Conservation

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Copyright © Daniel Poleschook

Status of Washington’s Birds

Is Washington State losing birds?  Almost one third of our birds are vulnerable to drastic population declines.  Folks from Audubon Washington (including Tim Cullinan, a member of the OPAS Conservation Committee and Science Director at Audubon-WA) recently worked with a team of ornithologists and wildlife management experts to determine which of our bird species are secure or facing risks to their continued existence in our state. The resulting data was then published in a report entitled “State of the Birds.” The team found that, of the 317 species studied that live or migrate through Washington each year, 93 species and four subspecies are at risk.

The report states that we are losing our birds from “pollution, pesticides, chemical and oil spills, invasive nonnative plant and animal species, collisions with man-made structures, and predation by uncontrolled cats and dogs. But by far the greatest threat to birds is the loss of their habitat from human population growth and alteration of the landscape.”

You can see which birds are of immediate and high concern, the types of habitats required by the birds, and the status of those habitats. The hard-copy version of the report is available in the Dungeness River Audubon Center.