barrier Reef, one of the world's most spectacular natural wonders, all for the sake of a thousand or so jobs. It is this kind of shortsightedness that is driving us to the precipice.
The simple truth is that we are victims of anthropocentric delirium. I think that you can't even talk about selfishness, because the real selfish person wants to live in a healthy and comfortable environment. The right word is self-destruction. We live by destroying. I once read that a great politician does not think about tomorrow, but about the day after tomorrow. Now our life is in the hands of Trump, Putin, MBS, etc.. and even birds fly away from us.
1
@Alfredo - "anthropocentric delirium" - Excellent term! We are committing communal suicide as a species - just as fast as we can.
3
I trace our ecological catastrophe back to that dreadful line in Genesis where the creator supposedly gives "man" dominion over other living things. That, to me, is the Original Sin: the hubris that puts us above nature and all other creatures rather than seeing us as an intrinsic, interdependent part of all life. The dominance preached in the founding texts of patriarchal religions is the poison that excuses our selfishness and malice.
With the rapaciousness of the petrochemical industry and agribusiness, unchecked development, the ongoing destruction of wetlands, the war on science, and the spinelessness of politicians beholden to the worst villains among us, I don’t see these crimes against nature and humanity ending any time soon.
10
@Jamakaya - "With the rapaciousness of the petrochemical industry and agribusiness, unchecked development, the ongoing destruction of wetlands, the war on science, and the spinelessness of politicians beholden to the worst villains among us, I don’t see these crimes against nature and humanity ending any time soon."
Big Biz and their wholly-owned Congress Critters are only our Pushers and our Enablers. We are the ones addicted to overconsumption and overpopulation - so, yup, ain't ending any time soon (depending on one's definition of "soon").
2
Please all readers, go out and buy at least one Hummingbird feeder. I bought one last year, first ever, and it hangs on a post outside my door. They come every day and they are fun to watch. I didn't pay much for my bird feeder,it's red color to attract them, and you only have to wash it out every 2 days or so and boil water and add sugar, pure cane I believe, and I buy it in a large carton at the grocery store. The speed of Hummingbirds is amazing to watch and the colors on the different birds are beautiful.
2
@Joan S. You can do same with a wild bird feeder and an owl box, if your property has large trees on it. There are many ways to help our feathered friends. The best way, though, is to vote for representatives that support environmental protection policies!
As a seventeen year expat American living in rural Provence I have noticed the bird population declining over the years.
Only one black and white aggressive and carnivorous bird is still in evidence.
There is a wide use of pesticides for grapes, olives, and lavender that may have a harmful effect on birds,
Hunting has taken its toll of birds but the sport seems to have declined in recent years.
3
Birds numbers must be linked to the insect population. I have discussion with work colleagues and we agree that when we travel in summer with our cars, those cars are much much less splatered with insects. This is FRANCE, another big agri-country, big pesticide user.
9
Donald Trumps environmental policies are striving for a bird free future. And millions of other species. It turns out that Trump just doesn't have room in his world for anything but Trump-branded golf courses and hotels, coal mines, and oil wells.
9
What I find fascinating is the obvious misconception that this vanishment can be so lightly dismissed as irrelevant to the defense of the country’s future which this occurrence so clearly signals. Billions and even an occasional trillion dollars are spent on armaments for defense of the nation which have no use whatsoever for protection frpm the destructive natural forces clearly denoted. I have even read that there are laws promoted by real estate financiers forbidding predictions or indications that the inevitable sea rise will make coast lands uninhabitable so that they can be sold. Yet each week new revisions as to the speed of ice melt in the arctics and Greenland is vastly underestimated. Instead of promoting military expenses it would be far more sensible to construct new inland cities for when places like Florida and New York City will become submerged. This is the song the absent birds are singing.
18
@Jan Sand
Wow, you’re really good. Can you write in everyday. Probably won’t do any real good in this bizarre atmosphere here, but I would love to hear more from you.
Not sure what’s wrong with the US anymore, as much as I despise our ruler, can’t blame it just on him, too many non scientific followers. It’s probably, on second thought, they just don’t care about anything, anymore.
@ElleJ
We all must accept that we shall someday die and perhaps that resignation is involved with the reluctance of much of the world to face the destiny indicated by the growing indications of a planet that is becoming so unfriendly.
This also applies to insects (which, of course, some birds eat). I've lived in my current apartment for 16 years. When I first moved here, every summer, I would be plagued by insects getting into my apartment.
Now - almost none. It's scary.
14
@240type What's really scary is that Rachel Carson predicted this as far back as the early 60s. But of course the powers that be -- who are totally beholden to Big Ag, the Chemical Industry and Big Oil -- refused to take heed and now here we are.
2
Went I was a young child, my father and I visited an enormous wetland in Ontario. The time was fall, just at sunset, duck and geese were on the move. My father looked at me and told me to remember this moment for the rest of my life.
I could see from horizon to horizon, and I couldn't see blue sky. Flocks of birds, layer upon layer upon layer upon layer blanket the sky, my dad understood that the future wasn't going to be kind to animals.
I remember the prophecy of the original Earth Day as a teenager, and we did nothing. Tomorrow, there is a national Science March against Climate Destruction, join us. If we don't stop the powers that advance the destruction, we're all to blame.
20
Extremely distressing--and the ONLY article I ever read in the NYT that got me emotionally alarmed--is that insects are disappearing, armageddon for insects. Now birds are disappearing. Fewer insects for birds to eat. Fewer birds.
Recently in Brisbane I saw a few dozen flying foxes, big bats. A lady who grew up in Brisbane said when she was growing up the skies would be darkened with thousands of flying foxes. But no more.
Seems humans will soon be in the next disappearing act.
17
It is happening in Germany as well. I do not have the exact numbers, but the destruction of habitats, the vanishing of insects plus the use of insecticides have diminished the bird populations everywhere. We are destroying the eco system that we are a part of. It is terribly sad - and terrifying.
24
Humans may begin to vanish in the same numbers.
For now 7.7 billion and counting - sprawling unabated
toward an Earth without life as we knew it + plastic?
7
As a child in Oregon the 60s, I can remember the endless rivers of birds in sky as they migrated.
Over the years they became a rare sight. The last time I saw birds like that was in the mid nineties while driving in Arkansas towards Missouri.
You just don’t see those enormous flocks flying anymore. We have already lost so much.
17
When my hummingbird feeder needs to be cleaned and refilled, several hummingbirds hover outside my kitchen window glaring at me. It is obvious that they are angry. Even my husband noticed and commented on it, which is saying something. I apologize to them audibly and fix it, and they calm down. This is fairly recent behavior and I’m deeply affected by it. The entire animal kingdom has the right to be furious at us and if you really look closely, you may see it.
14
I spend summers in the Pacific Northwest and the rest of the year in Mexico. If anything it is worse down there. In forty odd years visiting the same beach, I have always been thrilled by the lines of pelicans skimming the waves, one flight after another. In the last five years particularly, I watch helplessly as I see less pelicans, and less and even less. We had sandpipers too, so many as they flitted back and forth along the shore where the waves ebb. A lovely Spanish name, lavanderas (washer women). Or we did. They are disappearing too. As so many have said in this comment section. It is heartbreaking.
15
People would rather look at their phones than at birds. How can something be saved when people never even look up?
People walk around constantly staring at screens instead of the beauty that is still around them.. The more birds are ignored, the more they will disappear.
27
@Ashley: Exactly! People are more cut off from nature now than they've ever been.
2
Over the last 60 years in the Midwest Canada Geese stopped migrating, Turkey Vultues started arriving in spring, Rough- Legged Hawks, Snowy Owls and Junco numbers decreased. Bird ranges naturally moved north about 250 milies due to climate change.
Habitat loss due to agriculture and urbanization is a key factor decreasing bird populations. Habitat loss due to bringing in alien bird species from the Pigeon to the Starling to the House Sparrow hurt. Humans brought their pet cats and dogs along with their flies, mosquitos and rats had impact.
The Passenger Pigeon was once the most numerous bird in North America. But they vanished just like the rarer Carolina Parakeet. Labrador Duck and Ivory Billed Woodpecler.
Humans ate Auks out of existence.
13
@Blackmamba
I am a birder.
West Nile virus was brought to North America by African birds in quarantine at the Bronx Zoo. And Blue Jays, Black-Capped Chickadees, Crows and humans have paid the price of experts with good intentions.
Monk Parakeets from South America are nesting in Chicago having escaped or been released by their pet owners.
2
From my observation, bee population in my garden and along walks in the neighborhood and local parks is also way down this year. The ones we do have are more aggressive.
8
Feeding birds, bird baths, bird houses, for some twenty years, in the east and in the west. Only less than 10 years ago in Willamette Valley, we could hear the high pitched vibrating vocalization of the cedar waxwing, and see them flying high in the sky when looking above - if really lucky I'd catch a glimpse of them sitting in the branches of a big pine. There was a marsh/field full of the trill of the redwing blackbirds perched on the blades throughout the marshy area - beautiful. But no more - the trill of the cedar waxwings I haven't heard in a couple of years or more - my favorite bird - if one may have a favorite. And the field of redwing blackbirds - gone.
We worry about our jobs, our money, corrupted politicians - and really in truth all of that is moot and meaningless in the face the catastrophic consequences our arrogance and inaction.
28
A longtime vegetarian, I was once required to eat meat for a time. Friends who had teased and ribbed me about my diet for years looked at me in shock as I devoured a giant plate of pure meat - again, under orders - right in front of their eyes. While they had always eaten meat, it became obvious that *my* suddenly eating meat really upset them. The table went silent. Their jaws dropped. A couple asked what I was doing and whether it was healthy. One told me to stop. Along these lines, what if we tree huggers and bird lovers just went on a hiatus? Inconveniencing ourselves to reduce our footprint isn't working to reduce environmental degradation; it only gets worse. So what if we ditch our peaceful bikes and electric cars, and have a big, fat party? Let's get us some brash, selfish guzzlers, load em up with rolling smoke, and liven up as many quiet, conservative neighborhoods as we can going to and from work. And to heck with recycling, let's just dump unsorted trash wherever we can, until and unless GOP voters finally wake the heck up and stop treating the planet as *their* personal wastebin. If they aren't going to do anything about climate change, why ever should we? Forget about saving for those solar panels and just party till they can't stand it anymore. We can let them know that if they're not with us, then there will be no one, and no standards, upholding what is right anymore - and nothing to stop them from destroying themselves.
9
Human overpopulation is the primary cause of environmental degradation of all kinds.
32
...and global warming. We will never be able to stay where we are now if we keep letting people in.
Heartbreaking.
9
we're watching a catastrophe in slow motion. The collapse of insect populations has likely affected the avians, and this collapse will cascade across the food web if we don't keep our eyes open and priorities straight. For fellow concerned readers, there are steps you can take to at least mitigate this. Grow a garden. Put out a few birdfeeders. Close your blinds when you're not home. It's not going to reverse centuries of development and polution, but it's better than nothing.
16
And yet the number of chickens, turkeys, ducks and other birds raised, tortured, confined and ultimately slaughtered for human consumption continues to increase. Billions of them die each day for consumption by our fat, unhealthy population.
12
Nonsense. I live in South Central Idaho and am a moderate in all things. So don’t thing I’m som kind of wing nut. Actually, I’m a farmer and yes... I apologies a bird hunter with my my buddies Duchess and gauge. That’s worth mentioning because we’re into mid September and our activities are turning towards birds.
This has been a very good summer for birds. We have had buntings, fighting hummingbirds (very aggressive! I always think of Top Gun the way they fight, plenty of robins, hawks and eagles. Because of farming pheasants have been a problem for a long time. We don’t have Montana grass! But California quail are all over the place, Hungarian partridge, chukar are up in the hills. Currently I am in Dillon Montana and Sand Hill Cranes are everywhere.
Don’t trust me, come on out here and see for your own eyes that our birds are self existing and it has absolutely nothing to do with human involvement. Let them live and live in your cities. We respect and love you!
Our neighbor has an outdoor cat. It hunts the birds that nest in our bushes above the golf course we live on. They could care less about the destruction their cat does to the bird population. They vote Republican. Big surprise.
15
Why is this not the headline today? I am sad and frustrated that the most important stories of the day, namely the ongoing destruction of the planet get relegated to fifth, tenth, sixteenth in the news scroll. When is major media and the world going to wake up?
30
@Karen Yates
The US needs to lead not obstruct as Trump is doing, vote 2020.
1
No words for disaster
No song from the birds
No leaves in the wind
And yet crickets
from the orangeade
maker of america great
great thanks america
great to be dying
in your states’ embrace
4
Seemed like an innocuous story, but I was expecting an angle. I came here looking for the Times to blame Trump and there it is: 3/4 the way into the story. The Times has full-blown Trump derangement syndrome.
2
Let's face it.....mankind needs a predator.....
8
Bush and the Republicans are destroying our world. The most evil people ever to have existed.
5
Not intending to joke here, but birds and bees . . . honeybees . . . .
Talk with your friendly beekeeper about general things.
4
ALF, ELF and Earthfirst.
The human race is truly a poison on the planet
3
They all got chopped up by windmills!!
1
A dose of RoundUp anyone? Yoo-hoo, Monsanto, where are you? Oh, right, foisted yourself off on some other greedy company.
12
This is just about the saddest story I have read. Possibly ever. Birds are my favorite beings on this planet.
Makes me think of Lori Anderson’s “The Beginning of Memory.” Makes me want to weep.
8
And yet this planet's human population is thriving. It has doubled in my lifetime and continues to grow. And it consumes, and consumes, and consumes...
9
It's all about the insects. This article should've been preceded about ten years ago with one about the vanishing bugs. We used to drive up Central California and have to pressure wash the car when we got to Sacramento. Now, you can go the whole way and get maybe a couple of windshield splats. We broke their rice bowl, folks.
24
Mankind has thought it could do anything with impunity. We have been on this planet for a millisecond. And are racing towards extinction. Don’t believe it can’t happen? Tell that to the countless species that have vanished before us. Humanity will get what it deserves and Planet Earth will live on without the virus known as humanity.
10
interesting read and to see the comments,
the area where our family currently inhabits has or
used to have rather a ton of cardinals;
for some reason after katrina they all pretty much
disappeared in massive population;
traded out by a whoole lot of hawks.
and it is the strangest thing in the world to recognize
it happened just around hurricane katrina!
2
Number one on my personal sorrows list.
4
I’m fortunate to live in an area with many trees and what used to be a wide range of birds.
The last few years all I can identify are crows. I wonder if these obnoxious aggressive birds are part of the problem as they are huge in number and obnoxious. They even pick on our red tail hawk nests. The only species I’ve seen of late are the crows, hummingbirds, and hawks.
1
@Peds ICU RN Crows are not obnoxious. They are highly intelligent and canny survivors. Where do you think the term pecking order comes from? Like many corvids (ravens, magpies, etc) crows are high on the list because they are extremely smart and adaptable.
3
Where have all the fireflies gone too? I find weak bumblebees on the ground unable to fly. I planted milkweed in my big butterfly garden and the monarchs never came.
Meanwhile our city has a truck that drives up and down each street spraying insecticide to kill mosquitoes. People think bug spray only kills one kind of bug.
14
@Bamagirl And birds also eat mosquitoes and their larvae.
There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to be in harmony with its surroundings. The town lay in the midst of a checkerboard of prosperous farms, with fields of grain and hillsides of orchards, where white clouds of bloom drifted above the green land. In autumn, oak and maple and birch set up a blaze of color that flamed and flickered across a backdrop of pines. Then foxes barked in the hills and deer crossed the fields, half-hidden in the mists of the mornings. Along the roads, laurel, viburnum, and alder, great ferns and wildflowers delighted the traveler’s eye through much of the year. Even in winter, the roadsides were places of beauty, where countless birds came to feed on the berries and on the seed heads of the dried weeds rising above the snow. The countryside was, in fact, famous for the abundance and variety of its birdlife, and when the flood of migrants was pouring through in spring and fall, people came from great distances to observe them. Other people came to fish streams, which flowed clear and cold out of the hills and contained shady pools where trout lay. So it had been from the days, many years ago, when the first settlers raised their houses, sank their wells, and built their barns.
Rachel Carson Silent Spring—I https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1962/06/16/silent-spring-part-1
7
As long as profit is prioritized over people and the environment, we will continue marching our species and all the rest on this wondrous world to extinction.
7
29% over the past half century?? This is just heartbreaking!!
7
In other news headline: "Outdoor Cats Show Average Weight Gain Over Past Half-Century, Scientists Find"
But correlation does not equal causation.
1
With spring comes companies spraying toxins on neighborhood lawns to ward off weeds, exterminators knocking on doors to kill insects, farmers spreading noxious weed killers, acidity in the rain from internal combustion motors. We are all to blame.
4
Maybe there were just too many birds 50 years ago.
Wind farms are killing many thousand birds every month. They litter the ground under the wind-vanes.
4
“On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird voices, there was now no sound.”
The silence is truly deafening.
4
A college professor taught us that in imperial China one of the requirements for becoming a bureaucrat was an ability to write poetry. It strikes me in imperial America that one of the requirements for any job on any level ought to be a thorough knowledge of climate change, its impact, and the utterly essential and radical things we must do to stop it, reverse it, so that our children and grandchildren don't end up living in a world like this:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43999427-fragments-of-the-brooklyn-talmud?from_search=true
where a little girl watches the last bird in the world die on television, with her mother.
2
Not sure which is more depressing, the decline in the bird population or this comment section. The truth of the matter is animal populations have been in decline, or worst, extinct, for thousands of years. Not much you can do about the rate of human population growth.
2
@KMC: not much to about human population growth? Stop reproducing. There are plenty of parentless kids already on planet earth. Want a kid ?Well, prove it - adopt an older child who needs a parent and a home. A child is a child is a child.
2
What about insects?
People born today will experience extinction, before 2100.
No one, anywhere, should have children, anymore.
5
Feral cats have taken over our wooded suburb. The bird population has been decimated. Stop feeding these predators.
4
free ranging domestic and feral housecats. it's not complicated.
3
We have to stop building houses on beaches. This causes the death if many shore birds.
4
There is no correlation between the two.
Says you. Coastal development is a huge cause of much of our environment decay. It should be stopped and reversed to return our coast line - ocean and rivers - back to their natural state.
1
Evolution has shown what happens to predators that become so voracious they kill off the species they depend on — they go extinct themselves. It's happened again and again in different ecosystems, in different epochs. It happens most rapidly on islands — a mammal arrives, eats all the smaller creatures, then simply dies. Islands aren't meant for Alpha predators and essentially that's what we are now, the earth is our island — we take only what we need like civilized souls or we greedily gobble it all up like a dumb animals. We have to stop thinking of the land and everything on it as OUR property, or even property. It's a trust, it has to pass from generation to generation and it has to be tended and from time to time mended. The good news is that science has learned how to do the mending — ecological restoration has made leaps and bounds and we are no longer dependant upon hoping to preserve places like the Amazon, we can do that and restore the Eastern Woodlands of North America, most of which are no longer even farmed and have shrinking populations as people prefer other climates. America should have the vision to restore the wilderness we cut back. We have the knowledge to do it, but decisions lie with stupid men. I hate the dumbed down sloganeering, It isn't all about "dooms day is coming!" We have the wealth, science and resources to create large new national parks EAST of the Mississipi. Leaders should be explaining to the people exactly how and why it should be done.
8
Birds, they’re miniature dinosaurs who can fly.
Gods mysterious handiwork.
5
Funny how no one is questioning the exact number of 3 billion birds.
1
It has been "questioned". The mechanism is called peer review.
I live in South Central Idaho and am a moderate in all things. So don’t think I’m some kind of wing nut. Actually, I’m a farmer and yes... I apologize for being a bird hunter with my buddies and dogs Duchess and gauge. That’s worth mentioning because we’re into mid September and our activities are turning towards birds.
This has been a very good summer for birds. We have had buntings, fighting hummingbirds (very aggressive! I always think of Top Gun the way they fight, plenty of robins, hawks and eagles. Because of farming pheasants have been a problem for a long time. We don’t have Montana grass! But California quail are all over the place, Hungarian partridge, chukar are up in the hills. Currently I am in Dillon Montana and Sand Hill Cranes are everywhere.
Don’t trust me, come on out here and see for your own eyes that our birds are self existing and it has absolutely nothing to do with human involvement. Let them live and live in your cities. We respect and love you!
