This story was originally Appeared in inside climate news is part of climate desk collaboration.
Seabirds evolved about 60 million years ago as the Earth’s continents moved toward their current location and formed the oceans we know today. They are spread over thousands of pristine islands in the vast ocean. And as flying dinosaurs and giant omnivorous sea reptiles went extinct, seabirds began filling an ecological niche as ecosystem engineers.
They distribute beneficial nutrients in the form of guano to plankton, seagrass, and coral reefs, and grow fish populations that are eaten by seabirds and marine mammals in cycles that form a biological carbon pump. The more powerful the pump, the more carbon dioxide is pushed into the ocean sediment reservoir.
Seabird colonies of almost unimaginable size probably persisted over many years of severe climate change and geological cataclysms due to continental collisions, and played a profound role in the oceanic carbon cycle. But even the most remote island nations were quickly destroyed by the humans who colonized and industrialized the planet over the past 200 years.
By some estimates, global seabird populations have declined by as much as 90 percent during this time, and by 70 percent since 1950. To the International Union for Conservation of Nature that seabirds are the most endangered group of birds and one of the most endangered groups of species. Of the 346 seabird species, 97 are globally threatened and another 35 are listed as Near Threatened. It is known or suspected that nearly half of all seabird species are experiencing population declines.
Most of the damage is caused by invasive predators, both humans themselves and the rats, cats, dogs and pigs they bring with them as they exploit from island to island. After millions of years of predator-free evolution, birds did not perceive the new species as a threat. They were particularly vulnerable because they were not as fertile as many land birds and spent a lot of time raising their flightless chicks on land.
There is also direct human predation on an industrial scale, where seabird eggs are harvested for food, their guano is harvested as fertilizer, and the birds themselves, along with seals, sea lions and whales, are harvested for oil or used as unwanted bycatch. did commercial fishing vessel. In the Farallon Islands near San Francisco, the largest single seabird nesting colony in the United States, people collected up to 500,000 eggs a year, so in just a few decades of the gold rush, murre populations dropped from 400,000 to 6. decreased to millions. .
The Farallon Islands are now protected as part of a marine sanctuary, and nesting seabird colonies are recovering, helping to sustain the surrounding marine ecosystem, including great white sharks. Great white sharks are apex predators that sometimes feed on northern fur seal populations that have returned to the sea. Since the islands were protected. Puffin beetles have also returned, and more than 20 endangered species, including birds, reptiles, insects, marine mammals and even sea turtles, live on and around the island.
the comeback has already begun
And hundreds of other seabird restoration projects around the world are showing signs of success, he said. everything is spats, is a scientist at Pacific Rim Conservation, a non-profit organization focused on ecosystem restoration. Spatz was the lead author of the April 10 study. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences It combines data from 851 restoration projects in 36 countries covering 138 seabird species over the past 70 years.
The new study focused on aggressive efforts to restore bird populations, including social lure methods such as the use of decoys and the direct migration of juveniles to new locations free of invasive predators. In more than 75% of restoration work, the target species visited the site and began breeding within two years.
