New Bird Species Tagged as Endangered

We see birds flying around the sky every day. We don’t really mind them much, but experts have actually discovered a number of new species of birds, and some of them are already endangered or borderline extinct. A comprehensive list from BirdLife International shows that there have been 361 newly discovered bird species. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) keeps track of all the types of animals on earth and sad to say, more than a quarter of the newly discovered species of birds were placed on the Red List of Threatened Species.

According to Stuart Butchart, BirdLife’s spokesperson, one tenth of the entire world’s birds have been living below the conservation’s radar. Sometimes, certain species of birds are mislabeled and are tagged as variants from a single species. At times, some species become so inaccessible to researches that they have a hard time tracking their population and understand how these species mate.

A good example would be ostriches. Until now, there has only been one ostrich species that has ever been recorded. This specie was placed under the threatened list as “least concern”. However, a new assessment shows that the Somali ostrich, scientific name Struthiomolybdophanes, was found in Kenya, Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Somalia. This is now considered as a distinct species and it’s even listed under “vulnerable” in the red list. These ostriches are facing problems with their population because of egg collecting, hunting and persecution.

Researchers and conservationist are now working double time to categorize as much individual species as they can. They also ask help from locals to identify them.