Illinois Birds in Decline

Is this the swansong for Illinois’ songbirds?
Sep 11, 2007 @ 11:28 AM
By Clare Howard
GateHouse News Service

"America is dealing with new numbers showing the devastation of environmental degradation on common songbirds. One set of numbers comes from the National Audubon Society's recent report "Common Birds in Decline."

...Overall declines are 68 percent nationwide for 20 common birds. The list can be accessed at www.audubon.org...

...Illinois has changed over the 100 years of this survey, from 3 million acres in forest to 5.2 million now. Pasture, hay and grain fields went from 50 percent of the state to just 5 percent. The European starling is now the most common bird in Illinois cornfields, whereas it was totally absent 100 years ago...

...Dale Goodner, a naturalist with the Peoria Park District, said, "Birds are the canary in the coal mine." He said homeowners can do something to help bird populations by taking their yards out of turf and putting in perennials, trees, bushes and native grasses. Attracting insects will attract birds." Lawn has no habitat value. Lawn is a habitat desert"...

...John Mullen, naturalist at Forest Park Nature Center in Peoria Heights, said even small backyard conversions from turf to prairie plantings will attract birds. "If you build it, they will come," he said." Birds are our most cosmopolitan species. They travel great distances." He said declining bird populations say as much about human beings as they do about birds."

We have created an economic system not compatible with other species on the planet. Do we want to continue as we have and denude species other than ourselves? We have asked other species to adapt, but we are the single species with awareness of others and how they fare with the changes we have produced," he said. "Birds need less human impact on the world." MORE