Every winter, people in North America are encouraged to go outside and count birds, for science. EarthSky spoke with Thomas Bancroft, Chief Scientist with the Audubon Society, about what’s known as the Christmas Bird Count.
Thomas Bancroft: The Christmas Bird Count is the largest citizen science program in the world. It involves roughly 30,000 people every year to count birds across the United States, Canada, and expanding in Latin America.
Bancroft said that – over the course of a few weeks – volunteers survey birds out in the field or write by their bird feeders.
Thomas Bancroft: What’s been exciting about it is National Audubon is trying to use this information, over the last 15-20 years, to talk about the status of birds. So we’ve done a series analysis and released a series of publications. One we did in 2007 was on common birds in decline.
Bancroft said that volunteers discovered a significant decrease in several bird populations.
Thomas Bancroft: We were kinda shocked to find out that 20 of them had decreased by more than 50 percent in the last 40 years. So things like bobwhite quail(北美鹑), evening grosbeaks(黄昏雀).
Bancroft said that other birds, like wild turkeys and collar doves, have actually gone up in numbers thanks to conservation. And, thanks to people who count birds, this information is known and shared with scientists.
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