Bird Conservation and Human Impacts Lecture Notes

This set of vocabulary flashcards covers the major threats to bird populations, historical conservation data, success stories, and ongoing measures discussed in the lecture.

Human Population Explosion

A phenomenon correlating with species extinctions, with $\sim 50,000$ species extinct directly or indirectly due to human activity.

Habitat Loss and Fragmentation

The destruction of landscape connectivity, often due to suburban development, which severely impacts bird populations despite their mobility.

Sage grouse

A bird species once populous across the Central Plains that is now declining due to the conversion of prairies for agriculture.

Spotted owl

A species that requires old growth forests and has historically conflicted with the logging industry in the Pacific Northwest.

Introduced Species Impacts

Consists of three major threats: predators on predator-free islands, competitors like starlings outcompeting bluebirds, and diseases like avian malaria.

Hawaiian honeycreepers

A group of bird species decimated by avian malaria introduced through mosquitoes.

Human Structure Collisions

A major hazard where windows kill millions of birds annually, complemented by strikes against cell phone towers and skyscrapers.

Bioaccumulation

The process where pollutants like heavy metals or mercury from gold mining and manufacturing concentrate in top predators, affecting both water birds and songbirds.

Pharmaceutical Pollution

The presence of substances such as birth control and antidepressants that concentrate in wastewater and affect avian populations.

Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI)

A disease outbreak currently affecting raptors and seabirds with concern regarding potential mammalian spillover.

Historical Overhunting

The practice using techniques like cannons with shrapnel that led to the extinction of the dodo, passenger pigeon, and Carolina parakeet.

Pet Trade Impacts

The capture of parrots from tropical habitats for the US market and ongoing black market trade.

National Wildlife Refuge System

A network of protected areas driven by duck hunters, with high concentrations in the Mississippi River, East Coast, Florida, and North Dakota prairie potholes.

California condor

A species whose population dropped to $<30$ and began a recovery through a captive breeding and release program in the early 1990s.

DDT

A chemical banned in the 1960s that caused eggshell thinning in raptors through biomagnification, leading to severe population crashes.

Florida bald eagles

A population that went from >100 pairs in the 1940s to locally extinct in the 1950s, eventually recovering to carrying capacity by 2005 following the DDT ban.

Wood ducks

A bird species currently recovering through the use of specific cavity nesting programs.

Cat Containment Advocacy

A movement to keep cats indoors to protect birds from direct predation and the disruption of breeding caused by predator presence.