This year’s
theme for the May Migratory Bird Day (Global Bird Day) is WATER:
Sustaining Bird Life. Jim and I once again traveled our small island in
search of the number of species still around after migration, especially of
the water birds and the arrival of summer species.
While so much
of the world is suffering from lack of water, we in the Pacific
Northwest are blessed to have such an abundance of this vital
resource.
Water is
fundamental to sustaining life on our planet. Migratory birds rely on water and
its associated habitats—lakes, rivers, streams, ponds, swamps, marshes, and
coastal wetlands—for breeding, resting, refueling during migration, and
wintering. Yet increasing human demand for water, along with climate change,
pollution, and other factors, are threatening these precious aquatic
ecosystems.
Headlines
around the world are sounding alarm: 35 percent of the world’s wetlands,
critical to migratory birds, have been lost in the last 50 years. Utah’s Great Salt Lake, the largest saltwater lake in the
Western Hemisphere and used by more than a
million shorebirds, is in danger of disappearing within five years.
Across the Amur-HeilongBasin
in Asia, climate change is amplifying the
impact of habitat destruction by depleting natural water systems and depriving
migratory birds of vital breeding and stopover site. Lake Chad, one of the
largest water bodies in Africa in 1960, lost
90 % of its area, depleting water resources for local communities and also for
many migratory birds.
Reports are
sobering examples which reveal that 48 percent of bird species worldwide are
undergoing population declines.
World
Migratory Bird Day serves as an international call to action for the protection
of migratory birds, whose ranges often span multiple countries, and are facing
many different threats worldwide.
