The Audubon Society released a report about North America’s declining bird population. The news isn’t good. We are killing one of nature’s great legacies.

The report, released last week, received a dismissive yawn from the Canadian and American main stream press. Their collective lack of response seems to suggest that they think readers don’t care about the continent’s declining bird population.

That cannot be true. People everywhere know that one of nature’s great inheritances – shared by everyone – are the wild birds that surround us. Or used to. In some cases, bird populations have declined by more than 70% since 1967, the baseline date for the study.

The average decline is a staggering 68% and some species, like the Northern Bobwhite, are down by 82%.

We’ve all heard about the canary in the coal mine phenomenon. If the canary dies, well, it is time to run. Unfortunately, our mine shaft is the earth and there is no where to flee.