From The Conversation (13/2/24)…
The world’s spectacular animal migrations are dwindling. Fishing, fences and development are fast-tracking extinctions
In 1875, trillions of Rocky Mountain locusts gathered and began migrating across the western United States in search of food. The enormous swarm covered an area larger than California. Three decades later, these grasshoppers were extinct.
This fate is all too common for migratory species. Their journeys can make them especially vulnerable to hunting or fishing. They may move between countries, meaning protecting the species in one jurisdiction isn’t enough. And it’s hard for us to even know if they’re in trouble.
Today, we get a global glimpse of how migratory species are faring, in the first-ever stocktake produced by the United Nations Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species. The report shows falling populations in close to half (44%) the 1,189 species tracked by the convention. The problem is much worse underwater – 90% of migratory fish species are threatened with extinction.
Their decline is not inevitable. After all, the migratory humpback whale was headed for rapid extinction – until we stopped whaling.
