Population
Rusty Blackbirds have declined significantly in recent decades. The reasons are unclear, but habitat loss is likely a major contributor to the decline. Mercury contamination may be a problem for populations in northeastern North America. Rarer than previously believed, it is uplisted from a species of Least Concern to Vulnerable status in the 2007 IUCN Red List.
Additionally, citizen science projects such as the North American Breeding Bird Survey and Christmas Bird Count have determined that Rusty Blackbirds have dropped 85%–98% in the past 40 years. This is very worrisome for many people, as scientists are desperately trying to figure out what exactly went wrong. Sighting submission services such as eBird are encouraging birders to keep track of Rusty Blackbirds. The Rusty Blackbird Technical Working group has been actively coordinating and conducting research on this species since 2005
Read more about this topic: Rusty Blackbird
Famous quotes containing the word population:
“I think that cars today are almost the exact equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals: I mean the supreme creation of an era, conceived with passion by unknown artists, and consumed in image if not in usage by a whole population which appropriates them as a purely magical object.”
—Roland Barthes (1915–1980)
“This was the Eastham famous of late years for its camp- meetings, held in a grove near by, to which thousands flock from all parts of the Bay. We conjectured that the reason for the perhaps unusual, if not unhealthful development of the religious sentiment here, was the fact that a large portion of the population are women whose husbands and sons are either abroad on the sea, or else drowned, and there is nobody but they and the ministers left behind.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“America is like one of those old-fashioned six-cylinder truck engines that can be missing two sparkplugs and have a broken flywheel and have a crankshaft that’s 5000 millimeters off fitting properly, and two bad ball-bearings, and still runs. We’re in that kind of situation. We can have substantial parts of the population committing suicide, and still run and look fairly good.”
—Thomas McGuane (b. 1939)