The global seabird population may have fallen by almost 70 per cent since 1950, a 2015 study suggests.
The study, published in PLOS ONE, analyzed data on 162 species, representing 19 per cent of the global seabird population.
Every single continent and every coastline of every single continent is represented in the study according to the authors.
Jeremy Hance of The Guardian writes:
Every day for sixty million years, seabirds have performed mind-boggling acts of derring-do: circumnavigating the globe without rest, diving more than 200 meters in treacherous seas for a bite of lunch, braving the most unpredictable weather on the planet as if it were just another Tuesday and finding their way home in waters with few, if any, landmarks.
Now, deteriorating environmental conditions worldwide maybe more than these evolutionary marvels can handle in their day to day struggle to survive.
Puffin..research reveals a strategic approach to migration, the team also found that long distance travel is hard work for puffins and comes with costly knock-on effects. Different migration strategies were reflected in the birds' breeding success the next summer, with puffins that travel vast distances having less chance of successfully rearing a chick the following year. This is likely due to an increase in the time spent in flight, resulting in the bird having a more energy-demanding winter and therefore returning to the colony in lower physical health ahead of the next breeding season.Seabirds, which include any bird that depends largely on the marine environment, comprise nearly 350 species worldwide – an astonishing variety of extreme-loving birds. For example, the indefatigable wandering albatross, which sports the largest wingspan on the planet; the child-sized Emperor penguin, the only bird that breeds during the Antarctic winter; and the tiny storm petrel that practically capers on the water as it feeds – they are named for St. Peter after all.
But, given that seabirds inhabit both the open ocean and the shoreline, this eclectic mix of birds faces a litany of threats: overfishing, drowning in fishing lines or nets, plastic pollution, invasive species like rats in nesting areas, oil and gas development and toxic pollution moving up the food chain. And as if these weren’t enough, the double-whammy of climate change and ocean acidification threatens to flood nesting sites and disrupt food sources.
As the earth’s fever continues to rise there are a multitude of potential impacts of rapid climate change on marine ecosystems that include changes in rainfall, wind patterns, storm frequency, coral bleaching, ocean acidity, sea-surface temperatures, disease incidence, and rising sea levels
CBS News expands on the study story noting that the most severe impacts are occurring in the Southern Hemisphere.
Some of worst drops were in the Southern Hemisphere, which includes Australia, Antarctica, most of South America and a third of Africa. Among the families hardest hit have been Sternidea, which includes terns and saw declines of 85.8 percent. That was followed by Frigatidae, a family which includes frigatebirds and saw declines of 81.7 percent. Then there was Procellariidae, a family that includes petrels and saw declines of 79.6 percent and Phalacrocoracida, a group that includes cormorants and shags, saw drops of 73.6 percent.
Of course Interior Secretary Zinke and Trump feel the need to deliberately aggravate the threat to all migratory birds.
Laurel Wamsley of NPR reports.
A legal memo from Trump posted in late December 2017, overturns yet another Obama rule which protects the environment, it “declares that the Migratory Bird Treaty Act applies only to purposeful actions that kill migratory birds, and not to energy companies and other businesses that kill birds incidentally”. This memo was written by Daniel Jorjani, Department of the Interior's principal deputy solicitor, a longtime adviser to Charles Koch.
CBS News continues:
The study concluded that the dramatic declines were caused by a range of factors, including overfishing of the fish seabirds rely on for food. Hundreds of thousands of birds each year get tangled in fishing gear and die or are sickened by oil spills or plastic pollution. They also face threats to their colonies from invasive predators such as rats that feast on their eggs. Other factors include destruction and changes to seabird habitat as well as the environmental and ecological changes caused by climate change.
They are especially vulnerable because of their dependence of a wide swath of open water for food, traveling the world's oceans to forage for food and returning to the same colonies to breed.
snip
"They may be responding to oceanic conditions that are thousands of miles from their breeding colonies," he said. "If you are a Hawaiian petrel that undertakes a foraging flight that literally takes up most of the northern Pacific Ocean and you don't find food, that is a tremendous exertion of energy and a chick that won't be fed."
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