Environment Health Indicators
The intimate linkages between bird species and their habitats make them useful for identifying ecosystem health. As such, they can be indicators of deteriorating habitat quality and environmental pollution, as well as metrics to determine the success of restoration efforts. Combined with their ability to signal the eminent outbreak of diseases, birds are incredibly useful as indicators to both the fields of environmental science and human health.
Great set of characteristics:
- Birds live and die depending on the health of the environment
- Birds are easy to observe and count
- Birds are in every ecosystem and land usage
- Different bird species thrive in different ecosystems and land usages
- Birds react to human changes in the environment
- Birds migrate to find healthy habitat for breeding and wintering
- Birds historically have been strong indicators of environmental health
- Bird populations already have extensive documentation and understanding
- Bird populations measure collective heath directly
Historical Examples
- Canaries are very susceptible to poisonous gases like carbon monoxide and methane and are affected by it before humans, miners would take canaries into the coal mines when they went to work. If the birds began to show signs of poisoning, it would give miners a chance to put on a mask or escape.
- Declines in bird populations were a major indicator of DDT pollutions brought to attention in Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring”
- Die off of crows is an early means of detecting West Nile Virus
- Declines in vulture populations were the indicator for the pollution of the environment by the drug diclofenac.
- Declines in wading birds nesting in the Everglades was the first indicator of habitat degradation by the construction of canals and levees in the Everglades
- A shift from specialist to generalist species was indicator of forest habitat degradation in the Central Appalachian Mountains
- The numbers of red-cockaded woodpeckers in old growth pine forests can be effective indicators of the habitat quality
- The ratio of storks and ibises to egrets is used to gauge the success of restoration efforts of Florida Everglades
- In Poland, the diversity of woodpecker species correlated with avian diversity
- In Greece, the diversity of bird species correlated overall biodiversity
Reference: www.environmentalscience.org/birds-environmental-indicators
