Extinction Eminent
The number of endangered and threatened birds in North America is alarming. Threats from climate change, pollution, and habitat loss plague these amazing, unique, and beautiful animals. Nearly one-third of the wild birds in the United States and Canada have vanished since 1970, a staggering loss that suggests the very fabric of North America’s ecosystem is unraveling. Birds are an indicator species, serving as acutely sensitive barometers of environmental health, and their mass declines signal that the earth’s biological systems are in trouble. We can do better, and we must, if only in our own self-interest, because trouble for birds means trouble for us as well.