According to new research that uses citizen science observations, there are at least 50 billion individual wild birds in the world.
- The research paper, led by scientists at the University of New South Wales, suggests there are about six times as many birds on the planet as humans – but that many individual species are very rare.
- The study was published May 17 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
One billion club
- House sparrows alone make up about 1.6 billion of these and three other species – European starlings, barn swallows and ring-billed gulls – also have populations exceeding one billion birds.
- These four species belong to what the researchers dubbed “the billion club”.
1180 bird species having population below 5000
- The researchers analysed 9,700 species of living birds (excluding all domestic birds) using data recorded by birdwatchers on the online database, ebird, over the past decade.
- Scientists estimate that 1,180 bird species—12 percent of the world’s total—each have a total population below 5,000.
- If a species has a total population under 2,500, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) would label it an endangered species.
