How are Landbird Populations Doing in the North Coast and Cascades Network?

Orange-crowned warbler singing from a perch.

Graham Montgomery / Institute for Bird Populations

In addition to their aesthetic value (fascinating behavior, colorful variations of plumage, and melodious songs), birds are important components of the ecosystems they inhabit. They provide services such as seed dispersal and pollination for many plant species and they consume literally tons of insects and other ‘pest’ animal species. However, reports of bird species declines from around the world have raised the alarm about changes occurring due to climate change, deforestation, habitat fragmentation, pollution, and other stressors.

Bird populations are very good gauges of environmental health - quite literally, the ‘canary in the coal mine.’ They are relatively abundant and easy to observe, making them useful indicators of changes in the ecosystem. Studying landbird density and distribution can reveal changes and trends not only in their populations but in the condition of resources in the national parks of the North Coast and Cascades Network.

Since 2006, the Institute for Bird Populations (IBP) has been actively monitoring the landbird populations in the Network’s national parks. This ongoing long-term record of bird observations has provided some encouraging results, with two recently published studies showing generally stable populations. In the three wilderness parks, Mount Rainier, North Cascades, and Olympic National Parks, only six species showed declines; all other species were stable or increasing. And in the two small historical parks where landbirds are monitored, Lewis and Clark and San Juan Island National Historical Parks, only three species were in decline.

Learn more about the results of these two studies, and about the who, what, where, and how of data collection in the North Coast and Cascades Network in the IBP blog!

For more information, contact Jason Ransom, North Coast and Cascades Network Landbird Monitoring Project Lead.