Quiet Europe: The continent is losing its birds – knowledge

In Europe, there is evidently a historic decline in birds. According to a study by an international team of scientists, the EU countries and Great Britain lost almost every fifth breeding bird in the past 40 years. This means that around 600 million fewer birds live on the territory of the European Union than in 1980. This corresponds to a loss of more than 40,000 birds per day.

According to the study, the massive decline in birds can be traced back to enormous populations of so-called common birds, i.e. species that are still widespread and still relatively common compared to others. The number of house sparrows in Europe has halved during the lifespan of a 40-year-old person. With a loss of nearly 250 million birds, the sparrow tops the list of the biggest losers.

The second largest decrease is recorded by the yellow wagtail living on meadows and pastures with a population loss of almost 100 million birds. The other species with massive populations such as starling (minus 75 million individual birds), skylark (minus 68 million) or blood linens (minus 34 million) are linked by the fact that they mainly live in the open agricultural landscape, where they use pesticides and increasingly intensive land use make survival difficult.

Although the scientists in this study did not explicitly examine the causes of bird decline, the listing of the biggest winners and losers according to habitat shows that intensive agriculture in particular is likely to play a key role. “The study results show in a depressing way that it has not yet been possible to ensure birds survive in the agricultural landscape,” says Sven Trautmann from the umbrella organization of German Avifaunists (DDA), who contributed the data from Germany for the analysis. “Intensive farming brings our birds to their knees.”

Starfish populations are also shrinking at an alarming rate.

(Photo: imago stock & people / imago stock & people)

The situation of the bird species that breed in fields, meadows and pastures and also migrate over long distances to their winter quarters has deteriorated even more than the first glance suggests. Because today there are almost a billion fewer bird individuals of these species in the EU than 40 years ago. Because the losses among tree sparrows, lapwing, black-tailed godwit and Co. are also offset by bird species that have been able to significantly increase their populations, the analysis results in a net balance of minus 600 million bird individuals over 40 years.

The at least temporary winners include bird species that either get used to life in the immediate vicinity of humans and have no special requirements for their habitat, or those species that live in forests. Climate change could also have had a positive effect, at least temporarily, with milder winters. The biggest winners are blackcaps with a population plus of 55 million birds, followed by chiffchaff, blackbird and wren, which have increased their populations across Europe by more than 25 million individuals in the past decades.

Germany today has 16 million fewer birds than 25 years ago

For theirs in the trade journal Ecology and Evolution published study The conservation biologists from the RSPB Center for Conservation Science, the Czech ornithological association and the nature conservation umbrella organization Birdlife International evaluated the results of the breeding bird monitoring of all member states as well as data from the years 1980 to 2017, which all EU member states have to report regularly to the European Commission.

According to the DDA, the downward trend of many species in Germany also has an impact on the Europe-wide results. The decline in starlings in this country accounts for five percent of all European losses. Overall, Trautmann estimates that Germany has lost a good 16 million birds in the past quarter of a century.

“For many people, conservation is synonymous with saving rare species from extinction, but it’s just as important to restore the decimated populations of more common species,” says lead author of the study, Fiona Burns, referring to the importance of birds to this Functioning of ecosystems. “The loss of hundreds of millions of individuals is also likely to affect the benefits we humans derive from nature, be it pest control by insectivorous birds on farmland, pollination and seed dispersal, or just the joy of seeing spectacular bird populations like flocks of starlings to observe.”

White-tailed eagle and peregrine falcon populations have recovered

DDA managing director Christoph Sudfeldt also emphasizes the importance of birds for the functioning of entire ecosystems. “The greater the losses, the more difficult it becomes to maintain the web of life,” he warns. “We do not know when we have reached tipping points at which the damage to humans and nature becomes irreversible – but we know that we are approaching them ever faster in birds.”

imposing bird of prey ... White-tailed eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla), largest native eagle in flapping flight over reeds, impressive

After all, protective measures have prevented sea eagles from becoming extinct in Europe.

(Photo: imago stock / imago images / R. Kistowski / wunder)

Researcher Burns, however, is important to obtain positive results from the analysis, despite all the drama. The study found that there was a significant increase in seven bird of prey species because there is better protection against persecution than in the 1980s. Rescuing these species such as white-tailed eagles and peregrine falcons shows that nature conservation requirements such as those set out in the European Birds Directive could also work. Most of the bird decline also seems to have taken place before the turn of the millennium and has since weakened. She also has hope in the upcoming Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

At this World Nature Summit – a kind of sister conference to the climate summit that has just ended – the almost 200 member states want to set targets for the protection and more sustainable use of global ecosystems in Kunming, China, in May. The declared goal of the UN Convention is to stop the extinction of species by 2030 and to achieve a harmonious coexistence of humans and nature on the planet by the middle of the century. The European Union is part of an “alliance of ambitious states” in the ongoing negotiations for the new world biodiversity agreement. She advocates placing 30 percent of land and sea areas under effective protection in order to stop species loss. The same should happen in Europe. “Our study is a wake-up call and shows the gravity of the situation,” says Burns. “We need a strong deal – all eyes are on Kunming.”

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