Bosvogels

Die Zahl der Fasane (Phasianus colchicus) nimmt in Niedersachsen drastisch ab. Schaumburg bildet eine der wenigen Ausnahmen. Im Landkreis hat sich der Rückgang der Fasanenpopulation schon vor vielen Jahren vollzogen und ist seitdem auf einem konstant niedrigen Stand. Landesweit ist jüngst ein Rückgang von 21,2 Prozent verzeichnet worden. Das geht aus der Jagdstrecke hervor, die über die Zahl der durch Jagd oder andere Ursachen tot aufgefundenen Tiere Auskunft gibt. Die Strecke im vergangenen Jagdjahr, das vom 1. April 2012 bis zum 31. März 2013 dauerte, zählte 45 231 Fasane. Im vorausgegangenen Jagdjahr wurden hingegen noch 56 645 tote Tiere gezählt. Auch im Jagdjahr 2010/2011 war bei dem Vogel in ganz Niedersachsen ein Rückgang von etwa 20 Prozent in der Strecke im Vergleich zum Vorjahr zu verzeichnen.

Each year, many species of birds escape their northern breeding grounds travelling south to their same feeding grounds; some of the migrants have had to adapt as their feeding grounds have changed and no longer provide a food source. One species that has adapted are the kinglets; some populations of these birds were in decline, but the emergence of Christmas tree farms in the northeast of North America provided them with a new source of food. In B.C., kinglets are blue, which means they are a species at risk. Kinglets are small hyperactive insectivore's part of the family of birds that includes the gnatcatchers and warblers. Once they were all thought to be of the same family but kinglets were then assigned their own family known as "Regulidae." There are two species of kinglet, the golden-crowned (Regulus satrapa) and the ruby-crowned (Regulus calendula). The ruby-crowned is more secretive and tends to live a solitary existence; golden-crowned are much more sociable and they are normally seen in small foraging flocks often on the ground.

The eastern spruce budworm, Choristoneura fumiferana Clem., (hereafter budworm) is responsible for the largest areas of insect-caused disturbance in North America, and as such, is an important part of spruce–fir forest change and succession. The insectivorous forest bird community shows large and rapid responses to budworm outbreaks. There is good evidence that there are budworm-linked species (bay-breasted, Cape May, and Tennessee warblers) that respond to budworm outbreak much more strongly and consistently than other species, probably through increased productivity of local populations when budworm are abundant. There also appears to be a more widespread positive bird community response to budworm outbreak that involves many more species.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park is using systemic imidacloprid to treat eastern hemlocks (Tsuga canadensis [L.] Carr.) infested with the exotic insect, hemlock woolly adelgid (Adelges tsugae Annand). This study investigated effects of these treatments on insectivorous birds and hemlock canopy arthropod assemblages in the context of food availability for insectivorous birds. Six pairs of treated and untreated hemlock sites were studied in 2007. Territories of three hemlock-associated Neotropical migratory foliage-gleaning bird species were mapped in these six sites, and relationships between bird territory density and hemlock foliar density were examined. Canopy arthropods were sampled by clipping mid-canopy hemlock branches in each paired site. Arthropods were identified to order or suborder and categorized into bird prey guilds and non-target herbivorous insect guilds.

Scientists from the RSPB, Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) and Natural Research have revealed the startling decline in bird populations in the State of UK Birds 2013 report. The mountain species dotterel (Charadrius morinellus), one of the rarest breeds in Britain – with two-thirds living in the Cairngorms – has declined by about 40 per cent in just over a decade. The results found that the estimated number of dotterels had fallen from 630 breeding males in 1999, to just 423 breeding males in 2011, continuing a longer-term decline since the first survey in 1987-88, which estimated the number of breeding males at 981. Other declines of population include the lapwing, a bird of farmland and wetland which has endured a 41 per cent population decline since 1995. The snipe, a wetland bird, has seen its breeding range shrunk by 31 per cent over the last 40 years. The population of grey partridge – another farmland bird – has declined by 53 per cent since 1995, while the corn bunting population has declined by 34 per cent since 1995. The turtle dove, which is not native in Scotland, has suffered a 51 per cent decline in the rest of the UK over the last 40 years. Mark Eaton, of RSPB, said: “Scotland’s Highlands provide an important home for dotterel and the species’ presence offers a good indicator of the health of our mountain landscapes. To see such a significant drop in their numbers over the past three decades is deeply concerning.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants to protect a vanishing California songbird by listing it as Threatened under the Endangered Species Act, but a national bird protection group says that doesn't go far enough. The Washington D.C.-based American Bird Conservancy (ABC) says that USFWS should give the western yellow-billed cuckoo full Endangered status, which would give the bird greater protection. A subspecies of the far more widespread yellow-billed cuckoo, the western yellow-billed cuckoo (Coccyzus americanus occidentalis), has seen between 90 and 99 percent of its preferred riparian forest habitat destroyed in California. Fewer than 500 breeding pairs of the birds remain in the United States. USFWS proposed the western yellow-billed for listing as Threatened in October, as part of a 2011 agreement with the Center for Biological Diversity to rule on listing proposals for 757 imperiled species. ABC made its recommendation for greater protection in a December 2 letter that the group made public December 6.

Lymphoproliferative Disease Virus, known as LPDV, has been present in domestic turkeys in Europe and Israel for decades, but in the last few years, biologists have started confirming cases in wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) in the eastern United States. Some of the infected birds have lesions on their head and feet, although many of the sick fowl are not symptomatic, making their identification difficult. Dr. Justin Brown, assistant research scientist and diagnostician with the University of Georgia’s Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study, said his team confirmed its first diagnosis of LPDV in 2009 by a process of elimination. He said the larger wildlife diagnostic laboratories received infected specimens and tested the turkeys for known diseases that cause lymphoid tumors. Brown’s team took the testing one step further, and the discovery was surprising. “[W]e had a virologist who worked up the case a little bit more and screened it for all of the oncogenic, or cancer-inducing, viruses that are in North America,” Brown said. “And when he came up negative on all those, he screened it for LPDV. … And it came up positive — all tissues.”