{"id":499,"date":"2010-08-10T13:18:42","date_gmt":"2010-08-10T11:18:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/general\/preventing-extinction-a-common-cause\/"},"modified":"2010-08-10T13:18:42","modified_gmt":"2010-08-10T11:18:42","slug":"preventing-extinction-a-common-cause","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/general\/preventing-extinction-a-common-cause\/","title":{"rendered":"Preventing extinction: a common cause"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Lesser Grey Shrike<\/strong> Lanius minor<\/em> could be down to just one pair in Catalonia<\/strong>, in other words it is soon to be extinct in the whole of the Iberian Peninsula<\/strong>. The truth is nobody was betting on the species to\u00a0hold out\u00a0much longer.\u00a0For several years now the known population was reduced to a single site<\/strong>,\u00a0where despite close monitoring and trapping of Magpies (the main predator of nestlings) the numbers of Lesser Grey Shrikes has gone slowly but steadily downhill. From just over\u00a010 pairs at the turn of the millenium, to 4 pairs in 2008, and now the last one. Will the species have any reason to turn up here next year? \u00a0<\/p>\n

I was embarked on a survey for the Atlas of Breeding Birds of Catalunya 1999-2002 when I chanced upon this as-then unknown breeding population<\/strong> of Lesser Grey Shrikes, on the very edge of the city of Lleida<\/strong>. At the time the discovery seemed to\u00a0breathe some new life into the hopes for the future of the species in Spain. By then this attractive shrike\u00a0had disappeared from\u00a0the Aiguamolls of Empord\u00e0<\/strong> in Girona and from the last few pockets remaining to it in Arag\u00f3n<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the face of the continued decline of the species<\/strong> it was closely monitored at this site. In fact, the presence of the Lesser Grey Shrike went a long way towards the declaration of the area as a “ZEPA” (SPA), a fact welcomed by a one-in-a-thousand enlightened landowner. Local biologists and\u00a0conservationists\u00a0even started working on a reintroduction scheme.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Lesser<\/p>\n

None of this has been enough. Surely, now is the time for all involved to ask themselves\u00a0if\u00a0they\u00a0really thought it was ever going to be enough. If the (public) money spent\u00a0on the Lesser Grey Shrike, on counting, monitoring, studying and paperwork, had any significance for the conservation of the species? And if anyone\u00a0so employed believed that\u00a0getting results was what really\u00a0mattered the most? \u00a0<\/p>\n

That brings me to an issue which has come to me time and again in my contact with conservation initiatives<\/strong> in this country.\u00a0Does anybody seriously propound\u00a0that counting (surveying, censusing) is\u00a0conservation?<\/p>\n

Yes? Then please explain to me how it works, and why the Dupont’s Lark<\/strong> went extinct in Catalonia<\/strong> despite regular censuses, and why the Lesser Grey Shrike is now close to the end of the same path.<\/p>\n

No? Then why\u00a0do so many conservation efforts in Spain (Iberian Peninsula, Catalonia…) focus almost exclusively on solely counting the birds? Where’s the conservation in knowing that a rare species is getting rarer year by year, if you don’t use that information immediately to draw up some plan of remedial action<\/strong>?<\/p>\n

That’s my point.\u00a0Counting is not conservation. It might be many things, most of them good: birding, collaborating, training, group-bonding, identity-forming, whatever. But if no-one has bothered to work out what to do with the results before the count has been done, then it is not going to be of any service at all to the bird in question, ie. it is not<\/strong> conservation.<\/p>\n

My proposal is that\u00a0public funding<\/strong> for counting birds or other beasts should always<\/strong> be conditioned towards action<\/strong> based on the results. In other words, if a species is declining and the cause is known (lack of habitat, disturbance, predation by magpies, etc), then the lion’s share\u00a0of the\u00a0available funds should be allocated\u00a0to\u00a0action<\/strong> to ameliorate the situation. In other words, action, not numbers<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Lesser Grey Shrike Lanius minor could be down to just one pair in Catalonia, in other words it is soon to be extinct in the whole of the Iberian Peninsula. The truth is nobody was betting on the species to\u00a0hold out\u00a0much longer.\u00a0For several years now the known population was reduced to a single site,\u00a0where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-ideas-for-birds"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7I752-83","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}