Migratory birds face many threats, including human development that displaces wetlands, hunting, obstructions like offshore oil rigs -- and climate change, which is affecting migration cycles and breeding patterns. Pictured: a Sooty Shearwater, which migrate 9,000 miles between nesting sites in the Falkland Islands and feeding sites in the North Atlantic Ocean. Credit: Mike Baird

Migratory birds face many threats, including human development that displaces wetlands, hunting, obstructions like offshore oil rigs — and climate change, which is affecting migration cycles and breeding patterns. Pictured: a Sooty Shearwater, which migrate 9,000 miles between nesting sites in the Falkland Islands and feeding sites in the North Atlantic Ocean. Credit: Mike Baird

Migratory birds face many threats, including human development that displaces wetlands, hunting, obstructions like offshore oil rigs -- and climate change, which is affecting migration cycles and breeding patterns. Pictured: a Sooty Shearwater, which migrate 9,000 miles between nesting sites in the Falkland Islands and feeding sites in the North Atlantic Ocean.
  • Mike Baird
  • Migratory birds face many threats, including human development that displaces wetlands, hunting, obstructions like offshore oil rigs — and climate change, which is affecting migration cycles and breeding patterns. Pictured: a Sooty Shearwater, which migrate 9,000 miles between nesting sites in the Falkland Islands and feeding sites in the North Atlantic Ocean.

Courtesy of: EarthTalk®
E — The Environmental Magazine

Dear EarthTalk: What are the major issues with protecting migratory birds that groups like the Nature Conservancy are working on? — Lorinda Bennet, Alnuquerque, NM

Migratory birds, like other animals, need suitable habitat and food sources to survive. But unlike other animals which stay primarily in one place, migratory birds depend on the availability of food and habitat all along their migration paths, which for some are thousands of miles long. Changing environmental conditions along routes can hinder birds’ ability to survive their often arduous long distance journeys.

This article appears in Jun 23-29, 2011.