David Paton, The Advertiser
October 26, 2017 10:30am
BIRD week is a time to celebrate
our feathered friends. But the cacophony of diverse calls that makes a dawn
chorus special is diminishing.
Woodland birds are disappearing
from our landscapes. We are heading towards a “Silent Spring”.
Rachel Carson in the 1960s used
these emotive words to draw attention to losses of birds to pesticides.
And the world acted. Now, if we
are to save our woodland birds, we must act.
Adelaide’s Mount Lofty region is
a biodiversity hotspot, one of just 15 recognised in Australia.
Biodiversity hotpots should be
the last place where species are disappearing — but disappearing they are. They
are heading towards extinction.
Surveys of the distributions of
woodland birds in 2012-14 showed most species had declined since 1984-85, many
by 30-50 per cent.
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