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Global Trends Show Seabird Populations Dropped 70 Percent Since 1950s

posted by janrinok on Sunday July 12 2015, @02:30AM   Printer-friendly
from the let's-wait-until-it-is-too-late dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

UBC research shows world's monitored seabird populations have dropped 70 per cent since the 1950s, a stark indication that marine ecosystems are not doing well.

Michelle Paleczny, a UBC master's student and researcher with the Sea Around Us project, and co-authors compiled information on more than 500 seabird populations from around the world, representing 19 per cent of the global seabird population. They found overall populations had declined by 69.6 per cent, equivalent to a loss of about 230 million birds in 60 years.

"Seabirds are particularly good indicators of the health of marine ecosystems," said Paleczny. "When we see this magnitude of seabird decline, we can see there is something wrong with marine ecosystems. It gives us an idea of the overall impact we're having."

The dramatic decline is caused by a variety of factors including overfishing of the fish seabirds rely on for food, birds getting tangled in fishing gear, plastic and oil pollution, introduction of non-native predators to seabird colonies, destruction and changes to seabird habitat, and environmental and ecological changes caused by climate change.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 12 2015, @02:49AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 12 2015, @02:49AM (#208051)

    The headline is misleading. They found fewer seabirds were being monitored, especially since 2000. Not that there were fewer overall.

    We found the monitored portion of the global seabird population to have declined overall by 69.7% between 1950 and 2010.

    http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0129342 [plos.org]

  • (Score: 3, Touché) by Bill Evans on Sunday July 12 2015, @03:39AM

    by Bill Evans (1094) on Sunday July 12 2015, @03:39AM (#208057) Homepage

    If the monitored portion of the global seabird population has declined overall, that is not the same as "fewer seabirds were being monitored".

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 12 2015, @09:26AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 12 2015, @09:26AM (#208097)

      So show where in the paper they distinguish between the two causes.

  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Empyrean on Sunday July 12 2015, @07:17PM

    by Empyrean (5241) on Sunday July 12 2015, @07:17PM (#208217)

    It's not misleading, you just didn't understand it. The number of birds in the populations that were being monitored dropped by 70%, strongly indicating that there are fewer sea birds overall.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 12 2015, @11:19PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 12 2015, @11:19PM (#208261)

      No, I just read the paper.