CHIMNEY SWIFTS AN ENDANGERED SPECIES

This article in yesterday's Waterloo Region Record is well timed with my posting here last Thursday of the report on climate change and bird declines. Yesterday's story is titled "Naturalists searching for chimney swifts". My Thursday posting suggested that climate change could be a significant reason for the decline as insect populations are at their peak earlier in the season before swifts and other insectivores have nested. Thus with less food available, fewer young birds survive. Yesterday's story written by Linda Givetash of the Record states "In the last 40 years over 90 per cent of the bird's population has disappeared causing Bird Studies Canada to investigate and better understand chimney swifts in order to help protect them from extinction.".

This is another case of the interdependence of species on earth. With constantly increasing populations of humans the demand for food will only increase. At the same time if we are slowly killing off birds, which greatly reduce the same insects that damage crops, we are hurting ourselves. The immediate impacts of pollution are often the only ones we see early on. Subtle changes around us eventually can have huge negative effects .