Bird populations around the world are plummeting faster than ever before, and human factors�from population growth to habitat destruction and climate change�are at the center of this demise, reports a new study from the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based research organization. Human-related factors are threatening 99 percent of the most imperiled bird species and contributing to what has become the greatest wave of extinctions since dinosaurs disappeared 65 million years ago, according to Howard Youth in Winged Messengers: The Decline of Birds.
�Declining bird populations mark not only the loss of unique species," says Youth, "but also the unraveling of delicate natural balances. Birds are valuable environmental indicators because they warn us of impending problems through their waning or flourishing populations.�
Worldwatch Institute Worldwatch Paper 165:The Decline of Birds{it was like this all along. then somehow we all got born into a neutral place, where you didn't have to choose and everyone pretended things were fine. then we started waking up and waking each other up, but still lots of people could pretend, and did, and got mad when they weren't left alone. now that part's over. now you have to choose. no more bumbling along.}
