New Report Finds Half of All North American Bird Species Depend on Canada

New Report Finds Half of All North American Bird Species Depend on Canada's Boreal Forest

Recent discovery of "extinct" bird highlights importance of Canadian conservation opportunity

Seattle, WA – A new scientific study released today entitled, The Boreal Forest Region: North America's Bird Nursery, shows that nearly 50% of all bird species in the US and Canada rely on the Boreal Forest Region for survival. The report finds that the Boreal Forest Region is more important to landbirds, shorebirds, waterbirds and waterfowl than anyone had previously realized. A previous study that considered only landbirds had shown that 30% of landbirds were born in the Boreal forest. The research was prepared by Bird Studies Canada for the Boreal Songbird Initiative and the Canadian Boreal Initiative.

"The more we study the Boreal region, the more we discover that it is essentially responsible for the abundance of bird life in the US and Canada," said Jeff Wells, PhD, a scientist with the Boreal Songbird Initiative. "Simply put, the future of bird life across North America depends on how well we steward the Boreal Forest Region," he added.

Dr. Wells served on the search team of scientists who recently confirmed sighting the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, a bird that had been considered extinct since the 1940's due to destruction of its habitat. "While I can not describe the thrill of 'rediscovering' this legendary bird, the experience drove home even further for me why protection for the Canadian Boreal Forest is the greatest bird habitat conservation opportunity and challenge of our day. We have the capacity and responsibility to forestall future extinction of the multitudes of birds that depend on this northern forest."

The 1.5 billion acre North American Boreal Forest Region, stretching from Alaska to Newfoundland, represents fully one-quarter of the earth's remaining intact forests. It is one of the largest forested wilderness areas left on the globe, exceeding even the Brazilian Amazon in scale. But the forest is being quickly logged and fragmented to supply U.S. markets for junk mail catalogs, disposable tissue paper, and energy.

The new report uses cutting edge technology coupled with bird abundance data in this first-ever effort to quantify the importance of a large-scale ecosystem to an entire continent's bird population. Key findings in the report include:

Nearly half of all North American birds (325 species) rely on the Boreal Forest Region for survival. Over 300 of those species regularly breed in the boreal, accounting for billions of migrating birds annually.
80% of the waterfowl species of North America, 63% of finch species, and 53% of warbler species breed in the Boreal Forest Region.
In nearly 100 species, 50% or more of their entire breeding populations occur within the boreal forest.

Though it is largely still intact, the Boreal region is under rapidly increasing threat from industrial development and less than 6% of the region is permanently protected. In 2003, an extraordinary alliance of conservation organizations, First Nations and resource companies, convened by the Canadian Boreal Initiative, launched a made-in-Canada solution. Their unique approach, called the Boreal Forest Conservation Framework, couples long-term economic development and broad conservation goals for the entire region. The Framework calls for:

establishing a network of large, interconnected protected areas covering at least half of Canada's Boreal Forest Region and
requiring verifiable, sustainable development practices, such as Forest Stewardship Council certification, in remaining areas.

According to Wells, many of North America's most rapidly declining birds are among those most reliant on the boreal forest for their survival. Waterfowl like Greater and Lesser Scaup have declined by about 150,000 birds a year since the late 1970's while the three scoter species have dropped by over 50% since the 1950's. Another wetland bird species, the Horned Grebe, has declined by 60% since the late 1960's. Two of the species showing the most severe documented declines are species that are highly reliant on the boreal forest--the long-legged Lesser Yellowlegs and the ecologically-specialized Rusty Blackbird--both have seen drops of more than 90% over the last 40 years. Other species have had less severe but still steep declines like the tree-top inhabiting Olive-sided Flycatcher (60% decline) and the well-named Canada Warbler (45% decline).

Marilyn Heiman, Seattle-based director of the Boreal Songbird Initiative, commented on the urgent need to adopt the Boreal Forest Conservation Framework protections, including support from American companies operating in the Boreal. "Logging and oil and gas development in the Boreal continues to ramp up to quench our American thirst for paper and energy. All that junk mail like Victoria's Secret catalogs, tissue paper from companies like Kimberly Clark, and lumber and paper from companies like Weyerhaeuser drives the large scale logging that is directly threatening the Boreal Forest Region's ecosystem and the birds that breed there," noted Heiman. "We want to ensure that US consumers are aware of the role they are playing in the destruction of the Boreal."

For more information, please contact Jeff Wells, Senior Scientist of the Boreal Songbird Initiative at 207-458-8492, Jeffwells@gwi.net or Marilyn Heiman, Executive Director of the Boreal Songbird Initiative at (206) 956-9040, marilynheiman@borealbirds.org. To see the study online and/or download a copy, go to www.borealbirds.org.