Nearly half of the world’s migratory bird species are declining. One in nine is threatened with extinction. Seven migratory bird species have already disappeared, or are suspected to have disappeared, within the last 150 years.
Those are the headline findings from BirdLife International’s latest State of the World’s Birds report. But the numbers only tell us what is happening.
Why is it happening?
BirdLife says the threats are overwhelmingly caused by humans. Invasive species and diseases affect 70% of threatened migratory bird species. Agriculture affects 52%. Climate change and severe weather affect 52%. Hunting and trapping affect 50%. Pollution affects 48%.
Look closer and animal exploitation runs through this crisis. Even the biggest threat category demonstrates it.
We move animals around the planet, then call them invasive
“Invasive species” can sound like nature misbehaving. It is usually humans moving organisms somewhere they did not belong. BirdLife explicitly says invasive species are spread by humans deliberately or accidentally, with global trade and transport accelerating their movement. Sometimes the connection to animal exploitation could hardly be clearer.
House mice were introduced to Marion Island by seal hunters. They now attack seabird chicks and adults, and BirdLife warns they could drive 18 of the island’s 28 breeding migratory seabird species to local extinction.
On Macquarie Island, rabbits and weka were deliberately introduced as food for sealing crews. Cats arrived partly as companion animals and to control rodents, while rats and mice arrived through cargo. These introduced animals devastated native birds and vegetation.
Humans went there to exploit seals.
Humans brought other animals to exploit for food, companionship or pest control.
Wild birds paid the price.
The trade continues today. Wild animals are still captured, transported and sold across borders because humans want them in cages and tanks. An IFAW investigation into trafficking from Latin America to Europe found that 94.1% of seized animals destined for Europe were alive.
Animal farming is spreading disease too
The “disease” part of BirdLife’s biggest threat category? Industrial poultry farming. BirdLife says intensive poultry production facilitated the emergence of highly pathogenic avian influenza, which subsequently spilled into wild bird populations. H5N1 has now infected almost 600 wild bird species across every continent. We breed enormous numbers of chickens into intensive farming systems, create conditions in which dangerous diseases can evolve and spread, then watch those diseases tear through wild birds. Again, exploitation does not stay inside the farm.
Then there is the land
Agriculture affects more than half of threatened migratory bird species. And animal agriculture consumes an extraordinary share of agricultural land.
Around 80% of global agricultural land is used for grazing animals or growing crops to feed them. If the world moved to a plant-based food system, agricultural land use could fall by roughly 75%. Forests are cleared. Habitats disappear. Ecosystems are simplified into grazing land and fields producing animal feed. In South America, almost three-quarters of deforestation is linked to animal grazing. When birds are running out of places to breed, feed and rest, devoting most agricultural land to exploiting animals is not a separate issue.
Sometimes we simply kill the birds
Hunting and trapping affect half of threatened migratory bird species.
More than 60% of all migratory bird species are used by humans in some way, including 62% of threatened species. Why are they hunted and trapped? BirdLife says 49% are taken for the companion animal trade, 30% for food and 15% for sport. Across Europe, the Mediterranean, the Caucasus and Arabian Peninsula alone, an estimated 13.1 million to 42.7 million migratory birds are illegally killed or captured every year. Sometimes there is no complicated ecological chain. Humans want to eat a bird, cage a bird or shoot a bird.
So the bird disappears.
Fishing kills birds too
Then there are the oceans.
BirdLife identifies fisheries as a major pressure on migratory seabirds. Birds become hooked on longlines, caught in nets and killed by fishing equipment. Fisheries also remove the aquatic animals seabirds depend upon for food.
We have already seen what this looks like. More than 60,000 African penguins starved after sardine populations collapsed off South Africa. Researchers identified both warming seas and continued fishing pressure as drivers of the decline in their food supply. We take fishes from the ocean for ourselves. The birds lose their food. Other birds die in the machinery used to catch them.
And animal farming helps heat the planet
Climate change affects 52% of threatened migratory bird species.
Food production is responsible for roughly a third of global greenhouse gas emissions, with animal farming responsible for a huge share of the food system’s climate impact while also consuming most agricultural land.
So look again at BirdLife’s list.
Invasive animals.
Disease.
Agriculture.
Hunting.
Fishing.
Pollution.
Climate change.
Animal exploitation is threaded through it. The victims are not only the chickens inside sheds, the cows on farms, the fishes pulled from oceans, the wild animals sold into captivity or the birds deliberately shot from the sky.
The damage spreads.
Across habitats.
Across ecosystems.
Across continents.
Migratory birds can travel thousands of kilometres between breeding and feeding grounds. They cross borders humans invented while encountering problems humans created. Then we describe their disappearance with a wonderfully vague phrase:
“Human activity.”
Which human activity?
Breeding animals. Farming them. Trading them. transporting them. Hunting them. Fishing them. Moving them around the world. Destroying habitat to feed them. Spreading diseases through intensive farming. Heating the planet while doing it. Perhaps protecting migratory birds should involve more than trying to repair the damage afterwards. Perhaps we should stop creating so much of it.
Stop treating animals as resources.
Because animal exploitation does not have one victim. It radiates outwards.