Martin Meyers Photo of the month - Audubon California is safeguarding Tricoloured Blackbirds Zoom In

BirdLife News Round-up: May 2008

05-05-2008

Birds are some of the most colourful species on the planet. News at birdlife.org last month certainly represented a broad spectrum of stories from around the world.

Australia’s Endangered Regent Honeyeater, with its brilliant flashes of yellow feathers, was once seen in flocks hundreds-strong. Sadly, there could be as few as 1,000 birds left in the wild today. We reported how twenty-seven birds, all fitted with radio transmitters, have been successfully released into the wild (New hope for Regent Honeyeater).

However, a single flash of colour just isn’t enough for some birds. Endangered Tricoloured Blackbirds in California display bright red and white swatches on their wings. Last month we heard how a single colony of about 80,000 blackbirds has been protected by Audubon California (Tricoloured mega-colony saved). The Endangered Madagascar Pond-heron also caught our attention in May with the development of a new Species Action Plan to help reverse its alarming decline (Madagascar Pond-heron thrown a lifeline).

Our Think Pink campaign announced that Tata Chemicals Ltd has finally withdrawn the much discredited Environmental and Social Impact Assessment. BirdLife International continues to urge the Tanzanian Government to reject the project altogether (Tata withdraws Natron project ESIA Report). For the sake of Lesser Flamingos at Lake Natron - let’s hope they listen.

May was also a month of meetings. At BirdLife’s 31^st Global Council Meeting, Her Highness Sheikha Jawaher Bint Hamad Bin Sahim Al-Thani consort to the Heir Apparent of Qatar announced a stunning donation of $1 million ($1 million donation as Qatar joins the BirdLife Partnership). The money will be used to establish a BirdLife fund to conserve birds and biodiversity, and to promote sustainable use of natural resources through site protection and management across the Middle East. All those green-backs will really go a long way.

Conferences in Slovenia (Slovenia conference: CAP debate…) and Bonn (UN Conference fails life on Earth; UN conference hails Natura 2000…), and reports about Biofuels (New report shows EU biofuel policy…) and the Common Agricultural Policy (Much ado about nothing?...), all highlighted the increasing environmental challenges posed by climate change.

This issue was brought home in the middle of May as we reported news that climate change is acting as an accelerant to factors putting one in eight bird species at risk of extinction. The release of the 2008 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species of birds made grim reading (The Red List 2008: Climate change and continental drift). A total of 1,226 bird species are now threatened, and eight species have been uplisted to Critically Endangered - the highest threat category.

Feeling blue? Thankfully, there was also some good news. Two species whose situation has improved as a result of direct action are Marquesan Imperial-pigeon and Little Spotted Kiwi. Conservation works. This is why we have launched the BirdLife Preventing Extinctions Programme - the biggest and most wide-ranging bird conservation programme the world has ever seen.

So why not put the colour back into your life and help save Critically Endangered birds from extinction? Go on – click here…