© Sean Kilpatrick
The first State of North America's Birds report finds that of 1,154 bird species that live in and migrate among Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, 432 are of "high concern" due to low or declining populations, shrinking ranges and threats such as human-caused habitat loss, invasive predators and climate change.
Steven Price, president of Bird Studies Canada, a member of the North American Bird Initiative behind the report, says that since 1970, "the estimate is we've lost at least a billion birds from North America.... The trend lines are continuing down. They have to be turned around or will fall below a threshold where they can be recovered."
Most threatened, with more than half the species of "high concern" are ocean birds such as northern gannets, tropical and sub-tropical birds, including many that breed in Canada and the U.S., but winter in Mexico.
There are also steep declines in coastal shorebirds like semipalmated and western sandpipers and red knots, which have lost 90 per cent of their population; grassland birds such as the greater sage grouse, Sprague's pipit and chestnut-collared longspur; and aridland birds.
Comment: Also this week an intense hailstorm hit Sinop in Turkey.