IUCN warns of bird extinction
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature Red List for Birds says one of world's heaviest flying birds is on the verge of extinction.
According to the latest edition of the IUCN Red List for Birds, the Great Indian Bustard is one of the 1253 endangered bird species which make up 13% of all surviving bird species.
"In the space of a year another 13 bird species have moved into the threatened categories," said deputy director of the IUCN Global Species Program Jean-Christophe Vie.
The Great Indian Bustard stands a meter tall and weighs up to 15kg, yet as few as 250 may now survive. The bird is now among the 189 Critically Endangered species.
The bustard was once all over the grasslands of India and Pakistan, but now it can only be found in small isolated fragments, with its last stronghold in Rajasthan.
The Bahama oriole (Icterus northropi) is also one of the newly listed Critically Endangered species, which is threatened by the recent arrival of the Shiny cowbird (Molothrus bonariensis), a brood parasite that lays its eggs in other species' nests.
The greatest concentrations of threatened bird species are in the forested tropics, with almost half of the threatened species living on islands, particularly faraway oceanic islands.
According to BirdLife International, invasive alien species have been partly or wholly responsible for the extinction of at least 65 bird species over the past 500 years.
Source: presstv.ir
