Birds that eat flying insects are in a shocking and mysterious decline, says the co-editor of the new Atlas of Breeding Birds in Ontario.
"It is an alarm bell," Gregor Beck, a wildlife biologist and the book's co-editor, said this week.
The atlas, created after five years of research and employing 1.2 million individual bird records from Pelee Island to Hudson Bay, found most of the birds that eat flying insects declined 30 to 50 per cent in the last 20 years. The birds include some swallows, the common nighthawk, the whip-poor-will and the chimney swift. The decline was the biggest shock that came from the research, Beck said.
We need to be very concerned, he said.
"It's really scary because we're not certain what's going on or why," Beck said. "There's not going to be a simple fix to this one."
In the Carolinian zone, which stretches from Windsor to Grand Bend and Toronto, scientists found 79 species had increased while 131 species of birds had decreased in the last 20 years.
Click here for the full article.
For more animal-esque music, news, and issues, tune in to Kitty Mowmow's Animal Expo online at www.thecapstone.ua.edu, Sunday nights 8-10 central.
Loading ...
qwretuuhjkkl;