Photo by Wang Bin | Cornell Lab of Ornithology | Macaulay Library.
Key points:
- A team of scientists collated 42 million photos, videos, and audio records of birds to develop a comprehensive list of those that have not been seen in more than a decade.
- 144 species – 1.2% of all known bird species – qualified as lost.
- Scientists hope that identifying lost bird species will inspire efforts to locate and protect them.
A team of scientists released the first comprehensive list of birds that have not been seen in over a decade. Their methods, along with the list, are described in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.
The researchers collated 42 million photos, videos, and audio records. After analyzing these records, they found that 144 species – 1.2% of all known bird species – qualified as lost.
“We wanted to see if well-vetted public media databases would be comprehensive and trustworthy enough to document the presence or absence of species,” explained study co-author Eliot Miller of Cornell University. “Once absent species are identified, we can look for them and see if they need some kind of protection.”
The team found that most of the lost or undocumented species were concentrated in Asia, Africa, and the scattered islands of Oceania. Three species on the lost list were from the continental United States – Eskimo curlew, Bachman’s warbler, and the ivory-billed woodpecker. Six additional undocumented species were from Hawaii. Some species may be absent because their habitat is remote and no one has returned since the initial sightings.
A key outcome of the project was gaining local knowledge from on-site partners. These partnerships and insights will help future efforts to locate species including the Himalayan quail, Itombwe nightjar, Jerdon’s courser, and the Bate’s weaver in Cameroon.
“A narrow slice of the world’s birds has fallen through the cracks,” said lead author Cameron Rutt of the American Bird Conservancy. “The coming years and decades will be critical if these birds are going to persist.”