WHAT YOU CAN DO

Get informed

➞ Bridget Stutchbury’s book Silence of the Songbirds presents a detailed and passionate survey of the disaster befalling North American migratory songbird populations.

➞ The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, created in 1977, is a federal advisory body for designating endangered species under the Species at Risk Act. The organization’s website (www.cosewic.gc.ca) reports on endangered birds and other species.

➞ Atlas of the Breeding Birds of Ontario 2001-2005 assesses how bird distributions have changed since the first atlas, which covered the period from 1981 to 1985, was issued. Reporting 1.2 million individual breeding bird records across the province, the newest atlas (www.birdsontario.org/atlas) shows the relative abundance of all the species in the province.

➞ The U.S. State of the Birds Report 2009 (www.stateofthebirds.org) reveals some troubling population declines over the past 40 years among the roughly 800 species inhabiting the United States. At the same time, according to the report, “we see heartening evidence that strategic land management and conservation action can reverse declines of birds.” Regarding the boreal forests, which are mostly in Canada, the report notes “a generally declining [bird population] trend over the first 25 years, and then a general increase more recently.”

Join a bird count

➞ The Ontario Forest Bird Monitoring Program (www.on.ec.gc.ca/ wildlife/newsletters/fbmp06-e.html), which the Canadian Wildlife Service coordinates, began in 1987. The objective of this program is to document bird population trends and the relationships between birds and their habitat during the breeding period. Volunteers use point counts to survey birds in both large forest areas and forest fragments.

➞ The Canadian Migration Monitoring Network (www.birdscanada.org/birdmon/cmmn/main.jsp) tracks populations of migratory passerines at a series of 25 stations across Canada. Fall migration, in particular, can reveal population trends for birds breeding in the boreal forest and farther north, as they move from their northern breeding grounds to their southern wintering grounds. At the stations, staff band birds and make daily visual counts of birds during spring and fall migration periods, among other activities.

➞ The Audubon Society launched the Christmas Bird Count on Christmas Day in 1900 as an alternative to traditional Christmas bird hunts. Over the decades, tens of thousands of birders have built a database on bird population trends unmatched by any other wildlife census. Last year, more than 100 communities in Ontario participated. Under the sponsorship of the Toronto Ornithological Society, 118 volunteers spent a combined 236 hours on December 14 tallying sightings of 89 species in Toronto. Christmas Bird Count results are available at http://cbc.audubon.org/cbccurrent/current_table.html.

Support efforts to reduce pesticide use

➞ Environmental groups including Environmental Defence, the Sierra Club, Greenpeace and the David Suzuki Foundation all have campaigns to reduce pesticide use. The Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment has been pressing for municipal bans on pesticides used for cosmetic purposes (see www.cape.ca/toxics/pesticides.html).

➞ Growing food without pesticides will ease pressure on birds, and many people who are concerned about birds and the environment choose to buy organic food whenever possible. Studies from Ontario and Europe have found that bird populations are far more abundant on organic farms than on farms that use chemicals. And since Ontario migratory bird populations are now threatened, and pesticide use in Central and South America has increased almost fivefold since the 1980s, food from these regions should be given special scrutiny.

Support habitat protection

➞ Because the Canadian boreal forest is by far North America’s most important bird sanctuary, its protection is crucial. At 5.9 million square kilometres, it represents almost a quarter of the world’s intact forest ecosystems, even more than the Brazilian Amazon. Nearly half of all North American birds – 325 species – rely on it. The Boreal Songbird Initiative (www.borealbirds.org) heads up the conservation efforts with Ontario Nature, as its provincial partner, taking the lead here.

P .W.