Date published: 2008/09/22
The BBC says:
The populations of the world's common birds are declining as a result of continued habitat loss, a global assessment has warned.
The survey by BirdLife International found that 45% of Europe's common birds had seen numbers fall, as had more than 80% of Australia's wading species.
The study's authors said governments were failing to fund their promises to halt biodiversity loss by 2010.
Just the latest "end of the world" report from the bird brigade. On the other hand, all things being equal, you would expect that 50%, not 45%, of "common", or also "uncommon", birds would see numbers fall over any given period. No doubt BirdLife International can cherry pick statistics to make things look bad. And they probably are bad, if you're a bird, or any other non-human species, because there are more and more humans on the planet every year. So it is trivially obvious that there will be "continued habitat loss" unless you insist that per capita human wealth declines to more than make up for the increase in population. And nobody is proposing that (although perhaps this is what the bird people, and other so-called environmentalists, really want).
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