So here we learn that Donald Trump wants to roll back the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Is there anything this man won't ruin?
5
If only as many humans had died off as birds, the world would be a much better place.
10
Ban pesticides.
Ban herbicides.
Care about a clean healthy planet.
Care about the birds, the frogs, your neighbors, your kids.
Vote.
10
The myriad other considerations aside
I'm thinking devolving bird habitat....and ( lack of) food
Are the main upstream culprit....
It's not rocket science
No place left ..to nest or forage
No insects to eat..
due to wide spectrum insecticides
And..insect habitat loss...bird habitat loss
If one can't see ..that we're on our way to..
quickly overwhelming... and despoiling.. our own enviroments...
Than one must surely be a Trump voter
2
Re-elect the President, and enjoy total peace & quiet.
4
This makes me weep.
Five years ago, due to the drought in So Cal, we transformed our boring yard of grass, a non native trees and shrubs to a native California garden. We removed all the turf and non native species and put in trees, shrubs and perennials not just native to CA but native to our SoCal location. As the native plants have grown, we’ve saved on water, yet something we didn’t quite expect has occurred. We live on a canyon lot and suburban sprawl is all around us. Yet we now have dozens of birds, of many varieties that come visit us every day. Birds I’d never seen before in all my years here now visit our native garden. They feed on the native seeds, and rest in our native shrubs and trees.
Our landscape designer who did the design and installation educated us on the benefits of native landscapes. He remarked how if homeowners and commercial developers considered using plants native to their areas instead of non native species we might do so much to help mitigate the loss of habitat for our birds and insects.
Yes, we need our governments to do more, but perhaps in the meantime we, as individuals, can do something right now to help the birds and loss of habitats — starting in our own backyard. Consider having a native garden.
FYI: Most states have native plants societies and colleges and universities that have botany and agricultural programs have resources on native plants. Here in California that is UC Davis and the California Native Plant Society.
24
@Susan
Couldn’t agree more!
Overhunting, habitat loss, pollution and now global warming.
None of these happen in a vacuum but there are positive feedbacks, synergies among them that make the whole vastly greater than the sum of the parts.
The question for scientists is do we know how to put humpty-dumpty back together again?
1
A part of the problem is that we have to stop using horrible pesticides, etc. for our lawns and gardens. They kill many insects, including pollinators. This then affects what our bird friends have available to eat. As well these pesticides, herbicides, etc. also are neurotoxins. If a hapless bird ingests some of the pesticide, etc. it may die. Turn your expensive overrated green lawn into a less than perfect looking naturalized setting. Plant more trees, bushes and other havens for birds and bees. We can do better, we must do better~
8
@Julianna: Lawns are the biggest joke ever foisted on modern civilization. They are labor intensive, and must, evidently, be sprayed regularly with both “fertilizer “ AND pesticides. And mowed, manicured, and trimmed once a week. Then, the final indignity: these unnatural plants are “watered” with DRINKING WATER, when so many in our overpopulated world have no clean water to drink. The runoff from these lawns and other landscaping is poisoning our lakes and waterways - why do you think algae blooms are so prolific? With no place to nest, no insects to eat, and no clean water to drink,is it any wonder the birds are disappearing?
Those huge manicured lawns should be outlawed.
4
We’ve meddled with the seeds and the seed eaters are dying.
We’ve genetically altered the plants, soaked them in chemicals and the bees are dying.
During a summer evening car trip a to northern Michigan few years ago, we noticed that we had a ridiculously clean windshield. Where were all the insects that should be swarming on a summer’s night?
We’re dousing the world with insecticides, and the insect eaters are dying too.
Tried to show my kids nighthawks this summer. From upper Minnesota through Wisconsin and both peninsulas of Michigan, we couldn’t find a single one circling the streetlights like they did in my childhood.
My kids have never seen a Purple Martin, Indigo Bunting, Scarlet Tanager, Snowy Owl— common in my youth.
My childhood friends and I gathered Monarch caterpillars all summer long, raising and releasing butterflies. My kids raised one Monarch caterpillar to butterfly in their childhood. One. Then they were gone. Monarchs are seen occasionally now— but it’s been 15-20 years since they were common. 50 years since they were abundant.
It’s not just a Silent Spring. It’s a dying world.
28
Birds are a conspicuous indicator of the general decline of biodiversity on this planet. Nothing else to say. We must now do.
7
This is shocking and like other commenters I have noticed it too over my lifetime, along with amphibians, butterflies, bats and other creatures.
But I have a little bit of hopeful news.
Seven years ago I bought a small fixer upper house with a fixer upper property that had virtually no trees or shrubs, or much habitat for anything but the occasional squirrel and a couple of rabbits. It was sad. The only birds I saw were house sparrows, starlings, the occasional crow and a mockingbird. That’s it.
Fast forward seven years later, after planting native pear trees, crabapple, birch, arborvitae, lilacs, lots of boxwood, flowerbeds with native perennials, plus adding white clover to the grass and using absolutely NO pesticides...
Birds documented since the landscape & garden overhaul:
blue jays, cardinals, dark-eyed juncos (had to look that one up - never saw one before) song sparrows, robins, more house sparrows, mourning doves, woodpeckers, northern flicker, goldfinch, starlings, the occasional crow, and a couple of species I couldn’t identify. Plenty of wabbits, squirrels, and the occasional chipmunk.
It works.
6
@Barbara Brundage
Almost forgot to add to the list - catbirds & chickadees. And more nests.
3
I have done something similar which I explained in a comment that I made earlier tonight. People may think that one yard at a time is not enough. But it is better than nothing. Watching how in just a couple of years tiny airborne creatures have returned to my yard since we bought the house, as you describe you have done with yours, is encouraging. If each person reading this article and these comments does what you and I have done, one yard at a time, one balcony, inevterrace, one rooftop garden at a time, we can create small refuges for airborne creatues.
5
This news has sickened me all day. I hope it moves enough of us to demand action. The Federal Migratory Bird Treaty was passed in 1918, shortly after the deaths of the last Passenger Pigeon and last Carolina Paroquet, in captivity. It sustained most of our population for decades. Rachel Carson's book, Silent Spring, spurred action on DDT, which is one reason eagles and other raptors have rebounded. We need to do it again, and enact smart policies—starting with pesticides and agribusiness, and then realistic development and urban/suburban design. But here's what we''re up against: just this year the Trump administration curtailed certain aspects of the Migratory Bird Treaty, giving industry license to recklessly cause the deaths of birds (wind farms, toxic ponds). This obscenity gets buried daily under the heap of insults poured upon us by the Republican administration, Senate, and courts (Trump doesn't come up with these ideas: he just greenlights them.) Turning nature into property is intrinsic to the Republican agenda. I hope we fight back, on behalf of the nature that we all need and that doesn't have a vote. And as it happened, this evening I came out of the grocery store and saw a dark shape wing up to the railing of a water tower. With the binoculars I always keep in the car, I looked at it: a peregrine falcon. I swear it was looking at me.
10
@William Wenthe
At the time, I thought this was a sign, and now, reading this, I believe it was. A couple weeks ago, I also saw a peregrine falcon; it flew right over my head in my backyard. It was so close I could hear the sound of its wings cutting the air.
We must act; we must save the birds and nature if we are to save ourselves.
4
There are already too many people encroaching on wildlife habitats. We need negative population growth and urgent care for the environment.
32
I live in a close-in suburb of NYC. I have been noticing far fewer black capped chickadees that used to visit my feeder all day, every year. This past winter, I hardly saw any dark eyed juncos. I am lucky that a few catbirds visit each season for my blue berries, but the jays seem to have diminished in numbers, too. For that matter, in my suburban neighborhood, the number of locusts has also dropped, and I have seen far fewer ants and even earth worms.
Most of us have been sold a bill of goods by landscaping companies, major pesticide manufacturers, lawn care equipment makers, etc. I am one of the few residents here in my village who don't employ landscapers to fertilize, apply pesticides, and use gas blowers to collect grass cuttings and leaves. I am convinced that this poisoning and sterilization of people's lawns by landscapers has greatly contributed to this awful drop in wildlife numbers. Add in the pollution caused by two-stroke gas engines, the dust, and the intense noise, and it is no wonder that the bird and insect population has greatly diminished.
It would be a good start if every homeowner took over stewardship of their own properties, instead of alienating themselves from the precious piece of nature that came with their home purchase.
It is past time to just let nature be.
18
@David
My thoughts exactly!
2
I am an environmental pessimist and not easily surprised or shocked anymore, but reading this article makes my heart pound.
I used to estimate our presence on this planet another 200 years at the most. I'm resetting to 150 now. Thankfully, I have no children.
8
I don't want to sound trite; my puzzlement is genuine. If that many birds have disappeared, how many eggs have disappeared? Solving which disappeared first may provide meaningful insight into why this crisis is happening.
I don’t understand why the simple fact of the overpopulation of the earth by humans is always ignored. It doesn’t matter what else we do if we keep reproducing like rabbits. We can’t build enough renewable energy facilities, we can’t ban enough plastic straws, we can’t provide enough insects to feed on, unless we reduce our numbers.
The developed countries are already experiencing a reduction in population, it’s time we make sure the rest of the world does the same. How do we accomplish that?
17
When I was a kid my family lived in Tennessee and Mississippi, small towns and woodsy suburbs here and there.
Everywhere we went, red- and yellow-winged blackbirds were all around, riding the high weeds that dipped along the roadside marshes. Off in the fields there were Eastern meadowlarks with their lemony chests and black cravats. Bobwhite quail families dashed through the high grass borders of the hedgerows, the original domestic comedy. Cardinals, jays, waxwings, and rose-breasted and evening grosbeaks jostled our feeders in the springs and autumns, usually on their way to somewhere else.
And I think about late summer evenings back and away, the front lawn cut, grass smelling like wet yeast, a little humid twilight left before the sun was all the way gone, and then the whippoorwills would start up. The little scruffy hobo birds nested on the ground scrub, always in some softly audible middle distance. You never, ever saw one. I didn’t, anyway, nor knew anybody who claimed to have. All these decades later in fact I would be surprised if more than a few thousand Americans could recall or even imagine a whippoorwill, much less mark its strange little stir of heartbroken choir. But I would trade more than a little of any life still left to me to hear one again.
20
When are we going to wake up and actually change our behavior? We are running out of time.
25
Reading others’s comments i have been confronted with my own denial about the loss of birds and their uplifting joyful songs from the rural landscapes i have inhabited for half a century. I did not dare to entertain the thought that this was due to climate change despite being more than painfully aware of so many other manifestations of what is happening . Gentrification has come to my beloved hometown, making us refugees . My dear old friends, whose sweet music i have long bemoaned losing, i at last see,preceeded me,
7
We need a Marshall plan for the environment! The number of birds, large mammals, insects, you name it—all are plummeting. Human selfishness and greed are destroying natural treasures that took millions of years to evolve. Our estimation of financial well being needs to integrate biodiversity and the health of ecosystems on which everything depends.
10
It’s not just the birds. The insect census in Europe is showing alarming drops in numbers. Add in deforestation and displacement from climate change, and we have a complex situation that requires our attention.
We have to start talking and taking action. We don’t know which straw will break the camel’s back!!
5
Let part of our properties return to natural state. In my state, as I imagine there is in others, we have Ohio Praire Nursery, devoted to native plantings. When we bought the property it had been in disrepair and had been neglected for years. We started by planting several pounds of OPN seeds and sprinkled them throughout the back portion of our property, 6-10' inward from our fence, to create a mini-native planting woodland and meadow refuge. Many song birds come to our yard. Sassafras trees emerged on their own. Monarch butterflies and honey bees are still visiting the hummingbird mint (hyssop). Our property is just shy of one acre, but it is abundant with small airborne life. I see birds and butterflies come to our yard that I don't see in other yards. Please remember to plant native plants and seeds, if at all possible. They may take a few years to become fully established, but they are also low maintenance.
7
Human population — not just growth but also its present size — is the root cause of all of this. Why do almost none of these articles mention this? Because our species isn’t capable of dealing with it. But with controlling growth of human population and ultimately reducing it, we’re addressing only symptoms, not the root cause. So is there really any hope for avoiding environmental catastrophe?
8
@B
The only hope we have is to build a better human. Play God. Someone has to.
When I moved to this small island within ferry commuting distance of Seattle — some 30 years ago — I used to wake every morning to an absolute cacophony of birdsong in the tall trees, salal, native shrubs, ferns and wild berries around my house. Since then, the population has more than doubled, to nearly 30,000. The average home is twice the size (and four times the price); the average lot has been skinned of virtually all natural vegetation and planted with grass and a few nursery plants; and many of the songbirds have been replaced by the clever garbage hounds of the bird world: crows.
Repeat this paradigm in a thousand small towns, and pretty soon you’ve kissed an awful lot of native songbirds goodbye.
18
I used to see flocks of birds gathering for their yearly migration down south, no more. The past 5 years we've heard fewer birds chirping at dawn. Bluejays are gone. Robins that returned every spring to built nest in ever flower pot and on the ledges of our home... we had two nest this year. The Doves we use to hear calling and responding, no more. Two years ago my mother asked me, "Where are the birds?" I'll make sure she reads this article.
Scary and foreboding...
6
Years ago, I saw an old video of starlings flocking. (Just search for starlings on YouTube.) I was amazed at how they were so numerous they filled the sky, with the flock furling and unfurling like a thick cape.
My apartment has a view of the East River. Here, in 2019, I normally see single birds, or if it’s a flock, a flock with a single-digit number of birds, flying.
But what we have measured in birds is just one example of a larger trend. I wrote my master’s thesis on the Gowanus Canal. Back when the Dutch arrived, the oysters in the canal were as big as dinner plates. And they were so numerous that when people tossed their shells, they formed hills. Hills of dinner-plate-sized oyster shells! The Gowanus Canal will never again (at least not while humans are on the planet) have oysters the size of dinner plates. Birds will likely never be as numerous as they once were. Saying they’ve dropped by a third in the last 50 years doesn’t account for the percentage lost in the prior hundred years, or the hundred years before that.
The sad thing is that people don’t realize that humans are part of this ecosystem too. Saving the climate isn’t about saving the planet. It’s about keeping the climate within the range best suited for human life. And saving bird habitat isn’t about the birds. It’s about saving an ecosystem that keeps humans fed.
I worry we’ve already sown the seeds of our own destruction but we will be dead by the time our descendants figure it out.
20
@L Starlings dancing in the sky...they are achingly beautiful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eakKfY5aHmY
@L
Of course we should keep in mind that starlings are an invasive species and putting native species under a great deal of pressure. 100 starlings were first introduced by Shakespeare enthusiasts in 1890 in Central Park, New York and today they are the most widely spread birds in America.
1
Why am I not surprised. This has been happening in my native England, probably to an even greater extent, and has been attributed to changing farming practices and decreased woodlands and hedges due to development. Now when I go back to England I never hear the cuckoo or the skylark (birds that were common 50 years ago) and I only ever see about three different species at my sister's bird feeder. Here in TN, I still see about 20 different species at my feeders, but I have long been worried that the same decrease in the bird population must be happening here too, and now it is confirmed. Urban sprawl takes a big part of the blame. This is rampant in Memphis, where subdivisions are being built ever further and further away from the city, and forests are cut down to make way for houses. Outdoor cats kill many birds every year; birds crash into windows and die. All of this I have seen in my own neighborhood. It makes me terribly sad.
9
The sounds of 3 billion birds should be captured and played constantly on a loop for one hour every day inside the offices of every elected official in this country until we move this country on a path towards realistic mitigation of climate change and habitat destruction.
18
In the 1960‘s, when I was growing up in flyover farm country, I too remember a deafening chorus of birdsong at dawn. I also remember clouds of insects around the garage lights at night. Well, it’s been decades since we had bugs in those numbers. Pesticides have done their job, no question. Not all that much for the birds left to eat, though.
25
Drive across the corn belt on I-90 or 80 or 70.On such drives, one sees millions upon millions of acres that once were prairie that were later 160 acre farms full of fence rows and pastures and woodlots. Now those are gone. In summer the land grows corn and soybeans only, no weeds, no grasses, no insects, no critters.
We citizen consumers are the reason for this. We eat beef, pork and chicken raised on those acres of corn and soybeans.
Decades go, as the article notes, waterfowl had declined by percentages similar to the declines reported in the article, but now waterfowl population are relatively healthy. People who love ducks submitted to taxes devoted to purchasing waterfowl habitat.
If we are serious about reversing the population declines reported here, we need to be serious about restoring habitat across the country and dedicating it to wild populations.
In most of the country, restoring habitat means the public buys land and dedicates it to wildlife habitat, or the public pays a landowner to dedicate the land to wildlife habitat.
The money necessary to habitat restoration can only come from the public through donations to organizations like Ducks Unlimited. Or through taxes dedicated specifically to habitat restoration
A miniscule tax on each consumer good traceable in part to corn or soybeans would raise enough money to make a good start on restoring the habitat the birds depend on.Talk to your favorite candidate.
15
Interesting and much needed insight. If I am not mistaken there are also studies that show steep declines in insect populations as well.
5
My grandparents have photos of the Gulf beaches 60 years ago. Hundreds of thousands of shorebirds and wading birds.
Hundreds of millions of shells, many with live animals in them.
Horseshoe crabs, manatees, dolphins, starfish.
The water was clear like a spring, and so many different kinds of fish that it was like swimming in a saltwater aquarium.
It was a tropical paradise, they recall.
Now, those beaches are trashed. Most of the wildlife is gone. The waters are turgid with pollution, including raw sewage dumped by St. Petersburg and other municipalities. Jet skis and boats kill the manatees and dolphins and endanger swimmers.
High-rise condos and hotels, traffic jams, endless noise.
Anthropogenic mass extinction is real, and takes many forms.
Our species has the ideology of a cancer cell.
45
30% loss since 1970... Not a good trend at all. But over 49 years... In both US and Canada... It seems like an international and bipartisan issue. And this is with an EPA out there (plus Canada & state-level equivalents), cleaning up water and air. One large factor is that US pop in 1970 was about 200 million; today it's around 330 million. Lots more people, more development, more resource requirements & waste, associated habitat loss, more ag & related chemicals, heck... more pet cats. I'm happy, and very fortunate, to live in the USA, but I've long wondered why so many people think that a growing population is such a great idea.
7
There's no Robin singing, morning or early evening, even in wilderness area.
I heard one(Robin) on a 14 day camping trip, and called back, he did reply. Even flew in close to check me out.
I felt bad for giving him false hope.
24
I noticed this several years ago at the Jersey Shore. In the 70s and 80s there were flocks of sandpipers running around the waters edge. Back and forth so fast ans cute. Now I see just a few scattered. We used to have days when hundreds of starfish would wash ashore and we would work to get them back into the water. There were conch
shells washing up, too. This is utterly devastating. We must act. I will look into the Audabon Society as another reader recommended.
18
I live on the south shore of Long Island. My house sits on an inlet from the Atlantic. I’ve lived here 38 years.
When I first got here the number of different species of water fowl (especially ducks) was enormous. I kept a pair of binoculars and a “ bird guide” handy so I could look at them and identify the many I didn’t know.
These days, there are hardly any ducks at all. Even the periodic migrating ducks don’t show up anymore.
I used to sit in my backyard for hours and admire them. These days I hardly have a reason to go out to my backyard at all.
What a shame.
13
I used to have a spirit of activism but lately have only been focusing on my career. Communities should measure and advertise the state of local species populations regularly, including trees, so we remember to care and possibly do something about it.
3
Remember it was during the JFK years that Silent Spring was published. About 60 years ago. House cats have sure been a menace for songbirds. Overall, in my area, there are fewer trees.
3
This makes it clear that the canaries in the coal mine are trying desperately to tell us something quite important. Are we bright enough as a species to heed the warnings ?
15
We live in a mostly rural area, and have seen a sad reduction in birds and insects too. But, listen: it may not be too late - if we act now.
If all of us let our (own, and public) lands be in as natural a state as possible, with as many trees as possible, we can make things better. I’m talking to you too, suburban landowners with the lawn care contracts.
We let a (small) piece of our small property revert to trees and brush, and have noticed substantially more birds in the area. If you live in a temperate area, you can do the same. Even a little will help, as other commenters have noted. And if your neighborhood has regs about lawn care, get them changed. Planting a few trees and letting a more natural landscape take over in places may seem trivial, but it’s a lot better than doing nothing except feeling terminally sad.
