• The most imperiled birds include 44 species with very limited distributions, mostly in Mexico, including the Thick-billed Parrot and Horned Guan.

• 24 at-risk species that breed in the United States and Canada are in particularly dire straits, including Cerulean Warbler, Black Swift, and Canada Warbler.

• 42 common bird species have steeply declined by 50% or more in the past 40 years, including Common Nighthawk, Eastern Meadowlark and Loggerhead Shrike.

International bird conservation partners from the United States, Canada, and Mexico released the report on May 11, at the Fifteenth Annual Trilateral Committee for Wildlife and Ecosystem Conservation and Management meeting in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. (Our executive director Ian Davidson was there on Nature Canada’s behalf).

The three countries that make up North America are home to 882 native landbird species, more than one-third of which depend substantially on habitats in more than one country. The abundant birdlife we enjoy in Canada enriches our culture and economy, as does birdlife in the U.S. and Mexico. The biodiversity of which birds are a part provide immeasurable — and irreplaceable — ecosystem services that we humans depend on, gifts we often take for granted.

There’s simply no way that bird species, who know no borders, can possibly be saved without international coordination.

The Partners in Flight report, Saving Our Shared Birds: Partners in Flight Tri-National Vision for Landbird Conservation, is also a call to action to protect, restore and enhance North America’s populations of birds and bird habitat. You can read the details online, but here are the headlines:

1. Protect and recover species at greatest risk
2. Conserve habitats and ecosystem functions
3. Reduce Bird Mortality
4. Expand our knowledge base for conservation
5. Engage people in conservation action
6. Increase the power of international partnerships

Learn more about Partner in Flight’s Ontario Landbird Conservation Plans, or read a New York Times blog piece on the new report.

Photo: Canada Warbler, John Kormendy