Birds vanishing in the Philippines

[Joanne98]

Source: AFP

CANDABA, Philippines — The number of birds flying south to important wintering grounds in the Philippines has fallen sharply this year, with experts saying the dramatic demise of wetlands and hunting are to blame.

Despite some harsh, cold weather across the Eurasian landmass, some waterbirds that usually migrate in huge flocks to the tropical islands have been completely absent, said Philippine-based Danish ornithologist Arne Jensen.

"The flyway populations of several waterbird species are in constant and dramatic decline," Jensen, who advises the Philippine government on species conservation, told AFP.

"Hence the urgent need to establish real and well-managed, hunting-free waterbird sanctuaries along the migratory flyways."



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[SpiralHawk]

1. "Tweet - sputter, gasp, sputter." - The Birds

[Bonhomme Richard]

2. Rapture! Evidently the evangelist mis-understood. It seems that God....

meant that he was going to bring all the good birds to heaven.

[WhiteTara]

3. I wonder if it has to do with the the oil wrecked gulf? n/t

[Nihil]

6. Geography FAIL (n/t)

[WhiteTara]

7. well, birds keep on flying

and after visiting the oil wrecked gulf, they moved on...some died. Just a thought. I do know the Philippines is NOT around the gulf.

[Nihil]

8. Sorry - I have a low tolerance for that sort of comment.

I just get irritated when people trot out "maybe it was the oil in the Gulf"
in completely inappropriate situations ... ignoring the thousands of other
man-made ecological disasters for the sake of the one that they actually
noticed ...

Sorry that I was a bit harsh in my response to you.

[WhiteTara]

9. My thought was winter migrations.

Birds stop many places along the way to their winter grounds. I watched in dread as flocks of winter geese flew over our house for about three days on their way to poisoned water. But, you're right; there are MANY human made disasters on the planet and each should be talked about loudly. We are definitely destroying our planet and incidentally, our very own lives.

Sorry to have been so flip with my first response.

[pampango]

4. The swamp two generations ago covered 27,000 hectares (66,690 acres), but it is now just 77 hectares

-- or less than one percent of its original size. More like one quarter of one percent of its old size.

"The main threat is hunting," said Lu, amid occasional loud bangs that were apparently gunfire or firecrackers set off by local residents seeking to flush out the birds.

But Lu also pointed to the dramatic shrinkage in the size of the swamp over the past 50 years as the region was converted into farmland, mainly rice fields.

The lake lacks surface plant life after the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos ordered the water lilies removed so he could jetski from his lakeside mansion, while a former local official used to shoot ducks there, Lu said.

Since the water lily purge, water levels have continued to drop as farmers siphoned off water to irrigate farmland, while poor residents around the lake cut down trees, which they burnt to sell as charcoal, local bird watchers said.

[somone]

5. Wild birds are the canaries in our global coal mine