Some animal species are endangered. In France, birds are not spared. Causes include air pollution, urbanization and pesticide use. Find different cases exposed here, that of the grouse, the swallow or the royal kite of the Massif Central.
In London, UK, the sparrow population has declined by 70% in recent decades. In the face of growing urbanization, air pollution and pesticides, this bird deserts the parks and gardens of the British capital because of lack of food. An ornithologist from the British Society for the Protection of Birds, responsible for monitoring sparrow populations, explains the situation.
In the Haute-Loire, in the Massif Central, the royal kite is a species still very present but it is now threatened for twenty years, mainly because it ingests bromadiolone, a powerful rodenticide used by farmers to control ground voles. For a whole weekend, a census and counting operation was organized to find solutions to protect this endangered species.
In the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, hunting grouse, a gallinaceous cousin of the heather rooster, has been forbidden for several years because this species is endangered. In order to study it, to protect it and to increase its population three important actors - the National Forestry Office, the National Wildlife and Hunting Office and the hunters themselves - work side by side in the woods of Auzet.
According to scientific estimates, 60% of swallows have disappeared in Europe. The reasons include air pollution, the use of pesticides and insecticides, but also the destruction by humans of nests in dwellings due to nuisance (droppings). This is the case of the Window Swallow, present both in the city and in the countryside because it nests under the advancing roofs. In Treillières (Loire-Atlantique) the city’s services, assisted by the League for the Protection of Birds (LPO), have installed laths under the roofs of some buildings to prevent droppings from falling to the ground. The operation was successful, with nineteen pairs of swallows present.
In Ile-de-France breeding birds are increasingly threatened. The reasons are multiple: presence of insecticides, habitat degradation, removal of wetlands. This can be seen at the leisure base of Cergy-Pontoise (Val-d'Oise), where coots and scaup have been in constant decline for several years. Among the measures to protect them, the strengthening of the vegetation on the edges of the body of water, area where these birds build their nests.