Reports of birds being on the brink of extinction are so common that they are like bereavement notices in newspapers – they tend not to be noticed unless you know the people involved.
The shock news recently that the secretary bird of Africa was facing extinction certainly felt like an impending death in the family.
The secretary bird featured in a study by Birdlife International which revealed nearly 50 per cent of the world’s birds were under threat.
Although many familiar Australian birds are on the threatened list, the bird that stood out for me was the secretary bird, a species that I knew well from the days I travelled southern Africa as a foreign correspondent.
Covering wars and famine, the wildlife I saw was a welcome escape from the stress of my work, no more so than the curious secretary bird. After reading the Birdlife International report, I could not believe this once familiar sight on the African savanna was heading to oblivion.
Once seen, the secretary bird is never forgotten. It stands more than a metre tall on spindly bare legs, at times dancing like a ballerina to dodge the bite of snakes, its main prey. Atop its head are long, narrow feathers which look like hastily arranged quills in a Victorian-era ink pot.
Secretary birds, storks and ground hornbills were a familiar sight across the African bushveld in the 1970s and ‘80s, often with a backdrop of zebra, elephant and lion. But the secretary bird has fallen victim to the destruction of its savanna in favour of ranching. It survives in national parks but even there it is hunted for bush meat and its trophy quills.
The State of the Birds Report 2022 paints a grim picture for bird survival across the globe,
Since 1970, a staggering 2.9 billion individual birds (29 per cent) have been destroyed in North America alone. In Europe, 19 per cent – 600 million – of birds once commonly seen and heard have been lost since 1980. Europe’s farmland birds have shown the most significant declines: 57 per cent have disappeared as a result of increased mechanisation, use of chemicals and converting land to cropping. In Australia, 43 per cent of once abundant seabird species have declined since 2016.
Globally, 49 per cent of bird species are declining with one in eight threatened with extinction. At least 187 species have become extinct since 1500. Among these are the only Australian mainland species to have vanished, the paradise parrot.
Logging, mining, invasive species and climate breakdown – along with agriculture – are the main threats.
Tasmania has four species listed as critically endangered, the swift and orange-bellied parrots and two shorebirds, the eastern curlew and the curlew sandpiper.
Although I’ve seen all these species and fear for their future, nostalgia for the secretary bird and its savanna home fills me with the greatest melancholy.