23
A very good point to let part of our properties return to natural state. In my state, as I imagine there is in others, we have Ohio Praire Nursery, devoted to native plantings. When we bought the property it had been in disrepair and had been neglected for years. We started by planting several pounds of OPN seeds and sprinkled them throughout the back portion of our property, 6-10' inward from our fence, to create a mini-native planting woodland and meadow refuge. Many sing birds come to our yard. Sassafras trees emerged on their own. Monarch butterflies and honey bees are still visiting the hummingbird mint (hyssop). Our property is just shy of one acre, but it abundant with small airborne life. I see birds and butterflies come to our yard that I don't see in other yards. Please remember to plant native plants and seeds, if at all possible. They may take a few years to become fully established, but they are also low maintenance.
5
Well, your state votes for lots of republicans including Trump who would sell their own kids for money. These republicans do not care about birds, animals or people.
2
Please don’t forget that it’s been the duck hunters (not me, but we should give credit where it’s due) who are responsible for the habitat preservation that led to healthy waterfowl populations today.
Politics are petty when used as an end and not a means, but preserving habitat works.
Living in the woods in Vermont, we are fortunate to have more birds than most engage us daily - splendid thrushes, cardinals, chickadees, goldfinches, juncoes, nuthatches, owls, hawks, titmice & more. But I am fairly certain our numbers are going down as well. We feed birds only in the winter, due to a plethora of bears, and it is a joy to have the birds ask me for more food when I return home. I know many birds well and vice-versa it seems. Love them more with each passing year. But I wonder, just how pesticided up is all the birdseed we all feed them? It is far from pure I am certain. Please, so eone, look into all that.
8
The decline in bird population is probably linked to the decline in insect populations, which would be a major source of food for certain bird species.
4
I can attest to the disappearance of Black Throated Blue Warblers and Black Throated Green Warblers from my property over the last 12 years. In addition the decline of Wood Thrushes, Veerys, Wood Peewees and Chestnut Sided Warblers. It's sad. Todays announcement brought me to tears because it means truly admitting what I have been witnessing. The very joy of the song of spring is disappearing. After a 30 year career focused on being a voice for wildlife I cannot find a silver lining anymore. The human inability to assign value to such an incredible part of our planet and survival is just tragic. Somehow I need to soldier on and find a way to keep chipping away at the what seems to be the willful ignorance of the ruling minority. It's just sad.
25
The comments about cats are a bit puzzling. Either the map of bird losses is very wrong, or there's a disconnect. The map shows biggest losses of birds in grasslands, boreal forests, Western Forests, and tundra. The grasslands have been depopulating for a generation. Boreal forests are almost unpopulated, and the few people in the tundra are not known for keeping cats. Could the bird populations of those areas be declining from causes unrelated to whether a few people let their housecats roam? Climate change is more severe in high latitude areas.
6
In the last 35 years I've noticed more and more development. Every year more and more trees are cut down to make room for housing and business developments. Without trees birds don't stand a chance.
16
I can even see the bye-bye birdie effect in my local garden. There used to be a diversity of chirps but no more. Lucky to hear a sparrow. Full throated cardinals used to hold forth from the tops of trees and buildings. Barely an isolated cry from the few that remain. I used to whistle with them and we would have good back and forth exchanges sometimes for 20 minutes or so. All that is only a memory.
8
@freyda
I talk to the cardinals, daily. I am sorry for your loss, our loss. We need birds.
1
If only we humans could trade places with the vanished birds.
Indeed, it's time -- past time -- for OUR numbers to decline by a few billion.
25
Easy there, Thanos.
So what do you suggest?
Silent spring, summer, fall, and winter.
Causes likely include (a) massive habitat loss, especially of prairies, oak savannas, and wetlands in the central US; (b) massive habitat loss and pesticide use in the overwintering ranges of many forest birds in Central and South America; (c) direct negative impacts of pesticides on birds; (d) indirect effects of the collapse of the insect food base, caused by widespread use of neonicotinoid insecticides and spread of introduced plants that can't be eaten by local insects. In the Midwest, some of the biggest losses are in our aerial insectivores – the nighthawks and chimney swifts and swallows, that once used to be far more common in the day, dusk, and nighttime skies, and now appear to have steeply declined as their insect prey have disappeared ... as we all can see by the relative lack of dead insects on our windshields as we drive around in summer.
16
So admittedly unscientific but one afternoon on a recent late summer afternoon, I spied no fewer than 16 robins flying and pecking at the ground in my backyard. I attribute this to the fact that I use benign neglect in my yard. No pesticides and leave the clover and dandelions to live. Plenty of insects around. Let the vines grow over bushes and the birds love to nest there, safely hidden. If everyone would let their yards “go to seed”, we might save some of our bird friends.
28
Mary, in the spring, there are so many robins in my small yard that when I traverse in certain regions, they will chase me or anyone else like something from Alfred Hitchcock.
Robins aren’t going anywhere without a fight.
3
Our lawns are killing our birds and will eventually kill our children.
1
If we want to survive as humans, the world must be safe for birds, bees and babies. We are failing on every count.
I have definitely noticed the decline in birds and their diversity, but also dragonflies, butterflies and wildflowers that are almost completely gone from northern New England! These things were all around me as a child in the 50's and 60's. I pray this destruction can be reversed.
Join the Audubon. Call your reps. Talk to conservation groups and others who care. We need to get mad about this and get active! "Silent Spring" deeply affected and I see it very possibly looming on the horizon...
23
MargeKeller,
There are many approaches to enjoying native birds, but I was told that when we interfere with migration patterns by putting up bird feeders, those little critters are lulled into an abnormal migration pattern much to their detriment.
I’m not surprised, I have personally noticed the lack of insects. I have lived all over the US, now in SW Florida a place that should be teeming with flying insects, yet there are few. I have noticed this in the last five years.
I haven’t had to clean my windshield of insects in the last two years. I primarily ride a motorcycle and am very conscious of the lack of insects hitting my face.
My friend just happily told me of his new grandchild, I mourn for the kid, human life on earth is not going to be pleasant in 50 years.
Sometimes being old and facing my mortality is a good thing, for me.
4
Ospreys and bald eagles have come back to the East End of Long Island in my lifetime, and peregrines and red hawks have colonized NYC. I guess I took those modest successes as an indication that some things were going well. This is terrifying. And it is sobering that it is coming as a surprise.
5
the cascading environmental collapse is in full effect, the tipping point is well behind us.
6
Some of us still don’t get it:
If we lose other animals, and birds, and insects (there’s been a huge insect decline too, and we all know how hard they are to get rid of), and trees and plants, it’s not just a cause for sadness. WE’RE NEXT. We are part of the biological system on this planet, not above it. We can’t survive without food, clean water, and oxygen. We will get sick and die, just like the other animals and plants. It will probably be a slow and painful process, with those who are left fighting to the death over the few remaining resources. (Say, is that why are so many countries so worried about immigrants right now?) We need to start figuring this out NOW if we want our children to survive.
12
Cats kill an estimate 3.7 billion birds a year and this article barely even mentions them. How is this not a greater factor?
https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/1873871
9
These statistics have repeatedly been shown to be false. If cats killed that many birds a year, almost all birds would have long gone extinct. There were also millions of cats North America in 1970, cats are not new species. So. it doesn’t explain the drop off in bird population since 1970. What does explain the decline in bird population is HUMAN activity. Humans are rapidly destroying bird habitats, negatively affecting the climate, and spewing pesticides and other toxic chemicals out.
26
Who counted the birds ?
Just saying......
Citizen science... you can count them .
Ebird
9
I want wildlife, not human babies.I want global incentive based birth control.Please stop reproducing humans,there is more to life than breeding humans,there's birds in the skies,our real earth angels.Help stop rampant human birth.
10
Very aptly, “amen.”
1
If someone blames house cats I’ll go insane.
8
Wow that's astonishing
1
A few weeks ago I joined a bird walk with a ranger at Theodore Roosevelt National Park. He told us a story about how one day President Roosevelt rushed into a cabinet meeting all flushed and excited, so excited that some of the men attending fear
Most of it is due to domestic cats either at home or left loose in the wild.
3
What's remarkably missing from this article is the catastrophic effect of non-native invasive plants on the landscape, a force that is likely having a greater impact than many of those mentioned.
Invasive plants are out of control, turning fields and field edges and riverbanks and logged forests and roadsides into bird dead zones. Neotropical migratory birds in particular need massive numbers of caterpillars to feed their young. Non-native invasive plants don't support caterpillars because they did not evolve with them. No caterpillars, no chicks, no birds. It's that simple. Look up Doug Tallamy Birds on Google and get the skinny on this catastrophe.
You can make a difference this weekend. Go out in your yard and attack those invasives - Japanese barberry, Asian bittersweet and honeysuckle, multiflora rose, etc. Pull 'em, poison 'em, burn 'em, whatever it takes. Reestablish the work area with native shrubs and trees. And call your state forestry office and tell them to stop destroying the forests and creating invasives habitats. Call your state DOT and power company and tell them to stop creating invasives habitats. They're all out there creating havoc every day...
9
Ban the sale and production of neonicotinoids. And, as with CFC's, let's do it world wide. The more we destroy important strands of the worldwide ecological web the more likely we will all suffer.
We know the cause of the bird deaths, and the bee deaths: neonicotinoids.
Ban the sale and production of neonicotinoids now.
14
The point that bird species "across the board" are in trouble and will likely be listed under the ESA in future is key. Instead of proactive conservation, we wait until a species is listed, when heroic efforts and large funds are needed at the eleventh hour. We must practice the precautionary principle on the ground. A case in point is a controversy over an unusually large and thriving colony of Barn Swallows in Massachusetts, on U.S. Fish and Wildlife's Fort River Refuge. Even though Barn Swallow populations are undergoing steep declines across North America, even though public funds have been offered to save the building in which the swallows nest, even though the local community cherishes the colony, refuge managers are intent are demolishing the swallows' nesting structure, which will effectively diminish the local Barn Swallow population. This is how bird species disappear. If we can’t save a thriving population of a declining bird species on a federal wildlife refuge, it should come as no surprise that the skies are emptying.
Mara Silver, for Save Our Swallows
https://www.facebook.com/SaveOurSwallows/
9
I truly don’t know how much more despair and fear my mind can take. Earth is dying fast. This is the most heartbreaking reality I have ever had to face. All my precarious mental illnesses can handle is just to read about how much worse it’s getting day by day. Articles like this one inspire some people to action; they just make me want to ignore everything and live safely inside what is left of my mental health. I am unable to act upon the information presented here; it's all I can do not to fall off the hinges.
12
You have a big heart. We need people like you on our side if we are to save them. I agree - big scale pictures like this are overwhelming. But you can do whatever you can for the birds around you. Like Thomas Friedman said, we need a million arks.
2
There should be a law against people allowing domestic cats to roam freely. Animals that are fed regularly have no need to roam. I have witnessed too many fatal encounters in my own back yard involving neighborhood cats and birds. I don't hate the cats; they are just following their instincts. I blame their owners, who are too lazy, maybe, to satisfy their cats' hunting instincts by playing with them. Why they allow their cats' predations upon so many other animal species is beyond my ken. Meanwhile, they are also endangering their own pets.
5
Have populations of feral cats and other predators exploded during this same time frame?
2
No, of course not. But half the commenters on this page seem to think otherwise. It’s pure lunacy.
Please don't think its just government's job to "fix this" disaster. Each of us must, as Ghandi said, "Be the change you wish to see in the world." This disaster didn't just start with Trump. It's not enough to just vote Democrat...they cave to money too. Live a life that respects Nature and realizes that we are don't have another planet to go to.
3
I saw nothing in the article suggesting that the loss of birds might be causally correlated with the huge drop in insect populations on which there was an extensive NY Times article a month or two ago (although one commenter mentioned it).
The fact that the academic scientists associated with the reported study were surprised is an indictment of the practise of their science in general, though they are to be applauded for (finally) looking into the question.
It seems possible to me that the phenomenon might also be related to the interruption of migratory patterns associated with climate change.
There needs to be a major shift in research priorities in biological fields to focus on the causes of and needed cures
for the accelerating ecosystem collapse which is an existential threat to the biosphere. Of course one can blame the idiotic politicians (of which there are many) but scientists too have often been negligent and focussed on other things,
like studies which are relevant to curing the diseases of rich people.
6
The problem for MAGA Americans reading a column like this is that facts and science are part of the liberal conspiracy. There will have to be a major effort to reverse this trend and we can guarantee that NOTHING will be done until the Democrats hold power again.
8
I am surprised by the decline in the numbers from Canadian "boreal forests". Does anyone have an idea? Global warming?
5
@Kai Those are migratory birds -- warblers breed there. However, they head to Central America for the winter. The key may be there (deforestation, pesticides). Perhaps another reason to provided needed aid there.
1
This is clearly the “canary in the coal mine.” Mankind’s self-induced extinction is clearly well on its way.
7
@SanPride: humans should be the first to disappear though; that would greatly improve the lives of most every other living organism.
I'm sure this article has many truths but come on it's not humanly possible to gather that statistic. The world is a big place people, we can't know it all.
We are witnessing the second extinction of dinosaurs - of the smallest kind. Sad.
The canary in a coal ... err, planet is warning us of its demise. And all our leaders do is double down on its destruction, maliciously and intentionally accelerating the destruction for momentary profits of a handful trying to hoard as much wealth as possible before they die. "It’s across the board" as profiteers continue to seek every last inch of our planet to degrade and destroy, stealing not only profits from future generations but stealing future life from them too.
Now that profiteers have a license from the polluted mind of the orange one to pollute everyone's air and water, waterfowl and even Bald eagles that rely on salmon will be on a rapid decline again.
And then "... there was now no sound.” Wow, that's a sad perspective making not seeing as many birds even worse! Applies to trees too and the relaxing sound their rustling leaves make in the breeze as they give us life giving oxygen and planet cooling CO2 storage are disappearing after a forest is razed or burned to a bare scorched ground.
Our kids are about to inherit a dead world deserted of life taken over by synthetic man-made life resistant to pesticides and weed killers that spare genetically engineered life sold for profit.
3
I don't have the words to describe how much this saddens me. Knowing that Trump is in office and we're not going to be addressing it - or any other environmental issue - anytime soon is just horrifying and depressing. Glad I don't have kids and I can't understand those who do voting for people who don't care what kind of planet they will leave for everyone else's kids.
5
Look what the cats did.
1
Sixteen year old Greta Thunberg is no ornithologist nor precocious scientist but wise said do not listen to me but listen to the scientists.
5
Round Up to zero for the birds and the bees
1
I have a dozen or so hummingbirds in the back yard, thankfully; but the sparrow and finch feeders never host any visitors. Sad. Tragic. Birds are a key element in the ecosystem. Same with bees. If they vanish, what happens to our ecosystem?
4
Not a word about overpopulation in this article, or from the timid conservation organizations that are failing to defend our wildlife.
The article correctly cites “habitat loss” as the #1 cause of bird declines—but what causes habitat loss? Ever increasing numbers of people and the concomitant increased demand for housing, food, and energy.
Meanwhile, Trump seeks to gut the Endangered Species Act and liberals argue for open borders. Americans are a bunch of selfish, out of control jerks. Birds and other wildlife don’t stand a chance.
8
Criminal Trump will go down in history as the attempted leader of the 2nd Industrial Revolution. His idea of progress is making sure he, his family and his top 1% corporate buddies get to ramp up pollution across the board just like the good ol' days.
I want to see a 75% turnout or better on November 3 2020. Let's not just throw Trump out of office but make it historic unlike any other election.
Yeah I know-don't hold my breath.
7
It’s going to be weird seeing pigeon spikes everywhere without pigeons anymore. Perhaps they took the hint a little too hard.
Read Doug Tallamy's book Bringing Nature Home, then act!
7
We are doomed. Seriously. It’s too late on climate and pollution. And ‘civilization’ has no ability to lead themselves out this. He who shall not be named is just current example. And it’s not just government’s fault. Most people are a far more interested in their own pitiful lives to care about the bigger picture. We might’ve had a chance up to about five years ago, but the acceleration of the damage, and the obvious self-centeredness and mindlessness in a large part of even a relatively educated population like the US (yes I mean you Trump voter) makes recovery impossible. Of course we should continue to try, like any warrior who is fighting a losing battle, but don’t fool yourself
5
Trump has been president for two years. He may be the nadir of where we are going (I personally don’t think we’ve yet hit bottom), but our human-centric destruction of the world has been in full force since the industrial revolution. Stop using Trump to deflect from our collective sins and crimes against the Earth.
Face it, folks, life on Earth is over.
5
It's probably because the amount of insect life has fallen.
6
Overpopulation. Google “world population clock” and watch the numbers. In 1930 there were about 2 billion people on earth. Now the population is edging ever closer to 8 billion. Humans are destroying their own habitat. When there are no longer birds and bees, what then? Soylent Green.
7
And so too we will vanish. At no other time in my decades on planet earth have I felt this way that with all of the filth and harm, we have done to each other and especially to our earth, I no longer have sympathy for our species. It's give back time and that only makes sense when billions of us perish. It's the only way our planet returns to pristine times -- WITHOUT us! What a shame! What a GOD awful shame for allowing ourselves to become so careless and selfish.
12
And as I read this article, what ad pops up: one for a spider extermination service! We just can't seem to get out of our own way.
7
The bird is the word.
1
Maybe it’s the bird rapture. Lucky ducks.
1
At this pace we are going to kill everything but dogs, cats and chicken and no leadership of course.
4
Can’t scientists see the obvious? Thanos is undoubtably responsible. Where is Ironbird when we need him.
I have to say that these findings do not come as a surprise to me. There are far fewer songbirds in my suburban neighborhood than there were a generation (of people) ago. Pretty much all species appear to have been hit hard, and the pleasure of a spring dawn is not what it was.
8
@Rob Wood what “prairie lands” are you talking about? The native prairies of the middle section of the country have been devastated - by human settlement and agriculture- a process that started about 200 years ago, and was well under way more than 100 years ago. Today only a fraction of 1% of those prairies survive. If you look at the map in the article you can see that "grasslands" have suffered the biggest decline of any ecosystem since 1970. Solar panels are not covering vast areas of prairie.
4
Cats are the number one threat to wild birds according to the American Bird Conservancy.
I'm sure there are numerous other contributors to wild bird population declines. Keeping your cats indoors seems pretty basic. ...like car-pooling or taking public transportation to reduce pollution.
5
This study provides scientific confirmation of something most older folks have been observing for some time. Decline in bird populations is global. I am 80 and was born in a village on the Mediterranean sea. I visited my old village several times last winter for the first time in 65 years. The first thing I noticed was how fewer birds were around. Some species were completely missing. For example, when we hiked the hills around the village, we would run into tens of chukar flocks; there was none when I hiked the same hills lat winter.
There are too many of us on this planet, and we are destroying it such that it is inhabitable for ourselves as wells as birds and other species. How sad!
8
How sad that we all are losing such beauty in plumage and in song. It's hard for me even to contemplate a world without birds.
7
There are just too many humans. Our footprint, whether it is through deforestation, agricultural practices, construction of large buildings\huge picture windows, draining swamps and sloughs, and so on is causing increasing pressure on the habitats of almost every species. And yet there is no conversation, let alone action, to decrease our numbers. Maybe some of our own choices will be our downfall but it seems likely we'll be taking many others with us.
4
the essay "What If We Stopped Pretending?" by Jonathan Franzen is unfortunately and essentially correct - our current
aspirational yearnings cannot stop the massive energy-industrial-complex that is the beating [ very warm-blooded ] heart of modern mass-culture - depopulation will only come on a catastrophic basis either attendant to a massive global economic depression, or be caused by it - but don't worry humanity can take a loss in the billions and still recover into a world we likely wouldn't recognize
3
I am 70 so have lived through this time frame. I am also a bird enthusiast. I used to awake each morning to a cacophony of bird songs, but no more. I have been living in a semi rural area on the CT coast for the last 35 years. We live next to a tidal river. The decline in the bird populations at our feeders and in our fields has been dramatic. Twenty five years or so we had bats. You could throw a ball up-in the air at dusk in the summer and see bats diving towards it, no more. Also the number of insects and bees in my wife’s gardens has declined even further, which explains in part the decline in bird and bat populations.
