Human activity responsible for mass bird extinctions

Humans have wiped out around 1,400 bird species - twice as many as previously thought - with major implications for the ongoing biodiversity crisis, a new study involving UCL researchers has found. Many of the world's islands were previously untouched paradises, but the arrival of people to places like Hawaii, Tonga and the Azores led to far-reaching impacts including deforestation, overhunting and the introduction of invasive species. Consequently, bird species were wiped out. While the demise of many birds since the 1500s has been recorded, our knowledge of the fate of certain species before this relies on fossils, and these records are limited because birds' lightweight bones disintegrate over time. Researchers now believe that 1,430 bird species - almost 12 per cent - have died out over modern human history, since the Late Pleistocene around 130,000 years ago, with the vast majority of them becoming extinct directly or indirectly due to human activity. The study, led by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) and published in Nature Communications, used statistical modelling to estimate the undiscovered bird extinctions. Lead author Dr Rob Cooke, an ecological modeller at UKCEH, says: "Our study demonstrates there has been a far higher human impact on avian diversity than previously recognised.