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This book brings together scientific evidence and experience relevant to the practical conservation of wild birds. The authors worked with an international group of bird experts and conservationists to develop a global list of interventions that could benefit wild birds.
For each intervention, the book summarises studies captured by the Conservation Evidence project, where that intervention has been tested and its effects on birds quantified. The result is a thorough guide to what is known, or not known, about the effectiveness of bird conservation actions throughout the world.
The preparation of this synopsis was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council and Arcadia.
This large volume reviews the literature for quantifiable, statistically significant and biologically meaningful effects of 322 human interventions on bird conservation. Therefore, what you have thought of most likely have been tried somewhere else before. This is the second volume in the Synopses of Conservation Evidence Series examining the effectiveness of conservation approaches for a variety of taxa across the globe. The authors worked with an extensive international group of bird experts to compile this very large list of human interventions. The authors literally scanned thousands articles in the literature up to and including 2010 from mostly ornithological, conservation and wildlife management journals written in English. However, this volume does not mention every published English language bird conservation article. For example, I am aware that there are many more Burrowing Owl conservation articles than were cited in this book. I also noticed that voluntary habitat stewardship approaches were missing from the volume. However, I am pleased that the authors have developed a website (www.conservation evidence.com) where information can be easily updated and shared.
Readers should read the About this Book chapter carefully as it explains the content and organization of the book, as well as how to get the most out of this book. The book is divided into 15 chapters: habitat protection; education and raising awareness; residential and commercial development; agriculture; energy production and mining; transportation and service corridors; biological resource use; human intrusions and disturbance; natural system modification; habitat restoration and creation; invasive alien and other problematic species; pollution; climate change and geologic events; general responses to small or declining populations; and captive breeding/rearing and releases. This wide-ranging set of topics should easily meet most readers’ needs. Chapters are further subdivided from two to 49 sections. The larger subsections are further subdivided by bird families.
The only serious flaw in this book is that it is so densely packed with information that it is difficult to follow. Clearly, it is aimed at professional conservationists, land managers and ornithologists familiar with the scientific literature. However, there are brief background information and “key messages” highlighting the most important points to remember from the reviewed literature at the beginning of each chapter and major chapter sections. At the end of each section there is a literature cited section ordered by the same citation number in the text. Standardized full citations are used so it should be easy for readers to track down articles of interest.
Although this book has some limitations, I do recommend it to anyone working in the field of bird conservation.
— Rob Warnock
David Williams is a Research Assistant in the Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge.
Robert G. Pople is a former Research Assistant in the Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge.
David Showler is a Research Associate in the School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia and the Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge.
Matthew F. Child is a Research Assistant in the Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge.
Lynn Dicks is a Research Associate in the Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge.
Erasmus K.H.J. zu Ermgassen is a student in the Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Cambridge.
William J. Sutherland is the Miriam Rothschild Professor of Conservation Biology at the University of Cambridge.
1. About this book
2. Habitat protection
3. Education and awareness raising
4. Threat: Residential and commercial development
5. Threat: Agriculture
6. Threat: Energy production and mining
7. Threat: Transportation and service corridors
8. Threat: Biological resource use
9. Threat: Human intrusions and disturbance
10. Threat: Natural system modifi cations
11. Habitat restoration and creation
12. Threat: Invasive alien and other problematic species
13. Threat: Pollution
14. Threat: Climate change, extreme weather and geological events
15. General responses to small/declining populations
16. Captive breeding, rearing and releases (ex situ conservation)
Index