Five years later, scientists revisit the groundbreaking Three Billion Bird research

Second in a series

The Three Billion Bird research that vastly expanded the knowledge of bird populations in North America began with a simple question, posed during a gathering of scientists at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in 2017.

“Exactly how many birds have we lost altogether? Can we put a precise number on it?”

The question came from Mike Parr, president of the nonprofit American Bird Conservancy who happened to be visiting the lab and joined the annual meeting. At the time, even the nation’s leading researchers huddled at this conference weren’t sure what the numbers were. The question led to a debate that day, then ended up launching an innovative study that found nearly a third of the breeding birds had vanished over half a century. It was the first time researchers were able to calculate the hemisphere’s wild bird population — and it came to a breathtaking conclusion about the losses.

To recognize the anniversary of the Three Billion Bird report, we’re interviewing key folks involved in this project and digging into the impact of this discovery. What has changed in the five years since its release? In the first in this series, scientist Peter Marra explained why not enough is being done to respond to the research he helped to lead.

In this interview, Parr explains what he believes it will now take to halt the declines and what stands in the way. He also reveals a new initiative coming together to repeat the original research as a way to break down exactly how various species are faring today.   

For a behind-the-scenes look at how the Three Billion Bird research was done, here’s an excerpt of our 2023 book, “A Wing and a Prayer: The Race to Save our Vanishing Birds.’’ This passage takes you along with Parr and the crew of scientists who figured out how to combine traditional bird counts with innovative measures like using radar to count migrating birds.

We conducted our interview with Mike Par earlier this week, which took place as he rode the Cape May-Lewes Ferry across the Delaware Bay. It was a fitting setting; he kept peppering our conversation with reports of the shorebirds, raptors, terns and gulls he was seeing during the passage.

Here’s the full interview, with a little trimming and editing for clarity.

Question: Looking back over the past five years, what do you think the impact of the Three Billion Bird report has been? 

Parr: I think the biggest single impact is that everybody now understands that birds are declining. People Intrinsically felt that, but there wasn’t anything out there in terms of science that said, yes, that’s absolutely correct. And this is by how much – and it’s now settled. It’s definitely had an impact. When you talk about Three Billion Birds, everybody knows what you mean. So I think the most enduring impact is settling the debate over what’s going on with our birds. 

Question: And to what extent has it changed the course of events? 

Parr: That’s a harder question to answer. I think the answer is slightly. But has it changed the course of events enough to make a difference? I would say probably not. In order to really turn around the fate of North America’s birds, it has to be an extremely large-scale response — and I don’t think we’re seeing that.

The losses are almost certainly driven by habitat change, not climate change, although climate change may begin to accelerate the problem in the future. But it’s almost certainly not driven by climate change because the declines appear to have slowed down slightly in recent years, and if it was climate change driving it, there would have probably accelerated.

So it seems like habitat loss is the main driver, and so the response has got to be on a large scale now. We were seeing about two percent a year overall declines in bird populations. So we would need something like two percent per year in response to that in conservation. So let’s say two percent of the habitat would have to be improved, restored or otherwise conserved. I don’t think we’ve seen anywhere close to that kind of response.

Three Billion Birds Revisited: Here’s a link to our full library of posts on the five-year anniversary of this discovery of bird losses and what leading players have to say about what’s being done — and what isn’t — to respond to these profound shifts in populations.

Question: Do you think the effects of this research have run their course or is there possibly more to come? There was some thinking this report would be another Silent Spring with the kind of changes that followed Rachel Carson’s 1962 book, leading to the passage of the Endangered Species Act and the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It took years for the results of Spring Spring to play out. What do you see ahead?

Parr: I do think there’s more to come. For one thing, we’re in the process of getting the Three Billion Bird study redone. Since it’s been five years since the publication, it seems like an appropriate time span to redo the approach and see what’s happened since. I think every five years seems an appropriate time frame for that. So I think that it’s got some legs in terms of the science and media side of it.

In terms of getting the conservation done, a study is never going to do that. There’s going to be some media attention to it, but there’s got to be follow through. And the conservation groups are going to have to push the agenda because nobody else really cares as much about this stuff. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, I would say, does care about it. They’ve been looking at it. I think some of the state wildlife agencies care about it. But, you know, members of Congress aren’t losing sleep over this. We’ve got we’ve got to push the agenda. It’s not going to happen on its own.

Question: What will the timetable be for redoing the report?

Parr: I’m hoping by fall of 25 it’s done, but we’ll see. And don’t forget, the Three Billion Bird report came out in the fall of 2019, six months later Covid hit. We had three years of that pretty much. So we’re only really now getting back in the last year or so to normal operations of society really. Now is the time to kind of regroup and see where we go next. And I think an update of the science would be an appropriate way to do that. (Oh, and there’s a Boat-tailed Grackle. Just now flying by.)

Question: In this election, the environment has not been much of an issue. It would seem like this is a moment when we might be expected as a country to talk about the consequences of environments that are clearly out of whack. What do you make of that?

