By Request: Birds of Great Concern

A reader noted that almost all of the bird species in Saturday’s regular Return of Bird of the Week series are species of Least Concern according to the International Union for Conservation – one of the organizations that attempt to monitor endangered species. What, that reader asks, are some of the species that are not of Least Concern but, as it were, are of Great Concern?

We’ll look at a few that WC has been able to photograph, but before we do readers need to understand that endangered species fall on a scale, a spectrum that attempts to describe the degree of threat the species faces.

That scale, as you can see, runs from Least Concern to Near Threatened to Endangered to Critically Endangered to Extinct in the Wild to Extinct. There are specific criteria for factors like the population of a species, threats the species faces and reproduction rates that the IUCN uses to place a species on the scale. This particular rating is for Ashy Storm-Petrel, a species discussed below. Very often, the IUCN doesn’t have all of the information it needs to accurately place a species on the scale. In those cases, it has rules for dealing with approximations and, sometimes, educated guesses.

With that background in mind, let’s look at a few of the 450-plus species of birds that are species of Great Concern for which (1) WC has a photo, and (2) why (in no particular order).

Species	Location and Threats	Status
Galapagos Vermilion Flycatcher	San Cristobal Island, Galapagos Islands, Ecuador Invasive plants led to diminished native insects, avian malaria, avian pox	Extinct
Ashy Storm-Petrel	California and Baja Coast Loss of breeding habitat, human disturbance, ocean pollution, artificial lighting	Endangered
Hyacinth Macaw	Three isolated locations in Brazil Trapping for pet trade	Vulnerable
Sooty Albatross	Southern Ocean Long line fishing, loss of prey species	Endangered
Whooping Crane	North America Feather and plume trade, habitat disturbance, very limited genetic pool	Endangered
Spoon-billed Sandpiper	East Asian coastline, Siberia to Bay of Bengal Habitat loss, especially in migration; down to 200-400 pair	Critically endangered
Jocotoco Antpitta	A few ridge lines in southern Ecuador nd northern Peru Extremely small native range (180 sq. km) threatened by logging a deforestation, climate change	Endangered
Black-cheeked Ant Tanager	Osa Peninsula in southeastern Costa Rica Very small range, very small population, threatened by habitat loss	Endangered
Galapagos Penguin	Galápagos Islands, Ecuador Very small range; small population; seriously impacted by increasing frequency and severity of El Niño events, which impact their prey populations	Endangered
California Condor	Southern California, Northern Arizona Extinct in the wild in 1979, a captive breeding program on the remaining 28 birds has been modestly successful, with 276 birds in the wild and 170 captive for breeding. Lead poisoning remains a grave threat.	Critically endangered

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The California Condor lets WC end on a cautious, if not happy, note. There aren’t very many happy notes; world bird populations are in deep trouble, and WC could write a much longer, even more depressing blog post than this one is. Save the birds, gentle readers, before it is too late.