Central Kootenay

By Kyle Horner, NatureCounts Engagement Coordinator at Birds Canada

The newly released State of Canada’s Birds is a partnership between Birds Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada. It’s built on over 50 years of bird monitoring data, much of it collected by Citizen Scientists. It combines the data with expert analysis to answer one, simple question:

How are Canada’s birds doing?

As you might imagine, that simple question doesn’t have a simple answer. The State of Canada’s Birds addresses it in two ways: a species account for every bird that regularly occurs in Canada, and a rolled-up summary report. If you’re interested in the big picture, the report is the place to start.

The report builds and expands on similar reports from 2012 and 2019, but the analysis is new and improved. We have data on more species than ever before, and two new groups of birds are introduced for the first time. There is a lot to unpack, but it begins with a plot that may look familiar.

Birds Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada. 2024. The State of Canada’s Birds Report. Accessed from NatureCounts. DOI: 10.71842/8bab-ks08

Just like its predecessors, this report groups birds based on where and how they live their lives. By studying these groups, we can see what birds may be facing common threats or benefitting from the same conservation action. You can read about each group in detail in the report, but to get you started:

Here are five big stories from The State of Canada’s Birds… [click to read]