13
I remember being a young boy in the early 1970's and my dad would drive me from one city to another ninety miles from one city to another to visit his parents. Our car would be covered with dead bugs and often there would be a bird that had not managed to fly away quickly enough from his Buick. The car would be one state of encrusted going and even worse coming back and my father would fastidiously take it to a car wash to be cleaned up, often after scraping a dead bird out of the grill on the front of the car.
6
Everyday there is more sad news related to our climate and how it effects the rest of our universe. I feel so very sorry for the generations that will follow mine because a world without beautiful wildlife, birds, glaciers, etc is not going to be a nice place to live.
17
I very much doubt most people will understand the import of these statistics. But the disappearance of North American birds is just the tip of the iceberg. These are not just pretty little creatures we can do without in a pinch. If they're going, we won't be all that far behind them.
20
And yet Trump will destroy a bird sanctuary when his cursed wall goes up in the Rio Grande Valley. San Antonio residents are killing deer unintentionally with their cars because deer habitats are being destroyed to make room for still another subdivision. Where will the animals go?
16
Greatest impact and easy action is to go whole foods plant based. Most agricultural land is used to raise and feed livestock. Growing some of your food is another positive action. Eliminate invasive plants. Replace with plants native to your area as well as a produce garden. Cheers for green measures.
10
I was amazed to see so many insecticides for sale in garden centers in NY in large containers, for home owners with no education to use. They aren’t available here like that. The demand for perfect lawns needs a rethink!
36
It isn't just birds, either. We've noticed a sharp decline in insects of all kinds in our suburban back yard in e. PA. Could this (admittedly anecdotal) observation have any connection to the decline in avian species numbers?
17
How many birds are killed by cats every year, domestic or feral?
I remember the cat we had years ago would bring in a bird or two occasionally, so let's say 10 birds a year. if you multiple that with the number of cats out there, that will still be a big number, hundreds of millions if not billions.
5
Cats are the most instrumental in songbird decline. Please people, keep your cats indoors. It’s healthier for them as well since they aren’t exposed to other harms/diseases outdoors.
8
2-3 billion is the estimate
2
My husband and I participate in Christmas Bird Counts and Birding Big Days every year. In the past dozen years, we no longer see the birds that we used to see in great numbers. The grassland and woodland birds, in particular, are vanishing before our eyes. The Trump administration is waging an all-out war on the environment. Anyone reading this who cares about the fate of the birds – which is a fate shared by all living species– should be a single-issue voter in the next election. We must demand, and then elect, a candidate who will embrace existing science and confront the climate crisis in a meaningful way. If we fail at this, then ours is the species that should be vanishing from the earth. We deserve it. The birds don't.
32
I am just as forlorn and remorseful as all of you are. But once in awhile I’ll see a great murmuration of birds above a field and marvel at the sight. Perhaps there is still time.
8
In Rural Vermont there were hundreds of bird calls every morning in 1963 that are no longer there. Lots of boggy land have been drained for home sites. I suppose its a choice.
9
I noticed there were far less robins and other birds this year it seemed on Long Island. Saw only one cardinal and still haven't seen a blue jay yet this year.
Also, I only had to bring my car to the car wash twice since the Spring even if I parked it on the driveway under a tree. That's the most accurate measurement of all for bird population density in a given area.
The city pigeon population doesn't seem to be suffering though.
9
For years I've walked along a tree-lined path from our building to the train station to get to work. Around this time of year, there used to be bedewed spiderwebs glistening in the morning sun.
That suddenly stopped about a year or two ago. What is amazing is that this is an urban environment in central Tokyo that has supported spiders as long as I can remember, but suddenly--Pffft!--gone!
There is also a large tree near the ward office here where hundreds of birds used to congregate every year. Gone. All of them. This must have something to do with a disruption in the food chain--no spiders, no birds.
The question is what are we doing differently from before? It's the same urban environment. Something is dreadfully wrong here.
25
Birds are definitely disappearing in Southern Cali. I left Arizona to work 6 month contract in the Santa Clarita area and since I've been here (about 4 months) I'm hard pressed to find anything in the air except Ravens and Crows. I think this is do the fact those wind mill farms I passed through along I-10 are killing off anything not smart enough to avoid them in flight. I rarely see anything other than the Raven, not even a sparrow. And I'm from the Arizona desert where the bird population seems much more diverse, despite it being a dry desert. I see plenty of sparrows there. But not here.
6
@Plymouth
Funny trolling!
Ouch.
Somehow, amidst what can only be described as a torrent of truly awful environmental news these days, this article really saddened me in a visceral way.
In my part of the planet, the Willamette Valley of Oregon, I've noticed the decline of bird life and have instinctively tied it to another even more alarming decline: that of insects.
According to a recent Yale study, sampling of insect populations shows as much as a five-fold decrease between 1989 and 2014. Many birds subsist on insects. Is it really any wonder that bird populations are also in free-fall.
I'm sure that numbers like these might readily seem...well, like just numbers to many of us. Translating into human terms, we might better appreciate the scale of this catastrophe by envisioning how we might fare if we skipped four out five meals. That's what some bird populations have faced in recent decades.
And, the population crash/extinction picture only mushrooms beyond the bird-insect world. Elizabeth Kolbert's excellent book "The Sixth Extinction" which outlines the much larger crisis.
Both birds and insects and in fact most of the species addressed in Kolbert's book essentially support us in the food web.
We will soon come to a point at which no imagination will be required to understand this crisis.
37
Sad news, indeed. Just today, I was out with four friends birding local spots, as we do every Thursday. Each of us has been birding for twenty or thirty, or even more years. Habitat loss and fragmentation, pesticide use and runoff, urbanization and suburban sprawl--there are many reasons for the decline. No one reason explains the decline; rather, it is a toxic environmental cocktail. Commenters who criticize the participation of so-called amateur counters and surveyors need to know that the protocols for volunteers are very stringent, and the data are always reviewed. Data collections such as eBird (now worldwide), Christmas Bird Counts, breeding bird surveys, along with many other projects, are making important contributions. For various surveys, I have stood in the sun for hours to monitor nesting herons and egrets, and have hiked what I call "Tick Hill" to check on nesting Osprey, and have stood in the winter rain to count shorebirds. I am always willing to make the effort.
9
@JLD
I’ll add that those who criticize the work of citizen scientists don’t understand that we are the ones who preceded the official Science disciplines. And we are still vital to this day. Field notes and field journals, collected over years and years, are goldmines of information.
4
Yesterday I chatted with a woman I've seen several times on walks through a local cemetery which features a large pond and is the only place within walking distance of my home to escape traffic noise and hear the sounds of nature. During the course of our conversation, she showed me photos she'd taken there: of warblers, great herons and many other bird and animal species that make their home there. She's been visiting the cemetery for over 40 years. Several times during the course of the conversation, she said, "It's much quieter here than it used to be" (meaning, much less bird song). What used to bring joy (the sighting of a herd of deer or a group of painted turtles sunning themselves on a log) is now tinged with sadness at the knowledge that so much of the natural environment has been sacrificed.
24
This makes me sob.
23
From a certain perspective the human habitat overshoot is not surprising. Dominant species are cyclical. With our technology of course there is enormous power to destroy much of the non-human earth life-world as well and disrupt many planetary systems evolved over a period of time so long that we can barely imagine it.
But from another perspective there is also barely imaginable time ahead for life on earth. The solar engine is young and this miracle we seem bent on destroying will likely continue.
As for us? Hmmm....
2
There are untold numbers of uninhabitable planets and some, at least, were once habitable, but now are not; they are barren and alien with toxic atmosphere. We could be also be creating one more of these dead to life planets. The wonderful,astonishing and magnificent variety of life on this planet is in jeopardy and we are the cause, Who is comfortable with this?
5
Life on the earth comes from the ancient beginnings and all life developed gradually from these beginnings. We are tied to all life on earth, we have echoes of the sea we came from in our salty blood. The structure of our bones is echoed in all mammals and even in birds. The cellular workings of our metabolism is echoed in all the mammals and beyond. We are part of the earth, we are bound to the earth and we cannot live anywhere else. The rest is fiction. If we do not recognize this as our only home and the earth as the source of our life, we cannot summon the love and protection that the earth needs from our species to stay healthy. Think about this. The earth is not something we can use and throw away without trashing the source of our very life. The earth is resilient, but it cannot absorb our non earth chemicals indefinitely without killing the life around us that we need and depend on.
12
This early warning may seem shocking, but it still amazes me that law in general punishes individual murderers fairly universally but when an entire planet is being murdered by climate warming deniers and military industries and fossil fuel corporations and chemical industries it is accepted as legal human behavior because it is profitable. No wonder that the film “The Godfather” was so admired.
13
Three major causes: West Nile virus, feral cats, and wind turbines.
West Nile: https://www.cdc.gov/westnile/dead-birds/index.html
Feral cats: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/outdoor-cats-kill-between-14-billion-and-37-billion-birds-a-year-study-says/2013/01/31/2504f744-6bbe-11e2-ada0-5ca5fa7ebe79_story.html
Wind turbines:
https://www.audubon.org/news/will-wind-turbines-ever-be-safe-birds
2
@sundevilpeg
Uh, the number of birds killed by wind turbines is about .00001% of the loss described here.
Probably not having an effect.
3
I would bet habitat loss is the biggest culprit by far
2
There are likely many causes, the most important of which include habitat loss and wider use of pesticides. “Silent Spring,” Rachel Carson’s prophetic book in 1962 about the harms caused by pesticides, takes its title from the unnatural quiet settling on a world that has lost its birds:
“On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird voices, there was now no sound.”
2
I wonder how many birds vanished during the 100 years before the 50 year period chosen. I suspect that it was many times greater as civilization spread across America.
Just saying. This is 1,000,000 times more important than Justin Trudeau in a costume.
165
Yes, this is far more important. It's also totally irrelevant to the Trudeau fiasco (which does still matter).
2
Migratory birds wintering in Yucatan have declined by at least the percentages you mention. It became especially noticeable when birds died in the hundreds of thousands in the US (and Canada, I assume) during the West Nile virus epidemic about 12 years ago. So sad!
4
You can ask people this question and they'll get often it wrong: What species of bird are there more of than any other? Many will guess pigeons but the answer is the chicken.
This doubles as a trivia question and a part of the problem this article is about: We, with our booming population fueled in part by easy and inexpensive sources of protein, are crowding out our roommates.
3
Over the course of the study have these amateur bird watchers collectively adhered to a codified method of counting? Probably not: "...which combined old and new methods for counting birds." At what point and to what degree were the methods combined among the observers? In the world of the scientific method that is a no-no. For the duration of the observation you use one methodology, otherwise one has to also catalog what discrepancies may or may not exist between the differing means of measurement and state the reason and under what conditions (why) the methodology was changed. The existence (or not) of those discrepancies alone would merit a more relevantly interesting article.
The same problem exists elsewhere re scientific matters that often seem to get spun to a general mass-media idea-selling... frenzy?
1
I sometimes want to go back to the early days of the 19th century — to the early romantic movement in Europe — before the blight of the industrial revolution gripped us.
I can, in music, but not in fact and air and sight.
7
Back to feudalism, serfdom and celebration of Kings? Really? You won’t be able to comment anymore under pre-Enlightenment rules.
4
Their habitat is our planet. When they go, we are going as well. We are tied together for better or worse. We need to count environmental degradation as a cost in every economic accounting. Outsourcing production costs to the environment, pouring toxic chemicals into the environment, be it air, soil or water, should have a cost that is counted when they pay the bills. The environment has born the outsourcing costs free of charge or accounting for far too long. Outsourcing costs to the environment has to be counted and paid for. It is the only way to make actions that degrade the environment accountable in a fair way. If you pollute, you pay for it. Period. The polluters also need to be prevented from just passing the costs on. That will help the planet considerably.
8
Inaccurate: "Grassland species have suffered the biggest declines by far, having lost 717 million birds. These birds have probably been -->decimated<-- by modern agriculture and development."
According to the chart, it is MUCH worse than that. reduced by
more than 50%. Please don't sugar-coat it.
3
We have to do better
5
sad
1
No one should be surprised that trump and his cronies are trying to roll back the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. It's emblematic of his typically despicable actions. It's literally nauseating. Haven't we had enough?
We need to fight back to protect birds and habitat. We need to raise hell (actually, trump is doing a fine job of turning this country into a hellish place).
In addition to the Audubon Society, please check out the American Bird Conservancy. They are doing good work, too.
34
Also Earthjustice & the Center for Biological Diversity & NRDC.
8
“On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird voices, there was now no sound.”
Only the sound of a voice in my head asking, what have we done?
How do we begin to repair this broken planet when our leadership is hell-bent on destroying what's left of it?
I've gone from hope that we could yet save it, to a careful reading of the science and a deep despair that we will not, to a place where--whatever is going on around me that is beyond my control---I will continue to use this one life this natural world has sustained thus far to work for the healing of our fragile environment.
Will that be a waste of time?
Well, it depends on what you mean.
Any person on their own cannot save this miraculous place from the abuses being heaped upon it, but then, no life lived in daily gratitude for, and continued support of the natural world can truly be a waste of of that life, can it?
7
We've taken a dump on the world and the world is going take a dump on us. The difference is that the world will eradicate everything to reset and not cry any tears. The Cambrian Extinction kill 98% of all life on the planet. The Permian Extinction kill 96% of all species. Mass extinctions happen 4 times. This very well may be the 5. There's enough methane in permafrost to light the sky ablaze. The native Americans and native peoples of the world fully understood the gravity of not worshiping the earth. We have long since forgotten or dispelled the old ways. I'm not sure there's heaven but we will definitely create our own hell if we don't wake up soon.
9
who cares, a bird defecated on my head two days ago. i want more amazon warehouses. and less birds.
1
You are tied to the fate of the birds whether you like it or not. You are both on the same planet and you are next.
5
@juju2900, birds aren’t stupid.
4
General boomer philosophy - "What is the problem. I don't believe in this science because I don't understand statistics. Thank goodness. Good riddance. Darn birds just 1. poop which makes my deck in my holiday house nasty and2. squawk which prevents me from relaxing."
2
I just moved to the Midwest and can notice the birds and creatures I’d read about in books but never saw in Seattle where the ecology is very different. Cardinals, Orioles, goldfinches are just the colorful ones! I knew of these birds, though having never seen them, from hand me down picture books when I was a kid. We often say “the future generation won’t know this animal...or the reefs” but the future generations are here! Let’s move away from the overly simplistic barometer of climate change and move to create an appreciation for the environment around us. Not when we go on a camping vacation, but the environments we live in everyday. When the leaves change, when and what birds fly south, what their calls sound like. Without that level of depth of understanding being internalized by most people we are completely screwed. Somehow this seems harder than just, going off oil, or cutting emissions to me.
3
Just today, while walking my dog, I was thinking about the wildlife in my area - groundhogs, skunks, raccoons - and I realized that I haven't seen a blue jay, or a cardinal, or even a robin, in a very long time. I realized I no longer hear birds singing in the morning. I live in an urbanized area, but forty years ago, I saw and heard more birds. Now I only see pigeons and sparrows.
12
its important to know that we are not destroying the planet. what we are destroying is the environment that we as a species depend upon for our existence.
6
While a few NYT readers are paying attention, the vast majority of the first world is too busy watching TV and streaming videos to notice. In developing countries they are too busy trying to replicate a western lifestyle to notice.
Thankfully at least some people are taking action to stop the human race’s destruction of the natural world, but success in that endeavor will require a massive rethink of the type of lifestyle everyone can live.
12
A couple of thoughts after reading this:
Would be interesting to overlay the map shown in the article illustrating the bird decline in the US, especially the grasslands, with a map of fracking wells and flares. That part of the country is peppered with so many fracking, natural gas wells and flares. I’ve read other articles in the NYTimes about how many birds a single flare can kill. It’s staggering.
Second thought: It’s like the canary in the coal mine folks. Why did they take canarys down the coal mines back in the day? Because the miners used them as an early warning sign in case the air was getting too toxic to breath. The canaries would die first....
So, this vast reduction in the global bird population is an early indicator that if we don’t do something to curb climate change, environmental pollution of of our air and water, reduce the amount of plastics we use, limit emissions and release of methane from the millions of fracking and natural gas wells across the country (methane being 25 times more potent greenhouse gas than CO2), we are going to die.
Third thought: Then we have the leader of our country and his administration and the Republican Party with a war against science and rolling back all of the EPA measures put in place by the Obama administration. What is the logic behind that? Crazy!
6
Tragedy.
Given that domestic cats kill approximately 20 million song birds in the U.S. annually, reigning in roaming behavior of these domestic terrorists may be a first step in helping to bring back some birds. Turning in neighborhood kids who shoot Jays and other "nuisance" song birds with their b.b. guns may be another, along with avoiding toxic chemical use.
4
Lots to blame this on: environmental degradation. Tall glass buildings. Urban streetlights. Habitat loss, especially wetlands. Decimation of food chains (see: loss of insects). Republicans. Invasives. Environmental change acerbated by global warming. Did I say Republicans? Republicans....
25
There's to many of us.
3
If you are looking for the canary in the coal mine, this is it. Literally.
Yeah, I had hoped I was imagining things, but sadly no.
2
How does this article not mention or consider the massive expanse of wind turbines? Do a google check on a map of wind farms in the US and it's strikingly similar to the area most impacted - grassland species. Oh wait, do we not realistically assess "green energy" because its not a politically correct position?
https://www.audubon.org/news/will-wind-turbines-ever-be-safe-birds
2
Wind turbines aren't mentioned because they are contributing almost nothing to the problem. The article you linked to says wind turbines account for, at most, 328,000 bird deaths in the US each year. In the face of a 3,000,000,000 bird decline, that is basically zero. It would take ten thousand years before wind turbines kill that many birds. Even if we'd had modern day numbers of wind turbines the entire 50 year duration of the study, there would still be 2,983,600,000 (2.98 billion) missing birds to account for. The cause is not wind turbines, and that is why no one is talking about wind turbines.
2
It’s just going to get worse unless we control our population. This includes closing the border to migrants.
2
An over-population of Homo sapiens is destroying the living planet. (Yet the NYT runs an editorial this week that encourages more children for our species.) Filthy oil fuels a capitalist economic system that spews poison, trash and other pollutants across the globe. Capitalism must have growth (not to mention competition, conflict and war). Without this, capitalism fails. Capitalism cannot survive long range global planning and an enduring, equitable society. The third rate Trump regime and its Republican sycophants are nursed by capitalists oligarchs who believe that economic growth solves all problems. Together they create the economic externalities (oil, plastics, carbon dioxide) that promote stock growth but destroy the living world. And it's not just a material problem. We have become a culture of gold plated glitz and con-men leaders who value winning over caring -- men who glorify and emulate the corruption of Saudi Arabia, for example. And these men see nothing wrong with arming their indoctrinated sociopathic storm troopers with military assault weapons as they supply them with myths of individual potency.
There are only two ways forward for this civilization: It will collapse with much pain, fear and suffering for all living things. Or people will demand from their government a plan of transition from the current unjust, unequal and destructive system to a society based on careful planning and the preservation of the planet.
8
Like many others, Rachel Carson was a prophet. The world did not listen.
2
I have 2 bird feeders at work. Constantly filling them, one with black sunflower seeds, one with finch food. This year only a couple of yellow finches and a few with red on their breasts. The feeders are clean, just few birds. At home, same 2 feeders and no finches at all. At work I have seen 3 kinds of woodpeckers- this year, none. Have seen red wing black birds- this year none. Few robins and fewer cardinals, the IL state bird. Soooo depressing. No one using our clean bird house.
5
This makes me sick on a daily basis, I have no hope for our future. I see the wholesale destruction of nature, habitat for animals in my own little pocket of the world. Private landowners with no thought of clearcutting woods. Developers turning the countryside into concrete and asphalt, meanwhile old developments fall into disuse. Our society is SICK!!
3
As goes populations of aviafauna, so goes man.
Oh, but... the number of billionaires has grown "hugely".
What world will our children have passed onto them!
Bad air, bad water, bad earth, bad skies.
But more billionaires....! So good for a few, so bad for everyone else!
6
Helllooo.... if we keep killing all of the “smalls” there won’t be any “larges” from plankton to whales and bees to birds. Mother nature has plans.
