The Science We Need to Save Migratory Birds

Migratory birds are almost a perfect metaphor for hope—so much so that Emily Dickinson’s line “hope is the thing with feathers” has become a cliché. Every year, just when we feel like the cold, gray months of winter may never end, migratory birds return from their wintering ranges to refill our fields and forests with color and song. In the darkest spring of my life, when I was facing a cancer diagnosis just as the world was shutting down due to COVID in 2020, birds were one of the things that kept me going. Noting the return of warblers, tanagers, and buntings that spring gave me something to focus on beyond my own troubles, a reminder that the bigger world was still continuing, still beautiful, even if my own immediate future felt uncertain. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] But now more than ever, birds need our help. It’s our turn to be a source of hope for these wild creatures. We are in the midst of a sixth mass extinction, and birds are part of it. A landmark study published in 2019 that drew on a wide range of data sources concluded that there are approximately 3 billion fewer birds living in North America today than there were in 1970—a staggering 29 percent decline. The volume of annual bird migration on our continent, as seen on the nationwide weather radar system, each year has dropped by 14% in just the last decade. The causes are many and include habitat loss as well as pesticide use, collisions with human-ma...
Source: TIME: Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Excerpt freelance Science Source Type: news