Worldwatch Paper 165:
Winged Messengers: The Decline of Birds

http://www.worldwatch.org/pubs/paper/165/

Available from the Worldwatch Institute:

The description from the above web site is as follows:

"Washington, D.C.—Bird populations around the world are plummeting faster than ever before, and human factors—from population growth to habitat destruction and climate change—are at the center of this demise, reports a new study from the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based research organization. Human-related factors are threatening 99 percent of the most imperiled bird species and contributing to what has become the greatest wave of extinctions since dinosaurs disappeared 65 million years ago, according to Howard Youth in Winged Messengers: The Decline of Birds.

“Declining bird populations mark not only the loss of unique species," says Youth, "but also the unraveling of delicate natural balances. Birds are valuable environmental indicators because they warn us of impending problems through their waning or flourishing populations.”

With twelve percent of the world’s bird population—almost 1,200 species—facing extinction in the next century, Winged Messengers outlines an array of phenomena that is accelerating this demise."

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