Saving World's Critically Endangered Birds

Saving World's Critically Endangered Birds



Aug. 2007  - The conservation group BirdLife 
International today reached out for financial help to save all 189 of the 
world's Critically Endangered birds from extinction, not just a threatened 
population here and there. 
The group is inviting companies, organizations and individuals to become 
BirdLife Species Champions by contributing the funding that can keep 
entire species from vanishing forever. 
With its more than 100 BirdLife Partner organizations around the world, 
the network has been successful in saving some birds one species at a 
time, but the pressures that lead to extinction have been building 
"relentlessly," the group said.

"We have the capacity and expertise to achieve our conservation goals," 
said BirdLife. "What we don't yet have is the funding." 
"Critically Endangered birds can be saved from extinction through this 
innovative approach," said Dr. Mike Rands, chief executive of BirdLife 
International. 
Over the next five years, the group aims to raise £19,000,000 ($37.7 
million) from BirdLife Species Champions. 
The champions will fund the work of Species Guardians for each bird - 
organizations and people identified by BirdLife as being best placed to 
carry out the conservation work to prevent an otherwise certain 
extinction. 
"This is an enormous challenge," said Rand, "but one we are fully 
committed to achieving in our efforts to save the world's birds from 
extinction." 
The first BirdLife Species Champion has already stepped forward. 
The British Birdwatching Fair 2007 is contributing funds to help save four 
Critically Endangered bird species: 
the Bengal florican, rarest of the world's 27 bustard species, is still 
found in Cambodia, India and Nepal. 

Mexico's Belding's yellowthroat, found in fragmented populations in the 
freshwater marshes of the Baja California peninsula, is threatened by 
fires, reed-cutting for hotel and house construction, and drainage for 
agriculture and cattle-ranching. 

Brazil's Restinga antwren, a tiny insect-eater that inhabits just four 
square miles of coastal dunes in Rio de Janeiro state, and its habitat is 
shrinking due to beachfront development. 

Djibouti francolin, a woodland gamebird that is still clinging to 
shrinking habitat in the Goda and Mabla Mountains of the East African 
country of Djibouti. Ninety percent of the species has disappeared since 
1987. 

The BirdLife Species Champions initiative will be introduced officially at 
this year's British Birdwatching Fair at Rutland Water this weekend. 
The fair is co-organized by the Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust 
and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, RSPB, which is the 
BirdLife Partner organization in the United Kingdom. 
The plight of the Bengal florican will be in the spotlight at the British 
Birdwatching Fair.


Ian Barber, the RSPB's South Asia officer, said, "The Bengal florican is 
now hanging on in only three countries and is under huge pressure in all 
three." 
"It is only eight years since the bird's rediscovery in Cambodia and 
already it is facing oblivion. Even in protected sites in Nepal, land is 
being taken for agriculture leaving no room for the bird," Barber said. 
"This initiative may be its last hope." 
Fewer than 700 Bengal floricans, which resemble small ostriches, remain on 
the floodplain of Cambodia's Tonle Sap Lake, the largest freshwater lake 
in Southeast Asia. Ten years ago, 3,000 floricans inhabited the area. 
The Nepalese population of Bengal floricans, which is legally protected, 
has dropped by more than half in 25 years to fewer than 60 birds today. In 
India, only about 250 are left. 
Money raised at the fair will support a plan backed by the Cambodian 
government that encourages farmers on designated sites to resume 
traditional grazing and scrub clearance on grasslands instead of switching 
to dry-season rice growing. 
Government official Seng Kim Hout has seen how crucial the project is to 
florican survival. "These grasslands are disappearing before our eye," he 
said. "On revisiting many of our survey sites, we found the landscape 
unrecognizable from previous years, squeezing the floricans into a 
shrinking landscape in which they cannot survive." 
RSPB's Birdfair co-organizer Martin Davies said, "It is a fantastic 
privilege that Birdfair can act as Species Champion for the Bengal 
florican. Visitors to the fair can take heart in knowing that their 
contributions will directly help the survival prospects of birds that 
otherwise would certainly disappear from the planet forever." 
Without human interference, BirdLife says, the natural rate of bird 
extinctions should be less than one each century. 
Currently it is at least 50 times that and rising quickly. In the last 30 
years, 21 species have vanished into extinction, and the Hawaiian 
honeycreeper Po'o-uli, the Hawaiian Crow and Spix's Macaw have all 
disappeared from the wild since the year 2000. 
The good news, says BirdLife, is that 16 bird species were saved from 
extinction between 1994 and 2004, all as the result of specific 
conservation actions. 
The classification Critically Endangered describes species that have 
reached the highest category of extinction risk on the IUCN Red List. 
The basis of the IUCN Red List section on birds is the work of BirdLife 
scientists, who have assessed and classified the conservation status of 
every bird species in the world over many years of intensive research. 
The first few Critically Endangered birds for which BirdLife is urgently 
seeking Species Champions are:
 
      The Djibouti francolin has lost 90 percent of its number in the past 
      20 years.  

  In Africa – Djibouti francolin, Long-billed apalis, Dwarf olive ibis and 
  Taita thrush 

  In the Americas – Restinga antwren, Belding's yellowthroat, Royal 
  cinclodes, Puerto Rican nightjar and the Junin grebe 

  In Asia – Bengal florican, Mindoro bleeding-heart, White-shouldered 
  ibis, Negros bleeding-heart, Long-billed vulture, Slender-billed vulture 
  and White-rumped vulture 

  In the Middle East – Northern bald ibis
These birds have been chosen because of the extreme urgency of their 
situation and because there are clear and well-defined actions that are 
likely to make a significant difference in the near future. 
In addition, says BirdLife, there are suitable organizations or 
individuals in place who are well qualified to coordinate and implement 
conservation action. 
"One hundred and eighty-nine wonderful and fascinating bird species are on 
the brink of disappearing forever. Any such extinction diminishes us, and 
narrows our world," said Dr. Leon Bennun, Birdlife's director of science, 
policy and information. 
"But these birds can be saved," he said. "The support of Species Champions 
will make this possible." 

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