2
The many personal stories of bird losses are both heart-wrenching and terrifying. Why are we destroying our own life-support system and every living thing necessary to it?
Humans joined a world that was already settled and populated by millions of other species that largely learned to co-exist in a dog-eat-dog world. We hold ourselves out as a highly evolved species with a more developed frontal cortex than other species that can technologically overcome any impediment to our “progress”.
But can we really be that, and consider ourselves to be progressing as a species, when we don’t respect earth & nonhuman species when we’re MADE OF them?
It’s well-past time for we humans to stop viewing ourselves as Demi-gods that hold “dominion” over earth and nonhuman species because this entitlement attitude is literally killing earth & every living thing on her.
If you doubt that this is happening, please see this:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-energy-202/2017/11/01/the-energy-202-pruitt-cites-bible-in-ending-way-epa-committees-staffed/59f8f39c30fb0468e7653f76/?noredirect=on
Saving ourselves, our planet & other species will only occur if and when we humans identify ourselves as the mammals that we are...with no higher right to life on earth than any other species.
When are we going to respect the very things were made of?
Youth must take control of our political discourse immediately in order to secure their future and that of their descendants.
2
To the journalist who wrote this explainer piece without a hint of overt alarmism: Nice read!
To the rest of the world, here's the headline: We ain't for the birds.
2
It must be due to all the windmills!
This past month while visiting friends in Richmond, Va. there was a heavy chemical scent one morning in their back yard. It was their neighbors who regularly treat for both mosquitos and have their lawns treated for weeds.
Unlike so many prior visits; I saw few Cardinals (their state bird) and of course even fewer bees. It was depressing and eerily silent. But, surrounding yards were lush and green; it really boggles the mind and made me sad. Give me weeds and birds, the alternative is too bleak.
16
I recently returned from a tour of Norway. On a beautiful sunny day my group was on a fjord cruise amid still water and sparkling, pristine nature. And there were no birds to be seen. I wasn't the only one to ask "Where are the birds?" The fjord was silent -- we didn't see one bird cross the sky all day. It wasn't a look into the future -- the future is happening right now and it is heartbreaking.
9
@Aunt Amy
I had the same experience hiking through forests in China. Deathly silence in the canopy. It felt eerie and unnatural.
3
I think all the missing birds came to Nevada to live. Here in Las Vegas, we have more Hummingbirds than I have ever seen. When I lived in NYC, we would head for the Botanical Gardens in the Bronx, every week to bird watch. We had binoculars and books too. Only in September would we see scores of Hummingbirds in the flower gardens. It was a sight to behold. However, here in Nevada, they are a daily part of life. Hundreds of them much to my happy surprise. When I lived in Queens, we had Bluebirds, Cardinals and yellow Finches in our backyard. I believe the birds flourished thanks to Mayor Bloomberg whose vision was to have a park or greenery and nature for people within 10 minutes of their home. I believe he accomplished that and that has made birds abundant in the boroughs of NYC if you just look. It is with great pleasure every morning on my walk in the parks of Summerlin, Nevada to watch the hummingbirds shower in the sprinklers and glide and dance just for me.
2
No surprise that waterfowl and eagle populations are strong, both have strong human constituencies that make sure of habitat protection and restoration and legal protective measures. Time for other bird lovers to take a lesson and start pouring in money and political pressure. Sad but true in the U.S., only those things/creatures with motivated human allies have a chance against the "combine".
9
Everyone can help reverse this trend. Make a declaration that your lawn, backyard, or land is a refuge for birds and insects by not using pesticides and herbicides. You will be amazed how quickly your immediate environment will be repopulated by birds and insects.
53
Thank you! At the very least, home owners must start by ceasing the pesticides, and locking up their cats!
3
@Matt
The antidote to depression is action and that is a great suggestion
1
I think part of the problem is the people. People, people everywhere!!! My mother died ten years ago come spring. She lived in a small town on 1/3 acre in the southwest. She had a lovely garden and lots of trees. She always had birds in the yard and sometimes in winter a flock of cardinals. Within two years of her death the trees became somewhat overgrown and dozens of birds began to make their homes there. We sold the house about three years ago, but my advice is, if you have a yard, whatever size, let it grow like the secret garden, let it thrive and birds may come. Our yard in upstate NY is somewhat feral, with islands of cultivated flowers and vegetables, and we have mourning doves, cardinals, many sparrows, finches, cowbirds, jays, woodpeckers, an occasional wren, chickadees, starlings, gray jays, catbirds and, of course, grackles. We also have butterflies and bumblebees but have seen only one hummingbird. Almost all summer we did not see honeybees but lately have seen a few. Buyback we have one tree that is getting too big and may have to take it down soon. There should be laws requiring people to get permits to take trees down. Unfortunately, property insurance often requires people to remove trees to prevent property damage.
12
Forty years ago, when I was kid, I remember that whenever we took a road trip anywhere, our windshield was inevitably covered with bug guts by the time we’d reached our destination. That doesn’t happen anymore. It’s obvious pesticides, land development and habitat loss have dramatically reduced insect numbers. And, as a result, sustenance for birds. You don’t have to be a scientist or have a background in science to understand this fact. You only need a memory.
28
@Mark. It's more likely that the the design of cars to be more aerodynamic results in the bugs being blown over the car rather than being splashed onto your windshield.
2
@Golem18
You are likely correct that aerodynamics reduces bug-car collisions.
On the other hand, insect populations are objectively nosediving. See this https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/27/magazine/insect-apocalypse.html
1
One of these things. It’s actually détectable without needing scientific assessment (although that does help). In a related observation, when I was a kid and we took long trips in the car, the windshield and front grill were caked with bugs by the time we got there. Not so much these days, in fact my windshield is barely stained after a 2 or 3 hour drive through rural areas on my way to my parents’ house. I’m beginning to worry.....
5
I suspect human commandeering of the electromagnetic spectrum has plenty to do with this. First TV and radio, and now ubiquitous cell phone transmission towers. I suspect all of the above are complicit in the massive reduction of birds and bees...
4
This is more evidence that we are living through the beginning of something very bad for life on earth. Now I'm more worried than ever about the world my children will live in.
13
Just now, enroute to check the garden in my boreal forest acreage after last night's frost, I had to pull way over for a public school bus that was barreling down our narrow country road, I watched, horrified, as a grouse in the road couldn't get out of the way fast enough. I saw it tumble over and over under that bus, saw feathers ripped from it and floating. The bus, which burned yet more fossil fuel, sped away down the road with its precious cargo. Crouching over this gorgeous Ruffed Grouse in brown morph, I could only carry it gently to the grass and watch its death throes. I felt the familiar rising frustration, anger, sadness and hopelessness. We are doomed and we're taking everything with us.
36
@Gail if it was speeding, which it sounds like it was, report it to the local school. Inappropriate and dangerous for all concerned.
2
It’s cats, pure and simple. Cats. Check the studies on cat predation done in the US and UK. Go where there aren’t cats and you see birds. Go where there are lots of cats, hardly any.
4
Ha. Are you ignoring the article? Domestic cats have existed in large numbers for thousands of years, and they have been in North America for many generations, so that would not explain a large drop off in bird population since 1970. The real issue problem is HUMANS and their destruction of bird habitats and the use of pesticides and other toxic chemicals. HUMANS need to take responsible for their own behavior.
36
Amongst the many problems facing our precious bird populations are humans AND their cats, as well as the feral cat communities we humans have caused.
It’s terribly sad, but we cannot allow the feral cat communities created by careless humans to continue to decimate bird populations. And humans need to keep their house cats indoors...for their own safety and that if birds.
6
I suppose you haven’t noticed an increase in paved acreage since 1970? In exurban housing development? In industrial agriculture?
It’s... cats?
9
And I though Baltimore Orioles are not doing well - because well, their baseball has fallen off radar.
I did not know it was the Orioles literally being wiped out.
1
Could all these wind turbines have something to do with it? Just read an article how these things are causing an ongoing slaughter among migratory birds. Spare us from these monstrosities; give us nuclear power instead to reduce CO2 emissions. Our birds will be grateful for it.
1
Easy to say as a human...if birds could only defend themselves...
@TermlimitsNow Nuclear energy is really no more than a bomb that we keep contained...yes, it is operational 'cleaner' but what a mess it makes when humans become complacent and careless.
I knew it!!! I’ve been commenting on this to people for awhile. I’m just not seeing all the birds I used to see and the mornings are much quieter. I spend part of the year in northern New Mexico and the other part in Northeastern KS. There used to be robins and blue jays and sparrows and cardinals all over the place and they’re just not there anymore. Our home in KS is in the woods and there just aren’t enough birds there anymore. During a deluge of rain in May, a female Cardinal was flying at the windows trying to get in or asking for help. Now, instead of seeing and hearing many Cardinal pairs we have only one around. We are ruining our earth. I had hoped Rachel Carson’s warning of a Silent Spring had been heard and heeded but evidently not for long enough. If we don’t change, this planet and us along with it are doomed.
6
Starling discovery. (In all sincerity, this is truly alarming).
3
Not to worry. I believe they're all somewhere in Arkansas in individual cages staked floor-to-ceiling and being fed an antibiotic drip.
3
Conservatives are often indifferent to nature, but not because they don't value and appreciate its essence, beauty and/or bounty...it's just that deeply rooted in their rigid, tightly-wound ideology is this fundamental belief that "the world (existence)" should be of no concern to 'man' -- for (their) God will decide the planet's ultimate fate [and God always has a plan.]
This belief allows them to shirk responsibility and deny reality.
9
Not only that, they believe they’ve been given “dominion” over earth and her bounty in exchange for their fealty. This has lead to an attitude of indifference and entitlement as is easily seen with the behavior of oil & gas and chemical concerns.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-energy-202/2017/11/01/the-energy-202-pruitt-cites-bible-in-ending-way-epa-committees-staffed/59f8f39c30fb0468e7653f76/?noredirect=on
3
@Jack Fitz
That's because for all their Bible-thumping, they have never actually read the Bible and have no idea what it really says.
At Revelation 11:18, it says that God's wrath will come and that he will destroy those who are destroying the earth.
It appears that our time is just about up....
2
“Dominion” was a convenient translation. God asks us to be stewards and take care of His creation. He would not condone its destruction. Anyone who tells themselves destroying nature is ok is just plain wrong. It serves a greater good than anyone can quantify. Science cannot account for all variables, and what we think we understand about the natural world is just a fraction of the good it does us.
4
Did the study account for declines in the populations of birdwatchers?
We need to outlaw neonicotinoid pesticides, and we need to get of fossil fuels NOW.
6
In a world rife with greed, instant gratification, and distain for fact I would expect nothing less. Our post intellectual society has consequences. I often wonder how much complaining the anti-regulators will do when their booming economy collapses because many resources are used up? Or when the weather is so unpredictable they cannot plant crops? I suppose they will blame it on liberals? Hillary Clinton? The short term gain is simply not worth it.
4
We need to scale back. Pesticides, yard size, consumption, sprawl...
2
My dear fellow boomers, please do not act surprised. Organize. We marched in the first "Earth Day", we saw R. Crumb's Brief History of America and listened to Joni Mitchell sing: "paved paradise and put up a parking lot". We said we'd put people before profit -- but we couldn't move fossil fuel giants to renewables or stop corporations like Monsanto from raping the land, and now... time's up! If only we had a responsive, progressive government that could represent us! If only that government could bring pressure to bear on other governments around the world! Right?
4
Seriously bad ...
Have you thought that the 392 million egg-laying hens and 9 billion broiler chickens in the USA are related to the changes in our ecosystems?
There is also a collapse of insect populations. The earth is getting covered with microwave cell and wifi signals. These are unhealthy frequencies for living things. And 5G will be worse.
1
@Carmen The region of Southern Wisconsin is experiencing economic growth, new and construction maintenance for cell towers, roads, housing, etc. Agricultural fields are becoming the new residential suburbs with newly erected water towers. I had noticed a negative onset as of five years ago beginning in the backyard in the missing appearance of lady bugs on the window sills and in the gardens. Certain areas of woodlands, creeks and streams and, a few conservation prairies that I have been familiarized with for over 30 years are today surrounded with new economic growth and waste water retention ponds. Here at home for this year and years before last Painted Lady runner beans were planted along side the Monarch butterfly gardens and Monarch's appeared mid-summer, Hummingbird's were seen just a few weeks ago beginning late Sept. though Hummingbird moth's, Lady bug's and other insect's are nowhere to be found in the gardens. At the moment late afternoon the 19th of Sept. and, looking over fences into the backyard's of neighbor's, there's a stillness and there are no bird's.
1
No one wants to believe it, but this is one of many signs that this planet is already overpopulated, and probably catastrophically so.
4
This is so emblematic of the decline of our society...like so many of our ills, this die-off/kill-off of bird species has been progressing for decades with scant notice. Then one day, someone wakes up and realizes that the birds are dying, that wealth has been transferred to the rich, that elections are rigged, legislators are bought and paid for, the religious right is pushing ever deeper into politics and law-making, the planet is warming inexorably toward disaster, the middle-class is almost dead and the poor are becoming a majority. Employers don’t pay a living wage, gouge their customers, dodge taxes.
There is a mirage that proclaims life goes on as it always has, while in truth, it is decaying under our feet, before our eyes, and suddenly we’re too late. The rapscallions and polluters have run off with their ill-gotten loot and left poisoned air, water and earth in their wake. These sudden, sad “surprises” show that we are not getting the job done. We are complacent, fascinated by the next shiny object, while the foundations and structures of society are crumbling around us.
When did we stop minding the store? Building a future? Laboring for the common good of humans, living things and the Earth itself?
Our place in the universe is not reserved. We have to earn it or perish. We’re perishing.
5
wait, wait. Who was counting birds back then? And who is now? What's the method?
Domesticated cats kill more birds than buildings, windmills, and pesticides... combined. Domesticated cats kill 15 to 20x as many birds annually than pesticides. Your outdoor cat is murdering machine.
6
Absolutely not true. And, certainly it doesn’t explain the drop off in bird population since 1970. There were millions of cats in the North America in 1970. And, now, many more people keep their cats indoors than in the past. Stop making excuses for HUMANS. Humans are destroying bird habitats and poisoning birds with their pesticides and other toxic chemicals. Humans need to take responsibility for their behavior.
8
These birds dying off in huge numbers are the literal Canaries in the coal mine, that we call Earth.
1
Its hard to accept the depth of man's greed: if I see ONE MORE unnecessary strip mall go in, up the street from an already half-occupied strip mall, I'm possibly going to lose my mind.
Why is this not already illegal, to rip up the earth and destroy habitats so some greedy developer can line his pockets and then vamoose?
Answers own question: because Americans value making money over literally everything else. We are a land of plenty, slowly draining ourselves of our natural resources and making already rich men richer, while the earth, and the poor, suffer.
I'm disgusted.
3
"Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize that we can not eat money. The earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth."
Chief Seattle
2
Canary in the mine.
1
I don't know how this could be. Just the other day Senator James Inhof (R-OK) caught and crushed a songbird before bringing on the Senate floor and asked, "Do you know what this is? It's a bird, just from outside here. If birds are disappearing, how do you account for this?"
apologies if already asked/answered but what can you do to prevent birds from flying into your windows?
Pigeons and seagulls unfortunately seem to be doing fine.
@Bytor45 So are sparrows which are illegal immigrants and don't belong here. They chase away other songbirds, steal their nests, and destroy their eggs. They're a nuisance.
. . . and people think it's cruel to de-claw invasive predator house cats.
I live in South Bay and haven't seen a bird in months, I've been spraying DDT on my neighbors shrubs for blocks around my house on my nightly walks just to get rid of the stuff. I wanted to pour it down the drain but I heard that might be illegal so spraying shrubs and helping out my neighbors seemed like the right thing at the time but, now there's no birds around...
When was the last time you had to use windscreen washer to clear insects off your windshield? 20 years ago? 30?
4
@Taz It's more likely that the the design of cars to be more aerodynamic results in the bugs being blown over the car rather than being splashed onto your windshield.
So how do we make this happen to those dirty, noisome ugly Starlings that seem to be taking over the 'burbs? Roosting by the hundreds, no thousands, in the neighborhood trees at night and fouling the landscape and anything else beneath them! They got so bad out here, people cut down hundreds of trees in my neighborhood alone. Hundreds gone. 30-40 y.o tall oaks and especially maples. All gone. Trees lining the streets gone, because it was absolutely impossible to park under them, and not find a car completely covered in bird droppings. Completely covered! Which only attracted millions of flies and other vermin!
I used to have to switch out those fly bag traps 2x a week! Thousands of flies, and their maggots! It weighed well over a pound.
It was well beyond gross! So the trees had to go.
The good birds disappear, and the vermin-like birds take over.
@Boregard The fly traps you are using are nothing more than breeding grounds for flies. They enter the trap, more flies come in, lay eggs, maggots hatch and die and more flies come in repeating the cycle. I got rid of my fly traps and use a fly swatter. It's also more fun.
Birds Disappearing? Wormhole.
That is actually more plausible than the “study”. They base their deeply flawed statistical analysis on radar images of not described “sample” areas. The paper was originally rejected, has never been peer reviewed, and has the scientific rigor of astrology. Don’t believe me, read the darn thing. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2019/09/18/science.aaw1313
Good, stay off my roof and out of my fruit trees. Now focus on overpopulation, clean upv toxic sites which should be converted to green sites and open 4H clubs in urban areas. This dilemma will fix itself
1
People ask why I don’t have children.
This is why.
4
The Times finally notices the environment! Thanks for the [minor] catch-up, but the Times is far behind in reporting on the climate crisis. I'm getting a lot of my news from the Guardian these days. Whereas the Times is more interested in finding the latest go-to vacation destination for the one percent.
2
In my area, the only species of birds NOT vanishing are pigeons.
I think they may be the cockroaches of the bird world.
3
I recall reading about a Fish and Wildlife survey that estimated that
“Cats that live in the wild or indoor pets allowed to roam outdoors kill from 1.4 billion to as many as 3.7 billion birds in the continental U.S.”
source CHUCK RAASCH, USA TODAY | USA TODAY | 1:10 am EST January 30, 2013
Does that have a bearing on the decline?
1
Almost all the bugs have been been killed off already, compared to historical levels.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/27/magazine/insect-apocalypse.html
It should not be a surprise that the birds who feed on those insects died of starvation.
5
@Zabadoh Not on my porch. I give blood daily to the mosquito world which has intensified since the demise of bats that formerly populated my neighborhood.
2
@Golem18 When I drive through the country, hardly any bugs are splattered on my windshield anymore.
There just aren't as many insects as there used to be.
Human population is currently 7.7 billion. In 1970, human population was 3.3 billion. Humans up, birds down.
2
I swear it was not my cat.
1
According to the Judeo-Christian creation myth, God created humans on the sixth day and rested on the seventh. He should have taken the whole 2-day weekend off as mistakes are often made when you're overtired.
3
Billions of birds are killed each year by the neighborhood cat.
Keep your cat indoors or on a leash.
Here's an article from 6 years ago.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/29/cats-wild-birds-mammals-study/1873871/
The cat population in North America has been significant for many generations. Also, most people do keep their cats indoors, especially in recent years, (Not to mention those often cited cat bird kill numbers have long been disproven, and they are absurd on their face—nearly all birds would have long gone extinct at that kill rate, and not all birds especially large birds are at risk from cats, in fact, cats can be their prey). So, it doesn’t explain the drop off in bird population. What does explain the decline in birds is HUMAN activity. Humans love to avoid taking responsibility for their behavior. We are destroying natural habitats and poisoning the environment. Humans are killing birds, along with many other species.
6
Maybe we should start using DDT again.
Goodbye birds, goodbye people. I don't want to live in a world inhabited only by cockroaches and jellyfish anyway.
3
Re: "...There are 2.9 billion fewer birds taking wing now than there were 50 years ago..."
Meanwhile...Trump prattles, incessantly, about that infamously, non-existent 'miracle' energy source...
"Clean_Coal"!
7.5 - 8.0 billion hominids, (currently), exist!
Assuming we somehow escape a thermonuclear war, despite the haste with which the prolife Republicans are demanding further hostilities with Iran, ('cause it's Thursday...this time!), I must note: by the time anyone notices that there are 'X-billion' FEWER hominids...
