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.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday July 12 2015, @03:51AM
First, people would have noticed a 70% decline. Even in the absence of a study.
Second, sea birds do not significantly compete for any commercially fished species other than very small herring and sardines. And wales as well as commercially fished species take more of those species than birds do.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Sunday July 12 2015, @05:52AM
This isn't an area I know anything about, but it doesn't seem like it passes the sniff test. They require five data points; is that enough? What is the quality of population data? Not saying it isn't true, but that would be a huge drop. If true, it seems extraordinarily unlikely that we wouldn't have heard about such a huge drop before, from various nature organizations.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by Hawkwind on Sunday July 12 2015, @06:00PM
Note I didn't read their supporting document but really these points should be clearly dealt with in the main article.