Hokkaido Trivia – What Can Be the Reasons for the Decreasing Number of Wild Birds?

This winter I’ve met many people mentioning the small number of winter birds this year in Abashiri area. I felt the same way, too. For instance, I haven’t seen the white tail eagles, winter birds, as much as before. 

Some of the birds that have officially been recorded as having decreased drastically in this area are: sandpiper families, some of the gull species and spectacled guillemot. And some have been added to the red list.

Could it be the bird flu that’s been spreading in the country lately? (Since last year, many poultry farms in Japan had to kill all their chickens because of this lethal disease…) Or could it be the “tree trimming” that’s been going on widely in Abashiri? Some say that it’s the global warming that lessened the overall number of “food” for the birds as well as for the large land animals, which ended up having to rely on birds as their food source.  An increasing number of wind power generators in Hokkaido has become a killing weapon to the large birds that fly too close to them.

Man-related reasons can be fixed and should be fixed. I hope we give some time to think about this.  

rf. Wild Bird Society of Japan