Over 1.5 Billion Birds In American Skies Likely Saved By Air Pollution Laws, Says Cornell Study

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While a number of human lives have benefited and been saved over the last four decades due to pollution regulations that were signed into U.S. law, it seems that these laws have had positive effects on saving the birds as well.

A new and rather large-scale study that was conducted by scientists at both the Cornell University and the University of Oregon. They discovered that because of the federal programs’ ability to lessen ozone pollution, it therefore improved air quality and has most likely saved over 1.5 billion birds over the last four years in the process.


Their study shared that this was almost 20% of the birdlife living in the United States today.

According to the study’s lead author and Ruth and William Morgan Assistant Professor at Cornell’s Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, Ivan Rudik, “Our research shows that the benefits of environmental regulation have likely been underestimated.” He added, “Reducing pollution has positive impacts in unexpected places and provides an additional policy lever for conservation efforts.”

While ozone is a type of gas that happens in nature, it is also produced by artificial factors like factories, power plants, and car emissions. Unlike what most people believe, it can be good or bad. There is a layer of ozone in the upper atmosphere that protect the Earth from the more harmful ultraviolet rays that the sun produces. The ground-level ozone, on the other hand, is incredibly hazardous and happens to be the main pollutant in smog.

In order to better understand the relationship between air pollution and bird population, the researchers actually used models that put together a number of observations from ground-level pollution data and existing regulations with Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s eBird program.

Over a span of 15 years, researchers were able to track the ‘monthly changes in bird abundance, air quality, and regulation status for 3,214 U.S. counties.’ The research team chose to focus on the NOx (nitrogen oxide) Budget Trading Program, which had been implemented by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the purpose of hindering and lessening the emissions of ozone precursors from large industrial sources in order to protect human health.


Published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study proposes that the ozone pollution is truly the most harmful to the smaller migratory birds like warblers, finches and sparrows. These three types make up at least 86 percent of all North American land bird species. The ozone pollution is what directly harms these birds by negatively damaging their respiratory system, as well as indirectly harming them by negatively affecting their food sources, causing their populations to drop.

Another one of the study authors, Amanda Rodewald, who is also Garvin professor at the Cornel Department of Natural Resources and the Environment and Director of the Center for Avian Population Studies at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology shared, “Not only can ozone cause direct physical damage to birds, but it also can compromise plant health and reduce numbers of insects that birds consume.”

She added, “Not surprisingly, birds that cannot access high-quality habitat or food resources are less likely to survive or reproduce successfully. The good news here is that environmental policies intended to protect human health return important benefits for birds too.”

 

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