UC ornithologist sounds alarm about loss of Cincinnati bird population

He told WVXU that his ongoing study has found that many bird species are in sharp decline, echoing findings by researchers elsewhere that the United States has lost 3 billion birds since 1970.

Each summer Canterbury has set up mist nets a few times a week at places like UC's Center for Field Studies and Great Parks of Hamilton County to catch and band birds. He records data on the species, age, sex, weight and wing lengths of the birds he catches and places a uniquely numbered band on one leg that can help track their migration, age and movements if they are recaptured.

The population trends he has observed are alarming, he said.

“Birds are in big decline,” he told WVXU. “I don't catch nearly as many as I did 20 or 30 years ago. Twenty years ago I would trap 50 to 70 birds (in a day). Nowadays the numbers are more like 10 to 20. Most species are declining, and we know that from many other forms of research.”

Canterbury said there are several likely reasons, including habitat loss, predation by feral cats and glass windows, which kill hundreds of millions of birds each year, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

He said we need to protect more open spaces, not just for birds but for other animals as well.

“You're saving much more than the bird sometimes,” he said. “You might be working on a cerulean warbler, but if you go down the food web, you're going to be saving a white-footed mouse on the ground, an owl that would eat that mouse, insects and all kinds of things.”

Read the WVXU story.

Featured image at top: UC Professor Ronald Canterbury's students learn to band birds at UC's Center for Field Studies. Photo/Andrew Higley/UC Marketing + Brand