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Global Trends Show Seabird Populations Dropped 70 Percent Since 1950s

posted by janrinok on Sunday July 12 2015, @02:30AM   
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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Original Submission

• Re:Not totally sure i believe this (Score: 2) by Hawkwind on Sunday July 12 2015, @06:00PM

  by Hawkwind (3531) on Sunday July 12 2015, @06:00PM (#208197)

  I find this kind of big environmental statistical trend data fun and I too would like some more detail. Just off the top of my head: they're heavily relying on Southern Hemisphere data which has severe limitations. I don't have access to articles that I've read but I don't think they've seen this radical of a change in the big studies in Europe (there's a big Northern Europe migration dataset) or in the Cornell bird dataset. Also there's somewhat of a dismissal of isolated populations. This article (written by a Master's student?) if important will generate some follow-up but for now I see an article relying on the poorly tracked Southern Hemisphere, not delving in to the better known datasets, and not giving fuller credit to regional datasets. Maybe this student will write a more thorough paper?
   
  Note I didn't read their supporting document but really these points should be clearly dealt with in the main article.

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