Wild thing

Did you know, you live next to one of the wildest — and most magical — species on

Earth

? Birds evolved 160 million years ago while humans are just seven million years old. Descended from dinosaurs into 10,000 species, birds have dazzling powers. Their flight is wondrous, bar-headed geese ascending 8,000 miles up in the sky — as high as jet planes — while Arctic terns fly 40,000 miles roundtrip from the Arctic to the Antarctic annually, following maps made of memories, magnetism and stars.




Birds fill the world with music — a wren’s song contains 700 different notes a minute. Highly intelligent — the African gray parrot wryly enunciates 800 words — and blessed with humour (the marsh warbler mimics 80 birds), they show kindness too, ostriches generously tending other birds’ eggs. Wild birds tell us the story of life — finches in the Galapagos Islands studied by

Charles Darwin

helped prove his theory of the origin and divergence of species.



Yet, wild birds face huge threats today. The World Economic Forum reports at least 40% avian species globally have declining populations while the IUCN finds 1,227 species face extinction. North America alone has lost 30% of its wild birds since 1970 while hundreds of species worldwide face extinction as habitat loss — the destruction of forests, marshes and grasslands — for agriculture and logging leaves 50% endangered birds homeless. Over 35% birds face hunting while 33% confront climate change, Earth’s balance between seasons, crops and cues to fly altered.



The implications are serious — for human beings.

Bird

well-being is the canary in the coal mine of modernity. Birds succumbing shows an environment made increasingly toxic by fossil fuels, plastics and chemicals. Growing global warming means fewer birds and rising food insecurity as pollinators perish.

Little wonder

Shakespeare

ominously observes in

Hamlet

, ‘There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow’. However, this providence can still be changed. As Times Evoke’s global experts emphasise, interventions from afforestation to agroecology, boycotting bird trade to modifying fishing nets — in Chile, this reduced bird catch by 98% — can help save these extraordinary beings.

Join Times Evoke

in protecting a species which inspires so many to feel, ‘Wild thing… you make my heart sing’.

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