The Ocean is in danger, and when we lose the ocean we, lose the life on Earth. Continuously, signs are appearing that the Earth’s oceans are really suffering due to pollution, and the period of climate change that it is enduring.
Now, a recent study indicates that seabird populations have decreased as much as 70% since 1950. This may indicate that poor conditions in oceanic ecosystems are to blame for the sudden loss in seabird population. Almost every week there is a die-off of a large species, whale beaching is becoming a frequent occurrence, and oil spills are causing still unknown long term devastation to our largest bodies of water. If the key research of these experts isn’t taken as a warning sign, then the fate of Earth may be a bleak one.
Why are seabirds a good indicator of how a body of water is doing?
Seabirds are a species that can easily be caught, tagged, and monitored. It is sometimes difficult to get a census of the fish in the ocean or surrounding marine life because they aren’t as easy to keep track of. The population of birds that feed on the fish in the ocean can be seen as a direct reflection of exactly how the fish in the water are doing.
According to the journal published in PLOS one by the University of British Columbia research team, “Seabird population changes are good indicators of long-term and large-scale change in marine ecosystems because seabird populations are relatively well-monitored, their ecology allows them to integrate long-term and large-scale signals (they are long-lived, wide-ranging and forage at high trophic levels), and their populations are strongly influenced by threats to marine and coastal ecosystems.”
By collecting the data on birds that they have, the University of British Columbia team is able to make determinations about the oceans various ecosystems.
The collection of data amassed in this ambitious project
It was no small feat to assemble all of the data necessary to discover that bird populations are dwindling, “We constructed a global database of available primarily English-language seabird population size records worldwide for the years spanning 1950–2010.”
In researching the trend in seabird populations there is a decrease of 70% from 1950-2010, which is an alarming indicator of the decreasing state of global environmental conditions. Although there is no direct cause which can be attributed, it could be any number of human and environmental interferences causing the decline in avian species all around the world. Experts are warning that this kind of decrease in seabird population is a disturbing indicator of the state of the world’s ocean ecosystems.
