News from the Noteworthy by Delaware-Otsego Audubon Society

Birds, Climate Change, Ways to Make an Impact

In 2019, a group of 11 researchers published a report in “Science” magazine documenting the staggering loss of “3 Billion Birds” (about one quarter of the entire North American bird population) since the 1970s.¹ Also in 2019, the National Audubon Society released “Survival by Degrees: 389 Bird Species on the Brink,” which compiled bird population data and projected the impacts to birds resulting from climate change in different warming scenarios.² Their interactive, online tools allow users to track anticipated changes to bird territories and population changes throughout the U.S. that are likely to come about as a result of climate change stressors. According to data from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the number of endangered and threatened species in the U.S. has grown from 70 species in 1967 to 1,725 species in 2024.³ Based on these reports and others, it is apparent that our environment is in dire need of attention.