Birds on a high wire

In recent months, while the world’s attention has been on what we’re doing to the climate, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that – even aside from climate change – the rest of creation’s in a bad way as well.

We don’t always realise this. Over the last few decades we’ve been fed a diet of Attenborough documentaries which show an amazing world, but one seemingly untouched by human hand. Only recently this has begun to change. Scientists refer to the ‘shifting baseline syndrome’ as each successive generation of people accepts the world they see around them as normal, without realising how much nature has been lost in the past.

Have you heard of the Passenger Pigeon? You certainly won’t have seen one unless it was in a book, as the last living specimen, nicknamed Martha, died in Cincinnati Zoo in 1914. Yet this North American pigeon was once the commonest bird on the planet, with a population numbering in the billions. Nineteenth-century observers recorded how the sky was darkened for several days as migrating flocks streamed overhead. It was so abundant, but is now extinct and lost from our collective memory.

There have been two alarming reports recently from scientists who study trends in wild bird populations. Like a canary in a coal mine, birds can tell us about the health of creation, and it’s not looking good.

One study calculated that 600 million breeding birds have been lost in Europe since 1980. That’s an overall population decline of almost one-fifth, well within my lifetime. Familiar birds such as house sparrow, starling and skylark have all been badly affected.

A second report focuses on birds in the UK. This one assigns birds to a Red, Amber or Green List, depending on how well or badly they are faring. Sadly, the Red List has been growing steadily since it was started in 1996, and since the last assessment in 2015 another 11 birds have moved onto it. House martin, swift and greenfinch have all joined the Red List with population declines between a half and two-thirds in the last 25 years. All once common birds, now less likely to be seen in your town or garden.

What’s causing such a grievous loss? It was probably a combination of forest destruction and commercialised hunting that did for the Passenger Pigeon (see Mark Avery’s book A Message from Martha). For more recent losses in Europe there isn’t a single factor, although changes in farming practices are at the top of the list. Climate change, habitat loss, disease, exploitation, urban development and pollution all play a part.

With constant news like this it’s no wonder that so many people who love nature suffer from eco-anxiety (see December’s en). And yet, as Christians, I think there’s a time to rightly lament and not to jump too quickly to hope. We lament for the loss of God’s creatures in the past, we lament for the loss we have seen in our lifetime and for how our children do not have the same opportunity to marvel at creation as we once did. We lament too for the sin that so often drives the loss, especially the sin of greed that fuels our wealthy lifestyles.

Hosea links the sin of Israel to creation damage. ‘Because of this … the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky and the fish in the sea are swept away’ (Hos. 4:3).

Not all is doom and gloom. In the last decade the rate of decline in Europe has slowed, thanks to legal protections. Some bird populations are recovering, thanks to human interventions. More people are recognising the importance of nature. I plan to share more stories of hope in future months.