In the 2012 President's Budget Request, the National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) is terminated. As a result, all resources, databases, tools, and applications within this web site will be removed on January 15, 2012. For more information, please refer to the NBII Program Termination page.
The State of the Birds reports provide comprehensive analyses of the status of bird populations in the United States.
Socio-Cultural Significance of Birds
[Photograph: iStockphoto]
Birds have figured prominently in human culture and societies since prehistoric times and have served as a source of inspiration for creative endeavors. Our enduring fascination with birds extends to different aspects of culture and society, as the following examples show:
Marbled Godwit (Limosa fedoa) [Photograph: John J. Mosesso]
The Focal Species Strategy was developed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to better measure success in achieving bird conservation priorities and mandates. One hundred and thirty-nine birds were identified as candidate species for conservation action.
Birds are vertebrates of the taxonomic class Aves. Thought of as "warm-blooded," birds are endotherms, meaning they are able to regulate their own body temperature independently of the temperature of their surroundings. Bird characteristics include feathers, wings, and a reproduction strategy of laying and incubating eggs.
California contains a wide variety of habitats that support 433 regularly occurring bird species across the state, some of which require conservation efforts. Birds play an important role in ecological diversity and several key organizations provide data and information online including PRBO Conservation Science, the International Bird Rescue Research Center, the California Academy of Sciences, and the NBII Bird Conservation Node. These sites provide a wide array of information on birds, descriptions of research and education programs, and bird collections.
Many California organizations focus on specific groups of birds such as the Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research, which provides a source of information about birds of prey in California as well as the Ventana Wilderness Society that provides information about the reintroduction of the California Condor.
The California Node works with regional and national partners to provide access to a variety of data and information applications and products including the:
Birds provide important ecological services that contribute to maintaining ecosystem processes and some of the necessary conditions on which humans and other organisms depend. These services range from food provisioning to modification of habitats and resource flows in biological communities. Bird declines can have negative impacts on ecosystems, and their sensitivity to environmental change often lends them as useful indicators of environmental quality.
For overviews on the ecological role of birds, see the articles by Whelan and colleagues (2008) and by Sekercioglu (2006). Examples of ecological services and functions birds perform include:
Estimates on how much birds contribute to our economy reflect only a fraction of their value, because the monetary value of ecological and socio-cultural services birds provide has not been quantified. Wild birds have been part of trading and economic activity throughout history. In the United States, severe bird population declines in the early 1900s due to commercial activities led to passage of legislation restricting commercial trade of birds and their parts.
Today, recreational activities account for most of the commercial revenues generated by wild birds in the US. To learn more about the economic impact of bird-related recreational activities see:
Recreational and professional bird watchers can support bird conservation by contributing their individual bird observations to citizen science programs. Aggregation of these individual observations at a variety of spatial and temporal scales helps determine real-time abundance and distribution of birds throughout the world. To contribute or access data from citizen science programs, visit the following sites:
eBird - A real-time, online checklist program that provides data on bird abundance and distribution across North America.
Worldbirds - A platform for the collection, storage and retrieval of bird observations worldwide.
The NBII Program is administered by the Biological Informatics Program of the U.S. Geological Survey