Bird extinction

Taxidermied extinct birds, two passenger pigeons (left) & a Carolina parakeet (right), on display at the National Museum of Natural History

Bird extinction is the complete elimination of all species members under the taxonomic class, Aves. Out of all known bird species, (approximately 11,154), 159 (1.4%) have become extinct, with 226 (2%) being critically endangered.[1] There is a general consensus among ornithologists that if anthropogenic activities continue as current trends suggest, one-third of all bird species, and an even greater proportion of bird populations, will be rendered extinct by the end of the 21st century.[2]

For critically endangered species, scientists estimate they will face extinction in a few decades without proper conservation efforts; for some of these species, the current presence of extant populations is uncertain.[3]

  1. ^ Loehle, Craig; Eschenbach, Willis (January 2012). "Historical bird and terrestrial mammal extinction rates and causes". Diversity and Distributions. 18 (1): 84–91. Bibcode:2012DivDi..18...84L. doi:10.1111/j.1472-4642.2011.00856.x. ISSN 1366-9516. S2CID 55510056.
  2. ^ Ceballos, Gerardo; Ehrlich, Anne; Ehrlich, Paul R. (2015). The annihilation of nature: human extinction of birds and mammals. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins university press. ISBN 978-1-4214-1718-9.
  3. ^ Pimm, Stuart; Raven, Peter; Peterson, Alan; Şekercioğlu, Çağan H.; Ehrlich, Paul R. (2006-07-18). "Human impacts on the rates of recent, present, and future bird extinctions". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 103 (29): 10941–10946. doi:10.1073/pnas.0604181103. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 1544153. PMID 16829570.