Parr: Well, politics has deteriorated in the last few years, and it’s become so very polarized. It’s become harder to have more nuanced conversations about these type of things unfortunately. The American Bird Conservancy is nonpartisan, but the whole conversation is an argument between left and right and half the time you can’t tell if it’s factually correct or not. So it’s very difficult to have good sophisticated conversations about things like the environment. 

I do wish we could talk more about the environment. I think climate is definitely on the agenda to some degree and it’s an issue that younger people prioritize more so than others.  But I don’t have a great deal of faith at the moment that Congress is going to be the place to look for solutions.

Question: Can you talk about the extent to which responses to climate change tend to help and also don’t help with conservation for birds? Responses to climate issues are obviously going to increase in the future. What will this likely mean for birds?

Parr: I think for the most part climate change responses do help birds. The one or two exceptions might be wind turbines when put in particularly bad places for birds. In some cases, the more concentrated solar operations might be a problem, too. But for the most part, we need renewables. I think rooftop solar is probably a really good solution that could be helpful to everybody.

Beyond that, I think most of the climate responses are helpful. For instance, growing more forests and certainly protecting the forest we’ve got is good for birds. But we need more diverse forests. We need more habitat diversity. If you have grazing, that’s too uniform, you lose the diversity in grassland. If you have forest management that’s too uniform, you lose the diversity in forests. We ought to be addressing these and we can fix them. It should help on both climate and biodiversity in natural habitat. That’s seems to be the sweet spot.

Question: Where do you see the most progress on habitat? We’re seeing more money going toward climate responses, which are often about protecting lands. What do you see down this road? 

Parr: I think in North America, the best source is Farm Bill money. There’s more money available thought the Farm Bill for habitat management than anywhere else. And there’s going to be a new Farm Bill in the next couple of years. So expanding conservation programs will help. And then federal government management, things like national grasslands and national forest plans will make a difference. (Oh, I just noticed a Merlin flying over. He just passed by.)

Question: So when you put all that together, is it anything like the two percent that’s needed as you mentioned earlier to begin to change the trends on bird populations?

Parr: It would be easily more than two percent with all of that combined. But that would have to be two percent improvement per year if you wanted to get back in 50 years. And of course it’s more than just habitat. We’ve got fewer insects and we’ve got glass buildings, many more glass buildings, things that birds collide with. We’ve got more feral cats than ever and that’s part of the habitat. We’ve got to fix those as well. So habitat management’s going to include those things, too. 

I think we’re going to have a tough time getting back to where we were in 1970, but if we can just stop the decline of birds as a starting point, that would be a good interim goal.

Question: The American Bird Conservancy is as active in Latin America as anyone. What are you seeing the big trends in the southern hemisphere, which is so important for overall bird populations and has so many more birds, but has fewer resources than the North. What are you seeing in the big picture in Latin America? 

Parr: Protected areas remain an important piece of the equation, especially for the endangered species that are endemic to the region. In terms of migratory species, North American migrants get into northern South America in good numbers and then some extend down the spine of the Andes. But it has to also operate in production landscapes. Focusing exclusively on protected areas don’t cover enough territory.

There’s a lot of money currently going into agricultural management in Latin America, and influencing how that money is spent I think would be important. Working with some of the financial agencies and investors to try and make sure that there are incentives for good management: more shade-grown coffee, more forestry plantations around indigenous species. Forests like mahogany, maybe even teak, which even though they’re not native create more biomass. Any kind of forest structure will be better for migrants than things like row crops. The U.S. government is not doing that to any significant degree that I can determine – or at least not enough. That will make a difference there.

Question: You mentioned earlier that leadership on all of this is going to need to come from nonprofits and other players beyond the government. How do you think the cooperation between these players has been, which has not always been the strongest? How is that going now as opposed to five years ago?

Parr: Better, I think. Everybody’s got their lane, you know: The Cornell Lab‘s is data science. We do a lot of habitat work. The Audubon Society does habitat work, but I think they also tend to be more the voice for birds in the public sector. I think everybody has their role and there’s good collaboration between the groups.

I wouldn’t lump government as one single thing. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is doing its best. There’s just not enough money to go around. Migratory birds should not be short changed, but right now there’s not enough funding for Fish and Wildlife to do this job – and I think that’s an area that needs to be fixed. That’s something that Congress should do: they don’t need to prioritize migratory birds over everything else they’re dealing with, but if they could put enough funding into the service to get the migratory bird program working that would be a great step. 

Question: You do sound more hopeful than in some of our previous conversations. Is that the right reading?

Parr:  I’m always optimistic at some level, otherwise I wouldn’t keep doing this. I mean there’re ups and downs. There’s always something that could be better, and there’s always something that’s going well. So it’s just, you know, how full is the glass?

By the way, I’m standing here looking at a White-rumped Sandpiper and there’s a Sempalmated Sandpiper, and some Semipalmated Plovers. You know, at end of the day, we’ve still got a good amount of birds around. This can still be turned around.