Superabundant bird mirrors decline of passenger pigeon

[kittykat23uk]

One of the Eurasia’s most abundant bird species has declined by 90% and retracted its range by 5000km since 1980 a new study shows.

Yellow-breasted Bunting was once distributed over vast areas of Europe and Asia, its range stretching from Finland to Japan.

New research published in the journal Conservation Biology suggest that unsustainable rates of hunting principally in China have contributed to a catastrophic loss of numbers and also in the areas in which it can now be found.

“The magnitude and speed of the decline is unprecedented among birds distributed over such a large area, with the exception of the Passenger Pigeon, which went extinct in 1914 due to industrial-scale hunting”, said Dr Johannes Kamp from the University of Münster, the lead author of the paper.

Detail here:

 

http://orientalbirdclub.org/2015/06/08/yellow-breasted-bunting-decline/

 

:(

[TonyQ]

@@kittykat23uk

What a tragic story. As a species we seem to repeat the same mistakes over and over