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A28 SCIENCE
Monday 23 SepteMber 2019
Where have the wild birds gone? 3 billion fewer than 1970

By SETH BORENSTEIN and than 60 years. When he
CHRISTINA LARSON was younger there would
AP Science Writers be "invasions" of evening
WASHINGTON (AP) — North grosbeaks that his father
America's skies are lonelier would take him to see in
and quieter as nearly 3 bil- Upstate New York with 200
lion fewer wild birds soar in to 300 birds around one
the air than in 1970, a com- feeder. Now, he said, peo-
prehensive study shows. ple get excited when they
The new study focuses on see 10 grosbeaks.
the drop in sheer numbers The research only covered
of birds, not extinctions. wild birds, not domesticat-
The bird population in the ed ones such as chickens.
United States and Canada Rosenberg's study didn't
was probably around 10.1 go into what's making wild
billion nearly half a century birds dwindle away, but he
ago and has fallen 29% to pointed to past studies that
about 7.2 billion birds, ac- blame habitat loss, cats
cording to a study in Thurs- and windows.
day's journal Science . "Every field you lose, you
"People need to pay at- lose the birds from that
tention to the birds around field," he said. "We know
them because they are that so many things are kill-
slowly disappearing," said This April 14, 2019 file photo shows a western meadowlark in the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National ing birds in large numbers,
study lead author Kenneth Wildlife Refuge in Commerce City, Colo. like cats and windows."
Rosenberg, a Cornell Uni- Associated Press Experts say habitat loss was
versity conservation scien- the No. 1 reason for bird
tist. "One of the scary things "This is a landmark paper. house one morning and row was at the top of the loss. A 2015 study said cats
about the results is that it is It's put numbers to every- noticed that a third of all list for losses, as were many kill 2.6 billion birds each
happening right under our one's fears about what's the houses in your neigh- other sparrows. The popu- year in the United States
eyes. We might not even going on," said Joel Cra- borhood were empty, lation of eastern meadow- and Canada, while win-
notice it until it's too late." craft, curator-in-charge for you'd rightly conclude that larks has shriveled by more dow collisions kill another
Rosenberg and colleagues ornithology of the Ameri- something threatening was than three-quarters with 624 million and cars anoth-
projected population data can Museum of Natural His- going on," Rubega said in the western meadowlark er 214 million.
using weather radar, 13 dif- tory, who wasn't part of the an email. "3 billion of our nearly as hard hit. Bobwhite That's why people can
ferent bird surveys going study. neighbors, the ones who quail numbers are down do their part by keeping
back to 1970 and comput- "It's even more stark than eat the bugs that destroy 80%, Rosenberg said. cats indoors, treating their
er modeling to come up what many of us might our food plants and carry Grassland birds in general home windows to reduce
with trends for 529 species have guessed," Cracraft diseases like equine en- are less than half what they the likelihood that birds will
of North American birds. said. cephalitis, are gone. I think used to be, he said. crash into them, stopping
That's not all species, but Every year University of we all ought to think that's Not all bird populations pesticide and insecticide
more than three-quarters Connecticut's Margaret Ru- threatening." are shrinking. For example, use at home and buying
of them and most of the bega, the state ornitholo- Some of the most com- bluebirds are increasing, coffee grown on farms with
missed species are quite gist, gets calls from people mon and recognizable mostly because people forest-like habitat, said Sara
rare, Rosenberg said. noticing fewer birds. And birds are taking the biggest have worked hard to get Hallager, bird curator at
Using weather radar data, this study, which she wasn't hits, even though they are their numbers up. the Smithsonian Institution.
which captures flocks of part of, highlights an impor- not near disappearing yet, Rosenberg, a birdwatcher "We can reverse that
migrating birds, is a new tant problem, she said. Rosenberg said. since he was 3, has seen trend," Hallager said. "We
method, he said. "If you came out of your The common house spar- this firsthand over more can turn the tide."q

History buff finds ships that sank in 1878 in Lake Michigan

DETROIT (AP) — A diver and Bernie Hellstrom, of Boyne down on the lake bottom (3 meters) apart with their historian Brendon Baillod
maritime history buff has City, Michigan, said he near Beaver Island. masts atop one another. was recruited to help solve
found two schooners that was looking for shipwrecks "I've made hundreds of trips The hull of one of the ships the mystery.
collided and sank into the about 10 years ago when a to Beaver Island and every has a huge gash. Baillod said he searched
cold depths of northern depth sounder on his boat trip I go out the sounder is It had been believed the through old news reports
Lake Michigan more than noted a large obstruction on," he told The Associated ships sank in 1878 farther and learned that the
140 years ago. about 200 feet (60 meters) Press on Friday. "But if you to the east in the Straits of Peshtigo and St. Andrews
happen to see something Mackinac in Lake Huron. did hit each other and sink
that's not normal, you go But only one ship could between Beaver and Fox
back. A lot are nothing but be found and that was islands, northwest of Char-
fish schools. This was 400 thought to be the St. An- levoix, Michigan.
feet of boat. There's noth- drews. The Peshtigo was 161 feet
ing out there that big that's "They never found the sec- (49 meters) long and car-
missing." ond boat," said Hellstrom, rying coal. The St. Andrews
He returned to the area in 63. was 143 feet (43 meters)
June with a custom-made Hellstrom brought techni- long and carrying corn. The
camera system and dis- cal divers in to record vid- collision was blamed on
covered the Peshtigo and eo of the wrecks. Madison, confusion in signal torches,
St. Andrews about 10 feet Wisconsin-based marine he said.q