Our specie's fate will be conversing w/ T-Rex's!
Everyone calm down I figured this out -
"The researchers then used bird-watching records to estimate the population of each species since 1970, the earliest year for which there is solid data."
Fact: The number of bird watchers has declined by more than 50 percent over the last 50 years.
How many people under 60 bird watch anymore? If you have less observation stations, your get less observations and you results are skewed.
This isn't science, this is polling of a dying breed of hobbyist.
1
Cornell University recruits volunteers annually for the Great Backyard Bird Count’. It isn’t only information from birdwatchers. It is from those who care enough to simply observe their own are. I have noticed a dramatic decrease in birds and especially in the past 5 years.
3
Are you joking? Maybe you don’t watch birds but that is not the case for everyone.
Check out ebird
2
I read about a study as per which the vast increase in cellular activity across the world has something to do with it as well.. apparently it interferes with the internal compass of migratory bodies and they loose their sense of direction and get completely lost.
It seems the biggest habitat losses are due the spreading of human habitation into formerly wild areas. Then people plant lawns and exotic hybrid gardens which offer nothing to native species. And maintain said gardens and lawns with herbicides and pesticides. The problem is not just out there somewhere, it's right under our noses. We can help by planting natives in our yards and gardening organically. A multitude of single yards add up to an ecosystem.
6
There are too many people. Everyone of us contributes to climate change. When Trump introduced his tax bill, Marco Rubio said he would vote for it only if it gave a higher tax deduction for children so that people would have more children. Higher fertility is bad for the environment. Congress should have raised the deduction for only the first 2 children, and kept the deduction the same amount as before for any additional children.
2
Now cometh the species-loss deniers. By the same flawed logic they claim climate change is just the natural order impervious to human activity, then the loss of billions of birds just in the past 50 years can't be caused by pesticides and loss of habitat. Deniers must concede there is no alternative explanation to the decimation of the planet's bird population that makes any sense. By the same token they must concede that humans have caused irreperable damage to the planet that makes life possible. It seems our planet is transcending from the age of life to the the age of death, and the deniers themselves are becoming the biggest threat to solving the problem.
2
I have built a Wild Bee sanctuary in front yard and lately we have begun to feed the birds and keep 2 birdbaths- fresh water every day. My neighbour hates the birds, but too bad. My backyard is half Wild Bee sanctuary because we have a dog. I also live car free and we are vegetarian. I’ve flown 5 times in the last 20 years.
It’s been great! The plan is to keep these wild animals nourished and strong for as long as possible. It’s a pleasurable lifestyle to live among this abundance and colour.
3
I have a small farm of 46 acres with a river on the border. I had 20 plus pairs of breading barn swallows 15 years ago. They wanted to nest everywhere in my barn, carriage house, garage, and pole barn for tractors, They were almost a nuisance. I had 3 pair this year. I had 16 tree swallow nests filled 12 years ago and now I had probably 4 pairs this year. I have a power line going to the barn that was filled with 30 plus swallows chattering away every morning. This summer I was lucky to have 8 at any one time. It could be the lose of bugs to eat and bird loses during the migration. There are no fertilizers or pesticides used here. There were over 100 red-wing black birds in the fields and islands at the river 10 years ago. This year maybe 10. There are other bird population decreases I could reference. Pretty sad. As someone wrote --- Canary in a coal mine---- Are we next?
4
I was just commenting on this to a friend. When I was in grade school we would "Camp" in the backyard and the bird songs at dawn were thunderous. But I don't hear them now.
In addition, the insects on summer night would generate a loud, throbbing song. But again, I no longer hear this. And there are very few fireflys anymore.
8
@Morgan
Remember the cicadas? And the crickets? What a racket they made! This summer I heard only one cicada, and no crickets.
I used to see butterflies. I saw just one Monarch butterfly this summer.
I haven't seen a firefly in at least 20 years.
Well it looks like the ecological collapse that we have all been warned of for decades is going along swimmingly.
First, the insects died off. Now the birds are dying off. Then it will be larger vertebrates' turn. Soon it will be our turn.
9
Cats! From the website of the American Bird Conservatory, "In the United States alone, outdoor cats kill approximately 2.4 billion birds every year. Although this number may seem unbelievable, it represents the combined impact of tens of millions of outdoor cats. Each outdoor cat plays a part."
One cat in my neighborhood decimated bird populations for about 15 years. When that cat became too old to hunt, the bird population rebounded. By the way, if a cat kills an adult bird who has young, all the nestlings are doomed to die as well.
Please leave your cats indoors.
6
HUMANS! There were millions of cats in North America in 1970, cats are not new species and most people in modern times do keep cats indoors. So, cats do not explain the great drop off in bird population. Yes, cats are predators to some birds, but they are not the greatest threat to birds, and they are certainly not killing large birds that view THEM as prey. What is dangerous about spreading this misinformation about cats is it removes the burden from HUMANS to change their behavior. Humans in North America are regularly destroying millions of acres of bird habitat and poisoning the environment with toxic chemicals that kill birds and affect their fertility.
3
On Eastern Long Island NY, as in other areas of the Northeast, , the destruction of the wood's understory, through overgrazing of our over-population of deer, has eliminated the habitat for many native animals and plants. This includes many ground nesting birds. The once lush woodlands are now sparse, with just a dry brown earth floor and dead fallen trees. There are no young trees or saplings . Only white pines are spared as deer don't eat those. The deer population, now up to 100 per sq mile instead of the sustainable number of 10, has not only resulted in the loss of understory but causing many environmental problems.
2
Well, I'm not a part of the problem. Just ask the birds waiting in the dark each morning to pounce on my bird feeders and those of my neighbors. The lighter it gets the more things begin to sound like the increasing chatter of the pulsing school yards from my 'boomer'youth.
Even with a tattered copy of Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" sitting next to my copy of Barbara W. Tuchman's "The March of Folly" for decades, I ways acted under the assumption my feeding birds was supplemental at best. That was until this Texas Aggie ceased being able to afford owning horses and moved back to the urban settings I was born into 70+ years ago back east.
And one day I simply looked around and imagined where we now have all those large expances of concrete, blacktop, and manicured lawns and minced living arrangements, the bushes, trees, and shrubs that had been growing there for millennia. They're gone.
6
In my youth, I remember seeing the fall sky around here full of seemingly endless flocks of migrating birds. It was quite a sight. I haven't seen that in decades, and I have sometimes wondered why. Now I know.
20
The proliferation of pesticide companies that treat yards for mosquitoes no doubt plays some role. All along the streets in our neighborhood, dead June bugs, lightning bugs, crickets, bees, and beetles litter the gutters. We’re obliterating insects and wonder where the creatures that eat them are going.
Bees, butterflies, and other pollinators are disappearing. There should be no wonder why the creatures who eat them are disappearing as well.
But good luck telling the Joneses down the street they shouldn’t spray for mosquitoes. You’ll get an earful about private property rights and quashing local businesses.
42
I could have told you that there are less birds without a study. All a person has to do is look outside. I remember Cardinals, Waxwings, Swallows, Chickadees, Blue Jays, Red wing Blackbirds, and especially Robins, in large numbers as a preteen in the 1980's, with the accompanying orchestra of birdsong. For awhile now, when I have taken the time to check in, I don't hear so much, especially in the city but eerily in the burbs.
9
While the numbers are staggering, this news can't be a surprise for anyone who pays attention.
My current home includes 1/3 acre of "nature preserve" that is bounded by similar parcels from four or five other homes. We are supposed to leave that land alone and not use it, which is what I have done, other than to keep wild growth from encroaching on my cultivated area. Even without a bird feeder, I get numerous birds daily, from hummingbirds to blackbirds, mockingbirds, cardinals, sparrows, wrens, cowbirds, bluejays and others I can't name.
While my taxes are higher as a result of this extra "unusable" land, I'm happy to do my part to provide and preserve habitat for my feathered friends.
21
Please keep your cats inside and do not support TNR organizations. Cat predation of birds is a major factor in the decline; particularly this time of year during Fall Migration. The birds are tired, hungry, and did not evolve in these habitats with cats as predators. A bird has no idea what a cat bell means.
10
More importantly, stop destroying bird habitat, poisoning the environment with toxic chemicals, and ignoring climate change. HUMANS are the main threat to birds, and by ignoring are impacts and refusing to change our behavior, we are threatening not just to make birds extinct, but millions of other species.
4
If you remember anything from this article, it needs to be the discussion of the causes, including this passage:
“'Every field that’s plowed under, and every wetland area that’s drained, you lose the birds in that area,' Dr. Rosenberg said.
In addition to habitat loss, pesticides may have taken a toll. A study published last week, for example, found that pesticides called neonicotinoids make it harder for birds to put on weight needed for migration, delaying their travel."
If you are a gardener, be sure to only plant organically grown plants, because neonicotinoids stay in the plant that is grown using them.
6
This article devotes only a couple of sentences to what is probably the largest factor in the decline of bird populations. Cats kill over 2 billion birds per year in the United States alone, and the feline population has risen significantly over the time period in question.
13
Once again, the often cited, and unreliable statistics, fluctuate between 2 billion and sometimes over 5 billion a year (never mind that most birds would have long gone extinct at those rates) depending on who spouts them. Why? Because they are not scientifically proven, and they remove the burden from HUMANS to change their destructive behavior. Humans are the greatest threat not just to birds, but to millions of other species. Birds are dying because humans are destroying more and more of their habitat, poisoning the environment and drastically impacting the climate, all of which has a very negative impact on birds and millions of other species. If we don’t turn things around soon, birds will not be the only living things that go extinct.
2
Very sad and alarming. I miss the swallows. It thrills me when I travel to regions where they are still present. I note that our local acadian forest is said to be boreal forest - not really the same. But the point of the article certainly agrees with experience. And we see the same with fish populations. Friend who is a retired professor of biology sees all of this as the start of the next period of great extinctions. We are only just beginning the destruction. Meanwhile humans are increasingly dripping off of the planet. I feel lucky to have lived in a golden age before the time of great losses. I am making a stronger effort to live more responsibly opposite the climate, and the ecosphere. Too little, too late...
7
Look at the huge increase in North America's population over the past 50 years. This has led to major destruction of habitat and serious damage to the environment.
Human overpopulation will ultimately be reversed, but in a profoundly inhumane way.
5
i remember the birds of dawn at 4:30 AM from 1974-1989... By 1994 the birds of dawn were already much quieter outside my window and it's stayed that way ever since. I find it odd how this article reports this as if it were a new thing, this is very old news. Less birds exist (at least where i am, wisconsin)
5
I'm not sure how these results would surprise anyone who knows even a little about basic ecology. Across the USA and across the planet wildlife habitat is being turned into pavement, agricultural fields, human dwellings and industrial wastelands...so how could the outcome be any different. Without habitat, food, stable climate, and mates just about any creature is going to decline. It's high time that we humans stop taking nature for granted, and make a greater collective and conscious effort daily to help conserve it. Otherwise the future is not going to be pretty! Too bad too few of the world's leaders have the wisdom to catalyze postive change in this regard. So its up to us commoners.
6
Clearly, at a minimum the human population has to be kept in check in order for the natural world to survive.
And we have to live far differently on this planet than we do today.
We are on the slippery slope..
6
Considering the most recent action by the Trump administration now allows destruction of the prairie pothole region for wetlands and farm policy allows destruction of the few remaining pieces of prairie, what could go wrong? Anything for a dollar Republicans could care less about what they leave their children and grandchildren. That includes many farmers in the region. Conservatives don't conserve much of anything and their actual voting record and actions prove it.
37
If you're shocked, you haven't been paying attention and/or you're too young too have personally witnessed the obvious changes in the biosphere.
50 years ago, as we approached the first Earth Day, I thought we could, if we acted promptly and resolutely, both save the environment and preserve it in a way that would be compatible with human civilization. I now think that is probably not possible. Not only did we not act as required, we also more than doubled the human population, while continuing to promote ever-increasing consumption.
It's still possible that the biosphere will recover from the plague of humans, if we don't set off too many nukes in our final resource wars, but the chances of maintaining an environment suitable for advanced human civilization seem slim, at best.
24
This is crushingly sad. I have noticed there are a lot fewer blue jays, doves and mockingbirds than usual. We have maintained a backyard garden for the past 10 years and I have noticed a drop in insect activity as well. Not to mention that my vegetables aren't as consistent as they once were. All is not right with our world and it doesn't seem as if enough people are paying attention.
31
Beeswax commented on Santa Monica CA, where springtime birds have all been replaced by crows. The same thing has happened in Scottsdale AZ.
Earlier this year while driving through Scottsdale at dusk, every wire was completely covered with crows, multiple thousands of them. It was like a scene from Hitchcock's The Birds, and just as frightening.
10
This is not surprising. The human population of the world has increased from 3.61 billion at the beginning of 1970 to approximately 7.74 billion today, an increase of 114%. As the number of people rises, the number of all things natural falls.
13
Sadly, most will ignore this literal canary in the coal mine to continue their outrage over paper straws and plastic bag bans.
6
This is literally the Canary in the coal mine of Climate Change.
The window of opportunity to effectively mitigate Climate Change is rapidly disappearing.
The remaining 2020 Democratic Candidates will try to cut & paste portions of Governor Jay Inslee’s comprehensive & actionable Climate Change Mitigation Plan.
We must go with the real deal.
The winning Democratic Party 2020 Ticket: Warren (save the economy) + Inslee (save the planet)! W+IN 2020!
8
@Phillip Stephen Pino Cute slogan but, Inslee dropped out of the race around August 22nd.
1
@Lifelong New Yorker FYI: I'm promoting the winning Democratic Party 2020 Ticket with Warren for President and Inslee for Vice President. W+IN 2020!
1
Higher order animals are endangered everywhere and will continue to be so long as human populations continue to grow or even remain at current levels. The true inheritors of the earth will be hardy insects (most notably cockroaches), and of course bacteria and viruses. The earth will survive; we probably won't.
7
There's a simple solution to all this: limit the number of children you plan to have. We keep fighting the effects of change in the environment, but not the cause. We are it. We are the change factor. Every single one of us needs resources i.e. land, food, shelter, energy... which takes a toll on the Earth. Overpopulation will be the end of us.
Naturally there is war, famine, and pestilence which keeps the population number under control. However, we painstakingly and almost miraculously learned to suppress them in a large scale. Population no longer depends on outside factors, but rather as personal decision.
Plan your future with care.
16
@Juan Not necessary. Reproduction is already at sub-replacement levels in almost every civilized nation on Earth. World population is set to start dropping in 2040. The delay is caused by generational momentum. Only the Middle East and Africa have a positive birthrate.
The world has never seen a catastrophe on this scale has negative growth year-over-year worldwide has never happened in our era. It will quite possibly be the end of civilization as we know it.
When this comes to pass old people will outnumber working-age people 30-to-1 and there will be a worldwide economic depression.
1
I grew up in the boreal forests of northern WI, a free range kid used to seeing the migratory patterns firsthand. This is sad indeed and not due to a one off cause. To my eye, the following are oft overlooked.
1.) increased use of weekly “landscaping” services that keep grass to below 3 inches and kill off many plant and insect species mechanically. 2.) parallel use of lawn poisoning services that deploy a twice monthly or more witches brew of insecticides, herbicides, and fertilizer. Items 1 & 2 often create a near sterile environment in the suburbs, where from which birds must escape to yards like my own which gets cut only as needed and always kept above 4 inches, receiving no chemical treatment of any sort. Passers by often ask “why are all the birds in your yard” to which I might reply if pressed “because they are not in yours.” A few get it. Most never will as they live mostly in a TV delusion.
When I was a child, high status meant you hired a guy to push a reel mower and weeding meant others getting down on their knees. Now it means who can afford to hire the immigrant laborers driving 50 HP “lawn tractors” that operate typically at 74dB sound output once a week. No bird will best in such a place. If they did, fledglings would be ground to bits.
Today’s actual landscapers are little more than uneducated laborers going to home and garden centers to buy whatever is in sale, which translates to what the buyers at Home Depot or Lowe’s or Walmart order.
16
The only good news is that insects are dying also because of global warming (I'm tired of hiding that as "climate change"). Insects wake up each "Spring" by nature's clock and they find a different climate than expected over time. We are killing the earth. No doubt about it. And many Republicans and corporate executives do not care at all. Greed is a personal and short-lived beast for one lifetime. I guess hedge fund managers and Republicans do not care about their grandchildren.
4
Many months ago there was a philosophical piece in the NYT that wondered whether the extinction of humans would actually be a problem. The answer is absolutely not. In reality, the planet would be far better off despite the damage wrought by humans already.
There is nothing that humans have done to improve on nature. It would be possible to mitigate much of the damage, but even that is beyond the "most intelligent" lifeform on the planet. Many of us care, many more do not.
It is revealing in the US that more Democrats, the "liberals," are concerned with environmental issues and climate change than Republicans, the "conservatives." Actual conservation apparently isn't as important to them. They might want to rethink their rigid attitudes. Change is inevitable...humans can mitigate it or exacerbate it.
Younger citizens comprehend the problems. Even Republican ones. Thank goodness for that...if it's not too late.
Eclectic Pragmatism — http://eclectic-pragmatist.tumblr.com/
Eclectic Pragmatist — https://medium.com/eclectic-pragmatism
5
this breaks my bird loving heart. I must say that i am not shocked, just more and more deeply saddened by the state of our world and the innocent creatures suffering from our human arrogance, selfishness, denial, and abuse. We are only temporary inhabitants, yet our heavy footprints are everlasting.
2
And open borders and increased immigration from third world countries will only COMPOUND problems such as these. People coming to first world countries will result in an increased population which will tend to emit more CO2 and the use of pesticides and other noxious and toxic byproducts which are produced at a much higher rate in more industrialized societies!.
The Green New deal should be called the bird shredder and fryer deal for what wind and solar does to birds, big time. As far as I know there are no birds 5,000 feet underground.
1
Windmills kill a small fraction of the birds killed by habitat destruction and pesticides
2
Look around u in suburbia— how many homeowners sanction the use of RoundUp, and other such chemicals to maintain weedless lawns? How many people needlessly, carelessly support companies that harm our environment? A lot of this behavior is about aesthetics, convenience, lack of education, awareness. Change has to start with me and hopefully all of us. We are poisoning each other and our future children’s children.
21
@Jocelyn Roundup for a weed free lawn? I don't think so. If you use Roundup on your lawn, you will shortly have a lawn-free lawn!
Not sure they are gone - i think they just all migrated to the powerlines above the Old Greenwich train station (and above my car!)
1
The solution is simple: birds need bugs to eat. Bugs need native plants to eat. Stop buying non-native, ornamental plants at big box hardware stores - they don't feed bugs! Google your local naive plant society to find out what plants are native to your area. Stop spraying your plants with insecticides. Read "Bringing Nature Home" by Dr. Tallamy. Together we can bring birds back.
20
@Kristy How about not having any large pets that kill birds and planting wildflowers all our your yard instead of grass? Insects eat flowers, birds eat insects.
2
Absolutely right!! Natives flourish without all the fuss, too.
It's the windmills. The grasslands, where the big losses are-Indiana, Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska etc etc are covered with giant windmills. The ebbs and flows in nature, crows disappear for a while-west nile virus, now they are back cawing like mad at 5 AM, the morning doves we had have went elsewhere when our pines died after their normal 25 years, but now we have more cardinals. People said "it's the end of the world" in B.C. times, and the birders and climate change worshippers are saying it now. Pretty likely also wrong.
1
@Dick Wind mills kill a trivial number of birds each year (couple hundred thousand at most) when compared to architectural glass and cats, which kill billions of birds each year. (bird deaths are for US)
This spring, summer and now, fall is a definite steep decline in my very backyard. I'm out there in past few days and nary hear or see a bird of any species. Just last year, annoying crows upturning leaves and mulch looking for insects. Not this year. Very noticeable and alarming. Robins, once so plentiful in the spring in sizeable groups catching the early worms. Not in last 6 years. Likely it's been longer. Even starlings. There was a program to decimate them. It worked alright. Too well! Perhaps whatever method was used decimated other species as unfortunate collateral damage. Destroying everything good. Thanks Industrial Corporate Giants. All on you and globally corrupt governments. Us *ordinary* people aren't off the hook! We permit this. Repeatedly choose corrupt governments and plastic packaged everything. Build NEW bigger houses on newly cleared land. Everything must be bigger and new, let's not maintain and build upon older housing stock. Population growth.Taboo topic.This behavior is on us. Only us!
