15th May, 2009
Twelve per cent of the bird species worldwide are threatened with extinction with 192 species classified as “critically endanger”.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s annual ‘Red List of Threatened Species’ lists 1,227 bird species as being threatened with extinction.

The birds - which were identified in research conducted by BirdLife International - include a hummingbird species recently discovered in Colombia, the Gorgeted Puffleg, as well as the Sidamo Lark, which lives on the Liben Plain in Ethiopia and is in danger of becoming the first bird on mainland Africa to become extinct.

Some of the world’s more common birds are also suffering from declining populations - populations of the Chimney Swift have declined by 30 per cent in North America during the last decade.

Simon Stuart, chairman of IUCN’s Species Survival Commission, says it is “extremely worrying” that the number of Critically Endangered birds has continued to increase - a move which he says has come despite successful conservation initiatives around the world.

- DAVID ADAMS

~ www.iucn.org