If you were alive in 1970, more than 1 in 4 birds in the U.S. and Canada have disappeared within your lifetime.
According to research published Sept. 19 by the journal Science, the total breeding bird population in the continental U.S. and Canada has dropped by 29 percent since that year.
“We were astounded by this result … the loss of billions of birds,” said the study’s lead author, Ken Rosenberg, an applied conservation scientist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and a leader of research and planning on joint initiatives by the Lab and the American Bird Conservancy.
Rosenberg led a research team of scientists from seven institutions from the U.S. and Canada in the analysis of 529 bird species. The team analyzed the most robust synthesis of long-term-monitoring population surveys ever assembled for a group of wildlife species; it also analyzed radar imagery.
Read more at Cornell University
Image: The study found that 2.9 billion migratory birds have been lost from the U.S. and Canada since 1970, including 2 in 5 Baltimore orioles lost. CREDIT: Gary Mueller/Macaulay Library at Cornell Lab of Ornithology