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Landbird Threats Assessment |
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Written by Administrator
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Thursday, 16 July 2009 |
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As a part of the Tri-national Vision described above, the PIF Science Committee is conducting a threats assessment of all 900 species of landbirds that regularly breed in Canada, the US and Mexico. The assessment will first address the 221 landbird species of highest priority for conservation action, and will use the threats taxonomy of Salafsky et al. (2009). The first round will consist of scoring only those threats that are likely to be limiting the species. But our intent is to eventually score all 900 species on a 1-5 scale, as PIF has done for other factors in our Species Assessment Database. In preliminary analysis, and probably not surprisingly, the conversion of habitat for the production of agricultural crops is the #1 threat facing North American landbirds. However, many other threats, such as timber harvest, livestock grazing, and residential development, are affecting large numbers of species. Once completed, this will be the first systematic threats assessment of all North American landbirds.
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