7
If every human planted 1 tree we would add an astounding 7 billion trees to the planet (and sequester carbon and provide food and shelter for wildlife). It takes approximately 10 minutes to plant a small tree.
7
I love cats, but the feral and home pet population are contributing to the destruction of the bird population. I get sick when I read stories like this and angry when I read about protesters stopping the removal of feral cats from public spaces.
9
They're also responsible for the decline in Sea otters off the CA coast - toxoplasmosis from free range house cat (& therefore feral cat) poop. I like cats, but people need to keep them indoors & use a litter pan. Or fence youyyard so kitty can't roam far (safer for the cat, too)
3
This reminded me of the Daphne Du Maurier short story "The Birds" and the Hitchcock movie loosely based on the story. (I prefer the story.) It doesn't appear that the birds are winning this war at the moment.
Population control and conservation are the only logical answers to the world's multitude of problems related to overuse and scarcity of resources.
@Gregg54 Population control (natural, not planned) has already engineered world population. It is set to start declining worldwide by 2040. Only the middle east and Africa will have growing populations at that time.
Africa will be the new center of civilization.
The canary in the coal mine. We are next.
5
Unfortunately it has to be spelled out before the powers that be acknowledge the loss. Always seems to need a crisis to get us out of our stupor. Then it's too late.
2
How long until Trump and/or his cronies use this as "proof" that wind power is bad for the environment?
1
Or maybe not. Remember the spotted owls were on the brink of extinction? Then, oops, never mind.
1
@Syd Matamoor
The brown-footed ferret was definitely extinct..then oops, guess not, never mind.
This is tragic in so many ways. I suspect our population growth has so diminished resources there's less for the birds to eat. Then we've chopped down so many trees there's no place for them to nest. Then there're so many of us there's no room for them. My life will not be the same without their singing. But the real tragedy is I'm just not smart enough to know what to do. Somebody help me, please.
4
Bugs as well, and this portends bad things for us all.
3
When I read this it immediately reminded me of a show I saw on National Geographic about vultures disappearing in India. Populations have been reduced by 97% - and 99.9% for some species. I remember it because I was taking diclofenac, a prescription NSAID. After much investigation, it was found that the birds were dying from kidney problems caused by the drug. Indians give aging cattle the drug for arthritis. When they die, their bodies are left in fields, the birds ate from them, then died from the drug that cattle were given. The law of unintended consequences took affect in the form of a human rabies epidemic that happened when the birds died off and feral dogs fed on the corpses that were left near human settlements. Sky burials were also affected. Who knows what the decline of these birds will do to our ecosystem and us. People need to remember that they are part of that ecosystem. https://www.thenational.ae/world/asia/vultures-in-india-close-to-extinction-because-of-cattle-drug-1.361882
7
Too many small airplanes in the skies; now the planes land on our highways instead of curious birds.
1
Not a peep on windmills (giant blenders that kill birds) - they are everywhere in Iowa now and right in the major flyways. I usually have many Cardinals in feeder but not this year.
4
@John Wind mills kill a trivial number of birds each year (couple hundred thousand at most) when compared to architectural glass and cats, which kill billions of birds each year. (bird deaths are for US)
@Rob-Chemist habitat loss, vehicles and cats are at the top of the list but wind generators are a recent proliferation. Is there any recent data, especially for migratory birds, like the Junko shown in the story?
Humans are going to end up the only species left on the planet. Hopefully I'll be long gone before I see that happen.
2
I've been reading more and more about people coming down with nasty mosquito-borne illnesses. Probably not a coincidence...
5
At my hummingbird feeder in Northern California, the humingbird population this year is down 90% from the past years.
I see it as tragic.
5
@Sfojimbo
My four hummy feeders are doing fine..... but I've had to take down three of them in the last 3 years. Ten years ago each of my 7 feeders, at dawn and sunset, had hummies lined up 3 and 4 deep, waiting to feed. I think that this year I've seen definitely one, but maybe two babies and never hear anymore the sonic boom that their tail makes when they are courting.
I'm horrified.
1
Interesting. A very simple, and I would argue likely, cause of the decline is the dramatic increase in the number of cats. Cats are the primary killers of birds. Since 1970, the number of house cats in the US has approximately tripled, hence the number of birds killed each year by cats has probably also tripled. For a couple references on cat numbers, see:
https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2009.01426.x
https://www.statista.com/statistics/198102/cats-in-the-united-states-since-2000/
6
Most cats kept as pets are not outdoor cats, and cat predation certainly doesn’t explain the decline in the population of birds that are either too large to be prey for cats (cats may actually he prey for them) or that don’t live anywhere near where cats live. What is the obvious reason is the ongoing and rapid HUMAN destruction of bird habitat, the poisoning of the environment by human chemicals, and the rapid and increasing human-caused climate change, which negatively impacts not only birds, but millions of other species. Humans need to stop making excuses for our own behavior and start changing our behavior before we join birds with going extinct.
1
Climate, chemicals, carelessness.
Perfect formula to decimate our Aves friends.
5
Absolutely. I am glad to read that so many people care. Unfortunately, more people don’t- and our elected officials don’t serve the people but their own interests.
I have relationships with the birds around my un-cultivated yard.
Then neighbourhood cats kill them.
But I cannot "interfere" with the cat owner's right to allow this to happen.
It is infuriating.
7
@w r
Lay down cayenne pepper powder where the cat makes a trail and where the birds don't land.
Is that cruel?
Maybe, but it only irritates them the first snoutful or so when they go to clean their paws.
Then they hunt elsewhere.
I used to have ants that would swarm into my hummy-feeders ten years ago.
A friend gave me the cure: Lay down a ring of axle grease on the bough holding the feeder, then work in cayenne pepper powder.
The ants wouldn't cross the ring of grease and pepper.
Speculation was that it broke the scent that other ants had laid down.
It worked.
Then, last year, all ants disappeared.
I haven't seen even one.
Now THAT is scary!
2
Millions of Americans are concerned about environmental issues that are really far fetched and non exist, yet they have chemicals dumped on their lawns Spring-Summer-Fall hoping for that " perfect lawn ".
Those chemicals are killing insects, worms, and birds and wildlife.
Those same chemicals are washing into wells, streams, and drinking water supplies.
These same people dump chemicals on their lawns to look good in the neighborhood , then listen to and believe those that say I cant drive my SUV to have a hamburger for lunch.
7
I saw no mention of climate change. Is that not an issue?
2
The research did not pinpoint cause.
The human species is a parasite on this earth. Our inherent objective of self-preservation implies a level of adverse effects on all elements of our environment.
For the vast amount of time on this earth, our collective parasitic effect did not make much of a dent in a world protected by relatively strong fortresses like the ozone layer, natural aquifers, a seasonally balanced freeze and warm up etc.
That ls all in the past now. We no longer co-exist with other species. We slowly destroy them. Children and teenagers should be angry and should take up the fight, but it’s a fight we, they and all of the birds are destined to lose.
3
it is time for humanity to remember the canary in the coal mine....
2
Funny thing, a drastic reduction of the bird population is accompanied by a drastic reduction of the insect population. Nobody can figure out the reason for either and nobody seems too concerned. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/02/why-insect-populations-are-plummeting-and-why-it-matters/
6
"O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing."
4
Please remember that birds also eat insects... and insects are disappearing too. As the song goes, there is a circle of life. Nothing exists just on its own. You lose one thing, the comes another and another...
Our mismanagement of the resources of this planet may doom all life on it. And still there are science deniers. Why? Because their main interest is money. Well, money will not save us or them or the billions of innocent creatures that really did nothing to deserve their end. When I think about what is coming, I mostly feel sad for wildlife. They are starving or getting poisoned or choked through no fault of their own. They are truly innocent and also helpless when confronted with humans. They do not deserve this.
7
I blame the Chinese Hoax.
Thanks Mr President! Our future great-great-grandchildren will honor your legacy with your image on the $1000 dollar bill. Well, hopefully they will.
1
@Bob Trump's image belongs on the wooden nickel.
"We are overusing the World" - that says it all.
3
Why is this happening? We are killing ourselves, slowly, day by day. The entire planet.
3
Look out your window, urban and suburban America. What do you see? Grass (2 inches tall), hostas, and a few trees. Birds can't eat grass and hostas. 96% of songbirds feed their chicks mostly caterpillars. We've made certain that there is no food for those chicks. If you plant anything other than grass, or fail to mow the grass to 2" tall, then your neighbors will judge or hate you, and the city you live in will promptly cite you for breaking the law. On top of that, half of my neighbors have herbicides and/or pesticides (read "poisons") sprayed onto their lawns.
Add up the parts of the US which are yards, farms, pavement, and roofs. We have made sure that there is no home and no food for birds - as well as most other life - even the insects are dying out now!
My yard hosts ca. 100 species of plants, mostly native. It's a struggle to keep it "acceptable" to the city and neighbors. It does have a design, it's not merely wild. Many songbirds come to hunt there, three species of frog as well. Most yards offer nothing to animals.
Doug Tallamy has written an excellent book on the subject. See his "Bringing Nature Home". He estimates that songbird populations are down 50% in 50 years. The key is planting native plants, which alone host caterpillars. To fledge one chickadee takes over 9,000 caterpillars! He has data on which species host the most caterpillars: https://www.enst.umd.edu/sites/enst.umd.edu/files/_docs/Table%201%20from%20Doug%20Tallamy%20Sheet1.pdf
9
Can we please outlaw the use of pesticides because you are afraid of a mosquito bite!! The signs in all of the yards here from all of the various businesses that spray, kill everything, not just mosquitoes. They need to be outlawed. Get a fan.
6
Birds love insects. People hate insects so we release a plague on them. The plague is really on us.
4
Ban neonicotinoids and Roundup as a start.
5
@Bryan Davies If you ban Roundup, you will increase herbicide use. One of the benefits of Roundup when used in conjunction with Roundup ready crops is a large reduction in herbicide use. In addition, Roundup helps prevent soil erosion since it allows for greater no-till agriculture.
@Bryan Davies
With the judgment that "Round-Up" causes non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, hopefully the poison will be outlawed.
1
@Rob-Chemist Hmmm, really ! I'll reread....
North American Birds declining, North American cuckoos increasing.
5
Not content with fouling our own nest, we are taking the rest of earth's living creatures with us. Sadly, we are collectively stupid enough not only to not do our best, but to do our worst.
We absolutely must collect what wits we have left, and work together to solve problems rather than finding victims to blame.
Looting and exploiting, despoiling and hoarding, is not the way to go.
Sadly, I have come to believe from my study of history that enlightened action is the exception rather than the rule. Human history is one of success for predators and loss for the less fortunate.
Still, I keep hoping we can all get a heart and a brain, and stop protecting the few at the expense of a liveable planet.
Working together to solve problems, and Democrats, are not evil. Hate and harm and exclusion, reaching for the worst in ourselves, will bring us all too smash if we don't wake up soon.
3
Keep your cats from killing birds, put a bell or cat your animal inside. I had a bird feeder in my backyard and every day my neighbor's cat would be prowling around trying to pick off a few. That cat killed at least 2 to 3 birds a week. Too many cats.....
2
Too many humans regularly destroying millions of acres of bird habitat, poisoning birds and affecting their fertility with toxic chemicals, destroying insects and plants that birds need for food, and causing rapid climate change that threatens not only birds, but millions of other species. And, soon enough, if humans don’t change their behavior, they will join birds with going extinct.
1
@Chris
totally agree, at least we can personally do something about the cats if not the larger problems
This makes me even sadder when I know we have a truly incompetent administration that does not care. They simply don't care about our planet, our animals, us in general. They seem to be driven only by money in a desperate attempt to make themselves richer and richer overturning every environmental regulation that was incomplete anyway. I have children. I look at them sometimes and I blame for bringing them to this world. I feel responsible for the sorrow that awaits them down the way. How sad! What a shame! There is nothing I can do, nothing at all. What a horrible feeling of helplessness... really.
1
Put a bird-house in your backyard and a bell on your cat!
1
Birds are dying
Amazon burning
Polar bears swimming their winter fat off
Whaling and dolphin killing by japan
Rhinos being killed
Coral dying and fishing being killed off and full of plastic
Species are dying off.
This can’t be a good ending and my grandchildren will have a different world. A large majority of people just don’t care. The ones reading this article actually do care. A stupid administration making destruction easier every day. I don’t know the answer , but i see and read this world is getting worse. It’s the saddest story i know.
Just a tragedy.
6
This seems significant.
1
There will be more pesticides used coming soon which of course, are harming not only birds but our children, grandchildren and everyone else.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/461785-trump-administration-plans-to-reduce-pesticide-testing-on-birds
2
Our President was correct, it is the "Wind Mills" killing all the birds.
1
The article does not mention that the Trump administration rolled back an Obama-era ban on neonicotinoids in 2017. Hopefully something - something will awaken his supporters to the destruction his administration has sought - for corporate interests.
https://www.newsweek.com/neonicotinoids-trump-administration-rolls-back-ban-1061906
4
"Silent spring" echoes loudly.
3
Keep your cats inside people.
4
And the Number 1 cause of nature unraveling before our eyes? Our incessant and continuing automobile-based urban and suburban sprawl, i.e., loss of habitat.
As all can see, I live in Greater Atlanta, the poster-child metropolis of auto-based sprawl and how-not-to-design a "city". I've been writing and commenting loudly about sprawl for over 25 years, but I feel like a lone voice crying in the wilderness.
What is defined as Greater or Metropolitan Atlanta now encompasses over 8,500 square miles of Georgia, a state just under 60,000 square miles. The sprawl will soon spread to the borders with Alabama and S.C., and all the way up to the border of the Chattahoochee National Forest, and already has in some areas.
And with all the evidence and data from the last 10+ years on neonictinoids, why haven't these insecticides been banned?
And folks, I love cats. I truly do. I adore them. But I also love birds, spiders and salamanders etc,. Please keep fluffy and Mr. Wrow indoors.
9
@Zen Galacticore - I remember watching them slash and burn the pine forest to build more McMansions in Alpharetta and thinking how tragic the disregard for even saving a few trees and building in the forest instead of just wasting it. Not to mention the horrific traffic (and I'm saying that from California).
2
Farm fields without weeds = less insects= less birds.Fields were always surrounded by weeds, weeds used to grow within the crops and insects were on the weeds and the crops. Birds ate the insects. Roundup resistant corn and soybean seeds are now over sprayed with roundup which kills everything except the crop. It guarantees a great crop but kills all other vegetation.
6
I just so happen to live in the heavily wooded Silver Spring, MD, community that was home to Rachel Carson in her last years. A portion of her home is now preserved as a museum. We still have a "dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays and wrens," and we still hear owls and see bald eagles. But I do think the volume of birds is thinning every year. Even robins. And we've never once seen a Baltimore oriole.
1
Saw a pair of Oyster Catchers at the Shark River Inlet in Belmar.
We shared a few bird calls for a several minutes. Then they flew off.
We knew not what the other meant.
It was a precious moment.
3
Canary in a coal mine.
Canary in a coal mine.
Canary in a coal mine.
Man has polluted the earth with human overpopulation, chemicals, conceit and narcissism.
The world needs a massive condom drop, free modern contraception for all and zero or negative population growth.
It's not just bird species that humans are destroying; we're also destroying other types of animal, plant and marine species because oh human pollution.
The earth is fragile.
This is no time for electing right-wing radicals hellbent on denying science, nature and a decent future for the sake of a few extra dollars.
Vote on November 3 2020 for someone who gives a hoot about the environment, not for someone who is stepping on the accelerator of environmental collapse.
This is the only Earth we've got.
Don't trash it !
1044
@Socrates The Earth isn't fragile. Ecosystems are fragile. The Earth will be here whether it is populated by 2 million species or primarily cockroaches and jellyfish.
If humans can't make a go of it, biodiversity will snap back within a million years. It's not about protecting the Earth, it's about protecting the ability of the Earth to support humans and the species that we rely upon for physical and psychological well being.
61
@Socrates Considering these birds disappeared in America where the population is not changing sharply, the problem is not simply overpopulation but probably pollution from farming and cats.
23
@Socrates Think of the bees.
Wipe out the wrong species at the wrong time, and things could get real ugly, real fast.
52
I think we've all witnessed the diminishing number of birds, insects, and other animals, and it long past time to raise awareness of these losses.
I fear for what we are leaving future generations. Not only is birdsong being drowned out by leaf blowers and other noise pollution, but species are in decline from pollinators to predators.
And yet, our administration sees fit to cut protections.
Sad.
4
@j s not just sad, Criminal.
In 1977 i moved once again to my final house, a house on a lake. When i first moved in the spring and summer the chorus was almost deafening. A Baltimore Oriole sang loudly high up in my maple tree before 5AM. How i both cursed the bird and fell in love with its song. How i now regret the curse. The Monarch butterflies that once swarmed through out my yard are now a rare sight. The Katydids that sang at night are almost gone.
A silent spring indeed. Rachel Carlson was right.
23
Covering over praire lands with solar panels has to have a negative effect on their food source.
10
@Rob Wood Solar panels? How does that compare to petrochemical insecticides?
13
@Rob Wood
I noticed last week, driving past a solar farm here in CA, that the groundcover under the panels is being allowed to grow back, with the same natives as the surrounding desert. Well designed solar farms will be able to co-exist with nature.
Wind power is not so amenable to bird life, but any and all alternatives to coal and gas are many many times less impactful overall.
6
We need a lot more solar power, but it should go ON ROOFS.
From early Spring onward, I never had to set an alarm clock because birds woke me up every morning before the sun was fully over the horizon. THIS year, I haven't been awakened in pre-dawn hours even ONCE. I live in a rural community with woods/wildness, all around, and it's eerily quiet. There must be lots of dead birds somewhere. Where are birds going to die, and why isn't anyone seeing dead birds anywhere? Why isn't anyone seeing dead birds everywhere?
5
I'd be willing to bet that it's not mass die-offs, but more likely reduced hatchings and shorter lifespans responsible for the reduction. Basically the population isn't replenishing itself fast enough.
7
@JJ I didn't know there was this kind of vanishing act, but it was so strikingly and eerily quiet, it was actually alarming! Something else over here on the NH-VT border that I've wondered might be impacting birds is being researched at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, smack on the NH-VT border. There's a lake nearby that college town and medical ctr. that has an area population with 25X more diagnoses of ALS than anywhere in the country. Unbeknown to humans' doctors for awhile, veterinary doctors were mystified that dogs were dying seemingly w/o explicable cause, then the human diagnosis was found to be in those same places. The causative agent is algae blooms in lakes, ponds, static water, too, where dogs drink if they're out and about being dogs! Teams of samplers from the medical schools in VT and NH take air samples, too, because when on dry land, those algae are most likely airborne and inhaled. Teams of water samplers and AIR samples are out regularly gathering info. Birds drink on lake/pond/river edges, too. Swimming holes and regular beaches are posted as potentially unsafe. Algae blooms flourish when water, air, and land temps go up: that's every year, now. You know the yellow-greenish stuff you don't pay any attention to at a lake or pond? That's it. If it's A definitive cause, OMG! ALS is incurable and always fatal. That's a very big deal and it's directly due to climate change. Birds? Who knows? Common sense says it's a LIFE problem.
Those pesky birds. They just leavedroppings everywhere and they're so noisy. I cut down all the 200-year-old trees in my yard so I could put my outdoor hot tub in without have those wretched birds and annoying trees dropping things in it. And now folks are complaining there's not enough birds?? They must be hypocrits because like - everybody has an out door hot tub and picnic table right? So how do they handle their tree and bird problem? Next thing you know the gummint will be trying to put in yet more stupid regulations saying we can't poison the birds or cut the trees. And what kind of world would that be? Dead leaves and bird doo everywhere! I'm voting for Trump - again.
2
Norm, I really hope you are joking.
1
@Norm Weaver Satire?
@Norm Weaver
Norm, Norm, Norm.. someone may take you seriously.
2
The ecological devastation I have witnessed in my lifetime is unbelievable. Future generations will never forgive us for what we have done to this lovely planet.
744
@Daniel what future generations?
33
@Daniel - unfortunately they may not be around to deny us forgiveness if we continue at the current rates of destruction.
