After half a century of steep declines, North America’s birds are disappearing faster than ever. A new study shows that populations are shrinking across most of the continent, with intensive agriculture playing the largest role in accelerating those losses. Scientists warn the impacts extend well beyond wildlife, undermining ecosystem function and human well-being. The recent study, published in Science, relied on data collected by the Breeding Bird Survey (BBS), a citizen science initiative that has collected annual bird population data since 1966. Thousands of trained amateur birders conduct standardized counts for the BBS along fixed routes across North America, recording species presence and abundance year after year. Researchers analyzed BBS data collected between 1987 and 2021 from 1,033 of the survey routes. They tracked the change in abundance of 261 bird species across 10 different habitats. They found population declines across nearly every region, with the most severe declines in hot Southern states. In fact, already quite-hot states, like Florida and Texas, had the “most pronounced average decline” of bird abundance, the study notes. “Just looking at the decline of abundance … temperature was the main predictor,” François Leroy, the study’s lead author and an Ohio State University postdoctoral researcher, told Mongabay in a video call. While plenty of other studies have linked warmer temperatures due to climate change with degraded habitat and a shift north by birds to cooler climates, Leroy’s findings suggest that such warming is most impactful in regions that were already quite hot. However, the scientists…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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