HARROW: “The erosion of the UK’s wildlife is staggering and this is reinforced when you talk about puffin and turtle dove now facing the same level of extinction threat as African elephant and lion, and being more endangered than the humpback whale”, he said.
These include many wading shore birds, those from other habitats, six out of 11 vulture species in Africa and other iconic species like the Atlantic Puffin, European Turtle-dove and Helmeted Hornbill.
John Sharpe, the RSPB’s Conservation Manager in Eastern England, said: “The news of the increased threat of extinction to turtle doves is not wholly unexpected, but it does throw into sharp relief the dire situation these birds face and the urgency of joined-up conservation efforts across their range if we are to save them”.
As well as Atlantic puffins and European turtle doves, Slavonian grebes and pochards have also been marked as vulnerable to extinction. In total, there are already eight bird species commonly seen in Britain are now labelled as “vulnerable”, while 14 are considered “near threatened” according to a report by Express.
The decline in breeding has led to the birds being listed as vulnerable to extinction – the category behind critically endangered and endangered, which denotes a species is at risk of dying out globally.