17
@Daniel But we don't know which devastions past generations could have done ! I mean we should try to keep more nature we can, but it is undeniable that if humans are getting more and more, and this is natural, is also natural that other species have to make place for them ! It could be that all these birdies are emigrated in less densely populate areas.
I'm shocked you're shocked. It is achingly obvious that there are fewer birds and many that used to be common are much rarer. Loss of habitat and feral cats, it is deeply saddening. Add to it climate change and loss of insects and i grieve for succeeding generations that will not have the incredible experiences that our generation have had.
404
There may not be many more successive generations the way things are going. That may be a good thing as life on Earth can begin again from square one and hopefully not have humanoids in the bargain destroying its majestic balance.
25
Don't forget drastic drops in insect populations as a factor. As a new driver 45 years ago I cleaned the windshield every time I refueled, and even between gas station stops, because there were always dead bugs on the glass. Today even driving across farmed and wooded areas there are no bugs on the glass. Birds eat insects, or they used to . . .
182
@Keegs
There are far fewer feral cats, and far fewer family cats allowed outdoors, today than there were 50 years ago. Overuse of pesticides, climate change and deforestation are the primary problems.
85
Researchers and conservation organizations may be shocked, but dedicated home gardeners are not. The songs and activity of birds, adding such additional joy to spading and weeding, have stopped. People who live near water and enjoy looking outside on a regular basis are not shocked. We no longer see bird behaviors we counted on to mark various natural occurrences, such as storms, because there are no more birds. This has been happening for more than 25 years. This loss of our feathered friends is heartbreaking. Speaking of canaries....
539
@cheryllk You are 100% correct. I've lived on a wooded half acre for 35 years. I had one of the most productive avian populations in the neighborhood. I lured them with bird appropriate feeding stations, berry producing plants and trees, and other enticements. This past year, no more 4:30 a.m. wake-up calls from our feathered friends. I keep a bird journal and it was disheartening to have so few entries. The eagle and osprey populations had a bang up year however.
10
You note the joy of living by the water to be closer to nature. Millions will be displaced, many of them even dying, due to their proximity to the coasts. And - IMO - it can’t happen soon enough.
1
I can only speak to my limited perspective.
I've had bird feeders, bird baths and various bird houses in my back yard for close to 40 years. I've enjoyed such a plethora of species, colors, sounds, and activity. Bluebirds and goldfinches used to come in droves. Blue jays and cardinals flooded the neighborhood trees. Red wing blackbirds and robins used to usher in the spring.
Now, I'm lucky if I hear, much less see a cardinal. The only constant sightings in the past few years have been starlings, crows, a few wrens, and downy woodpeckers.
I am deeply saddened by this article but at least it gave me hollow confirmation that I was not imagining the loss of birds over the years in my large pack yard.
It is pretty lonely and sad on our deck when all we here is the squawking of squirrels and the crowing of crows over the competition for food and fresh water instead of the beautiful music we used to hear from cardinals and other fantastic song birds.
703
@Marge Keller Your perspective isn't limited at all Marge. We all notice the subtle (and more frequently, not so subtle) changes taking place around us. I remember windshields covered with the evidence of all of the bugs who got in the way of our family's long road trips. And if we experienced a 90 degree day in the summer, it was a big thing. It's only our perspectives that tell us, intuitively, that something is gravely wrong.
50
@Marge Keller I live in Oregon's Willamette Valley in a small town, and I could have written your post. I have noticed the decline over the past few decades. First the cedar waxwings disappeared. Then the purple finch. Then the swallows. This year, for the first time ever, no starlings. My bird feeder get very little business anymore.
65
@Jamie
Ditto with your response Jamie! My husband built more bird houses because we thought we would need them. But fewer residents than ever. I am tempted to have a sign made that reads "Vacancy". I have so much bird feed and so little birds.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
41
This study clarifies the hidden costs of our model of capitalism, which depletes the commons without regard. We need a new model. Now.
9
As disheartening as the posts are to read, I thank those in the forum who are reporting their own experiences in terms of declining sightings of birds and the quieting of the dawn chorus. It's valuable information, especially when location and time frame are specified. I also encourage people to engage in citizen science efforts to report the animals we're seeing (or not seeing).
1
I’ve been driving out to Long Island for 50 years.
Mostly on the Northern State Parkway.
In the old days the windshield would be full of splattered bugs.
No more. No bugs at all.
8
I don't know why anyone's surprised at the massive loss in the bird population. The continued use of record numbers of pesticides on lawns, gardens, forests, and commercial farming poisons not only their habitats and food sources, but the streams, rivers and oceans that provide water to them and us.
Until we stop the chemical poisoning of the planet, we will continue to lose various species such as birds and bees as well as the toxic accumulation in our bodies causing cancer and other illnesses.
7
Unhappily the skies are not emptying and the springs are not silent, instead planes are swarming everywhere, and usually outdoors one is now far more likely to hear an engine than a bird. Unfortunately this is increasingly true even in remote areas. We sold our souls for a mess of pottage.
7
This is so depressing, if the facts are as stated. The loss is both aesthetic and practical. When I was a young boy we would often see huge, mixed flocks of birds flying overhead at sunset. I never see such things anymore, and I live in a rural area. My wife and I like to birdwatch, and we have a pretty good variety here, but the numbers have seemed smaller to me, although I have to say there seem to be more birds in my particular area than I was seeing ten years ago.
What can be done, or rather what will be done to help bird populations recover?
The only semi-positive news in this report is the decline in starlings, which really are a pest in North America.
4
We’re losing species on so many fronts (canary in coal mine?). But where are the good billionaires to help? Not the oil tycoons, or the ones who gave up on Earth and want to go to Mars, or those seeking life extension.
If bad billionaires can invoke enough influence to ruin the Earth and rob from the 99%, why can’t good billionaires affect more positive outcomes? Positive things like winning elections, judicial seats, influencing governments and companies to do good, and yes, saving the planet.
—waiting for Superman (or good billionaires)
7
I've lived in a wooded area of eastern Pennsylvania for the last 25 years. What I've observed recently is the number of hawks attacking birds and squirrels. I've also noticed an increase in the number of Bald Eagles.
I have not noticed a decrease of any bird species except maybe Robins. We have plenty of cardinals, blue jays, tufted tit mice, wood thrushes and many more.
2
@CMP and readers I too live in (Chester cty) eastern Penna since 1975 (4 zip codes). Once largely rural w/ vast family farms , this county has realized EXtensive (loss of farmlands, open spaces, and fresh surface water) vast development. The diminishing bird and Insect population has been quite noticeable (visually and audibly). The windshield splatter observations are poignant and seem to be a national phenomena.
Can't take it, this is so tragic. Thank you for reporting it.
23
This makes me so sad. I love feeding my backyard birds. I can’t imagine not having the plethora of birds that I enjoy at my feeder every day.
9
@Pigenfrafyn Feeding the birds makes them dependent on you... bad for their long term survival
The disappearance of meadowlarks, bobwhites and indigo buntings back home in Virginia where I grew up has been very noticeable. I miss their songs when I return to my cabin from Washington, D.C.
7
In recent years, I've noticed a huge increase in large birds of prey (hawks, eagles, etc), which I rarely ever saw growing up in the 1970s. I'm wondering if the resurgence of the larger birds (as noted in the article) may be pushing some of the smaller birds out of their habitats?
2
@stefanchikm Yes I thought that too. I see so many hawks and owls everywhere. I also think cats killed and scared off the Towhees in my NM neighborhood and in our KS woods there are always stray feral cats showing up.
I wonder if predatory birds are less affected by chemicals or something and cats.
Habitat, pesticides and the need for an over-idealized garden. Heartbreaking
11
I have been commenting for a few years now that there are A LOT fewer birds around than there were even 5 years ago. I used to love to listen to them through the open window in my bedroom in the spring, summer and early fall. Now more often than not I hear only one or two and it breaks my heart. I am almost 70 and find myself profoundly grateful that I likely won’t live long enough to see the worst of what we are doing to our beautiful world, but my heart breaks a little every day for my grandchildren who are losing so much of the beauty I was fortunate enough to enjoy in my life. I don’t even want to contemplate what kind of world their grandchildren will have to live in.
111
@WesternMass My thoughts exactly. Heartbreaking.
3
@WesternMass Ditto
2
@WesternMass I share your grief for my grandchildren as well. And the contribution to this catastrophe that us boomers put into play worrying about the perfect weed free lawn. Bird watcher too. Increasingly heartbreaking.
2
Today birds. Tomorrow men.
While this is happening, a not-insignificant group of people continue to support an Administration that is anti-science and anti-climate change, for the pursuit of short-term personal greed.
Democracy is in peril, and we, sadly, will really get what we deserve.
78
@Skeptic Some of us will get what they deserve. The problem is they'll drag the rest of us along.
4
@Ske I'll be dead and gone as this planet warms dangerously. But my hear breaks for my children and their childrens' future world - and for All of the species (sea, land, and air) Already so apparent (and measured) lost to unbridled economic 'progress' and over-population by the human species.....
Once upon a time in the Land of OZ -->
"You cursed brat, look what you've done! I'm melting! Ohhhhh... What a world, my world! Who ever thought a little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness?! Ahhhh, I'm going! Ahhh!"
It is time to ban all pesticides and herbicides on lawns. Let us embrace clover, dandelion and beautiful weeds! The "green" lawn needs to be the thing of the past.
267
@LFelber
I concur! What good or value is an empty chemically enhanced green lawn?
It's the birds, bees, butterflies, fireflies and grasshoppers that enrich a lawn, not to mention leaving cut grass on a freshly cut lawn which naturally fertilizes the lawn.
15
@Marge Keller
I agree! We moved into my mother in laws house with a lawn garden. You would not believe the amount of chemicals in the garage that were needed to keep a beautiful green lawn. I took up the lawn and planted perennial flowers. Now were have happy bees and butterflies visiting our garden.
9
What percentage of the nation has been deforested during those 50 years?
Trees are the answer to many questions.
51
@Bryci The nation has more forest cover now than 50 years ago (https://www.fs.fed.us/research/rpa/). Birds are most abundant in young open forests and old forests, so it might be that a lot of forests are in early-mature dense stands. But overall deforestation would not be a factor for the US and Canada.
5
@Bryci Good one B -- TREES Also Are the Most cost-effective and easiest Method to extract CO2 from the atmosphere. Plant Many Trees, Nurture Nature !!!
@Bryci
In many places there are MORE trees now than in centuries past. The land cleared for farms in the northeast in the 1700's has reverted to forests.
BUT many trees are dying. The street I grew up on dates to the mid 1800's. It was lined with arching maples and oaks. Those trees - over 2 feet in diameter are all now gone - dead. Some died from disease, others from foreign pests. Some died from expanded driveways. Many maples are dying from the top down - burned by far stronger UV rays.
It also seems as if more trees are being brought down during storms that are more intense than in the past.
Wetlands are disappearing despite supposed protections.
We spent our vacations in national parks out west. Half of the pines found in Rocky Mountain NP - and other places - are dead - massive stands of brown and grey amongst green. Warmer winters no longer kill off pine beetles.
1
I've been a bird watcher for almost fifty years. That is, year in year out, no matter the weather, I spend at least part of every day observing birds.
Volume. Birdsong is much softer than it used to be. That is because there are fewer birds. The sounds of spring birds at dawn used to be almost deafening in my hometown. Now we almost have Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring."
Number. I see a fraction of the number of birds I used to see.
Variety. There are bird species that I used to see *every time I left the house* that I don't see from year to year any more.
I'm watching all this. I see it.
I'm afraid and I am sad. "Canary in the coal mine."
We are in that mine. The canary is dead.
209
I would like to hear more about some bird species displacing others.
I lived in one neighborhood in Santa Monica, CA where in fewer than ten years the beautifuly raucous springtime chorus of many bird voices was completely replaced by the cawing of crows. Only crows.
I have affection for the smart, resilient crow, but I mourn the eggs and fledglings which they eat out of the nests of other species.
Meanwhile, I know far fewer people who let their housecats roam outside than in my childhood. Why blame only the cats?
12
It's unclear to me how anyone reading this article could not feel incredibly frightened by the future of our planet because of what we are doing to it. But probably close to half of the American population would read this article and say one or more of the following: who cares what happens to birds?; This is a made up story to help researchers get more money to study birds; this may not even be a man-made problem. And the reason they would say that is because this is just more 'fake news' to them. And THAT viewpoint is our true existential crisis.
339
@Leo You forgot the windmills that "kill all the birds"!
9
@Leo Most Americans would never read this article in the first place.
22
@John Sad to say, but I actually think there is a high likelihood that some will actually make this very point, but in seriousness, not in jest. It definitely sounds like something someone would put in a tweet...
3
I am 71 and a lifelong casual birder. For 50 years, my family owned 70 acres of uninterrupted mixed deciduous/ conifer forest adjacent to the southwestern Adirondack Park boundary where we had a year-round home used often in all seasons. In the 1970’s, we would awaken to a cacophony of birdsong. In 2012 when I retired to the same home, mornings were dead silent but for an occasional chickadee or blue jay call. Likewise, the melodic song of the woodthrush we heard every evening at dusk was absent. After dark, there were few if any owls calling to each other deep in the woods. Loons had been gone for years from a nearby lake, though two nesting pairs have been back for the last three years. I knew a decade ago, just from what was happening in my own formerly songbird heavy piece of the earth, something was and continues to be tragically wrong. If we continue to spoil our planet and do little or nothing to save it, then perhaps the last species to face extinction will be our own.
189
@Linda Kazel
Indeed, there are exceptions to the rule...but the bird population is marginal at best around our property.
On vacation in New Hampshire, I woke every morning to a flock of loon (6-8) calling to each other. They seem to take delight in acting as nature's alarm for the morning. A reall joy to watch.
However, on hiking through several state forests it was almost silent except for the occasion swallow or blue jay. What Trump is doing right now is reprehensible and has to stopped next year to start to reverse the trend
35
My friend, a doctor and avid birder, is just in shock. Modern historical norms are having less and less predictive value in nature, whether among living creatures on the planet or the planet's weather and its oceans.
If only politicians in power truly believed the scientific data about what is happening to Mother Earth as a result of human caused climate disruption.
22
@A Goldstein, I don't blame the only the politicians, I blame the people who elect them.
3
@A Goldstein politicians are not as stupid as they appear. It is just that many value power and money over anything else. There are very stupid people out there though. They vote for those liars.
Anybody heard of, 'a canary in a coal mine?' They were used as an early warning system of gas build-ups so the miners could escape before the gas killed them. Well they're on the surface now and the message couldn't be more clear. Only problem- we have no place to escape to.
29
Hmmm. My neighbor has a cat which regularly kills birds. She refuses to "bell the cat" on the specious grounds that the collar holding the bell might become entangled in a branch or fence, strangling the cat. She claimed that it was her veterinarian who told gave her this rationale. The cat has been killing birds without entanglement for, I estimate, ten years. How many dead birds, I've queried, does it take to make up the moral equivalent of one theoretically strangled cat?
68
@Tim Tim I am with you on this one. I adore my cats, Lewis and Clark, but they have lived their entire lives indoors and seem happy and healthy. My neighbors cats run loose in the neighborhood and when they come to my yard they get to meet my BB gun. Don't worry...I'm a terrible shot :-)
8
@Tim There are breakaway collars for cats. I have cats and they wear collars with bells and have never caught a bird and I feed the birds too. There are humane box traps for cats. I would trap the cat, put a bell collar on it and next time you see the cat without the collar, he/she would be going to the kitty heaven.
9
The Heisenbird uncertainty question
4
Some years back, another newspaper did a long article about the use of bird feeders and the impact on disappearing species of birds. Each time I have brought this up, I have been subjected to vehement denials including from a representative of the Sierra Club, yet the article was scientific in its approach. Diseases are passed from one bird to another when feeders are not clean, and young birds do not learn to forage on their own when presented too often with free food. Birds represent a form of entertainment for many who use bird feeders, feel they are "saving" birds, and refuse to give them up. This article is remiss for not exploring this issue.
13
@kay
Consider radiation poisoning, increased use of powerful pesticides/fungicides and other toxins.
The loss of birds is not just a tragedy for ornithologists or birdsong aficionados. Birds are essential in the food chain. They keep pests in check.
Notice we are getting more 'new' diseases to worry about from ticks and from mosquitos...
The Fukushima disaster contaminated the northern hemisphere with radioactive particles; we now have reports that 100x the Fukushma dose was released on 2 Oct 2017 by the Russian nuclear facility called "Mayak."
When will we call the leadership to account?
16
@kay
I finally convinced my mother to stop putting out bird feeders. The feeders supported masses of finches, and a few mourning doves, and rats.
Now she has only birdbaths, which we rinse and refill with clean water daily.
A great variety of birds come now, warblers, bluebirds and orioles, kinglets, towhees and others. The water is essential in our dry summer climate, not many natural water sources left.
I suggest well maintained birdbaths to anyone who wishes to help the birds, and you will be rewarded with their beauty.
17
@Marika H
I am glad you were able to convince your mother to stop her bird feeding. I was unable to do that with my mother, despite the manager of her building asking her to stop because of seed dropped on the ground attracting mice and other pests. People who use bird feeders are almost involved in a kind of religion and will rarely be convinced they are doing harm.
2
Last week people on social media were gushing over the glass cube that is the new Apple Building on Fifth Avenue, and all I thought was how many birds would be confused and slam right into it.
It's not a mystery reflective glass buildings kill birds -- we've known this for decades and it's touched on in the article. So why we still have these things going up without any regulations about making the glass more visible? Oh yeah -- government "overreach."
27
This is very sad to see that our birds are loosing the game in this world due to various factors, including pestesides, hitting the windows, cats, wildlife predators, but most of all the invasive specie :THE HUMAN PREDATOR that is eliminating various bird species every year. There are lists published by USDA-APHIS among others: "Bird Damage Management" listing the birds (animals) getting killed by Wildlife Services on annual basis and you will not be surprised why the birds populations are vanishing year to year. They are getting killed in the daylight or night time, with little notice to the public, and with justified reasons. The animals have no chance at surviving this protocol.
8
How remarkable. We are representatives of just one of the millions of species of living things on earth, and our species is the only one capable of recognizing problems such as this and coming up with solutions. And yet we continue to elect science-denying politicians who encourage the continuing destruction of the planet. Shame on us. On the other hand, maybe we'll get a tax break or two. That will make it all worthwhile, won't it?
37
@morecurious Humans appear capable of recognizing problems but incapable of doing anything about them when it affects their immediate self-interest.
1
I have lived in my home for 40 years and have noticed a steep decline in the numbers and species of birds here. This is an urban neighborhood so cats are numerous, but there has also been an increase in density and traffic and a loss of vacant land. Our summers are longer and hotter too. All these factors surely have a negative effect on birds and other animals.
23
The Population Bomb is real. We don’t notice it because the first casualties are other species and the natural world. Humans and our built ecosystem are now so artificial that Earth’s collapse will enter into our consciousness only when the internet stops working, the lights go out, and the Amazon delivery truck doesn’t show up.
64
Not sure I want to live on a planet devoid of wildlife and natural beauty while we poison the air, water and land in pursuit of this ‘illusion’ that we can sustain maximum growth no matter the consequences.
79
@Pat Bindrim
I am absolutely positive I do not want to live on a planet without birds and wildlife. I only ever wanted to be outside, poking into things and watching nature. I know that"life" will go on , in forms we may not recognize. But the brilliant diversity of species which humans have evolved alongside and benefited from- I am utterly devastated at the great extinction we are witnessing. When wealthy, urban people talk about having gated communities "safe rooms" and emergency supplies to survive as the population bursts and civil unrest looms- I think , what life is that? I am only interested in a human community that helps each other, and respects nature, and anything else is alien to me.
9
This is more complicated than it appears.
Researching the Barred owls in my back yard, I read that they have in recent years extended their range from Eastern forests to the Pacific Northwest. As the Barred owl population grew there they cause a reduction in other owls, causing some concern.
Was it habitat loss or temperature changes that cause the Barred owl to extend it's range?
5
Has anyone collated data from janitors and maintenance people who clean up outside of skyscrapers and tall office buildings, to try to calculate how many birds die from crashing into those structures? We do seem to keep building more and more of them.
8
@sleepy
The rats get to them long before the maintenance crews.
The introduction of 5G technology will only exacerbate these issues.
5