Audubon:  Frightful Fundraising

Opinion by Kip Hansen — 3 July 2024 — 2200 words

The National Audubon Society is a foundational conservation organization in the United States:  “The National Audubon Society launched in 1905, on the heels of American conservationism and a growing movement to protect birds. As with many efforts to conserve nature, women led the way: The first Audubon Society was organized by two Boston environmentalists, Harriet Hemenway and Minna B. Hall, in response to the widespread slaughter of waterbirds, the gorgeous feathers of which were used to make women’s hats.”   [ source ]  Yes, that’s right, birds were being slaughtered all over the world to feed the fad of fancy-feathered women’s hats – some even having whole birds on them!

National Audubon has done some terrific work over the last 100+ years but more recently, since the turn of the century (20^th to 21^st), they have succumbed to the lure of climbing on the Climatism bandwagon – diluting their message and muddying their reputation.   Worse yet, their current messaging and fundraising uses a toxic mix of Climatism and rabid Environmentalism – which I call Enviro-Climatism, a word I use to clarify that this movement includes the worst aspects of the present-day environmental movements and the wild apoplectic versions of the climate scare.

I have donated money to Audubon in the past and thus am on their fund-raising mailing list.  Every day I get yet another plea for money based on some mostly-false scary claim about the fate of birds like these pulled from the last ten days or so:

“Birds are suffering from the impacts of climate change. Will you help?

It’s nothing short of a crisis, which means we don’t have a moment to waste in protecting them for generations to come. In fact, two-thirds of North American bird species, including familiar songbirds like American Goldfinches, are at increasing risk of extinction because of climate change.”

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For birds like the Piping Plover, more frequent and intense weather events like storms and hurricanes are existential threats.

Climate change is putting birds at serious risk.

These beloved songbirds could disappear from two-thirds of their present breeding range.

Extreme weather like heat waves and storms endanger young birds.

We’ve already lost 3 billion birds in the span of a human lifetime.

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“Birds like the Piping Plover are not yet safe from potential extinction and we need ongoing support from generous people like you to protect them.

The Piping Plover is a species at serious risk: Although the breeding population is increasing, the Great Lakes population is still just a fraction of what it once was. Habitat loss and degradation contribute to its decline, as does disturbance from people, pets, and wildlife near their nests. And it’s one of the two-thirds of North American species at increasing risk of extinction from climate change.”

But, we’re not willing to let the birds we love go extinct.

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With their brilliant colors, bouncy flight, and musical call notes, American Goldfinches are summer favorites in open habitats across much of North America. But if climate change continues unchecked, they could disappear from two-thirds of their present breeding range.

In the midst of this code-red climate emergency—and as their very survival is threatened—birds rely on your support now more than ever. Two-thirds of North American birds are at increasing risk of extinction from climate change including beloved songbirds like American Goldfinches and vulnerable shorebirds like Piping Plovers.

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Had enough?  I have, and more…. Let me try and set a bit of this straight:

The American Goldfinch  

This lovely little bird is a common sight at backyard birdfeeders across most of North America.  The males are a brilliant yellow when in full-breeding plumage.  I see them every Spring as they arrive in the U.S. Northeast and watch as they take on their breeding fancy dress colors.

The claim that Goldfinches might disappear is simply false.  The latest  IUCN Red List assessment for the American Goldfinch, reads:

“This species has an extremely large range, and hence does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the range size criterion. ….  The population trend appears to be increasing, and hence the species does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the population trend criterion …. The population size is extremely large, and hence does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the population size criterion…. For these reasons the species is evaluated as Least Concern.”

They are not Vulnerable at all for any reason.  

National Audubon uses this non-existent threat as a scare tactic to get donations out of the anxious, the “little old ladies with too much money” (I have a relative I am thinking of, who is a sucker for begging junk mail), and true bird-lovers for whom National Audubon was once a respected source of information.

The Piping Plover  

This little shorebird is so cute that it fascinates beachgoers as it runs this way and that, avoiding the tiniest of waves as it picks and pecks at the sand for bits of food.  I have written about plovers before, when they were benefitted by the aftermath of Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy.

The latest IUCN Red List assessment lists the Piping Plover as ‘Near Threatened” – that is, not actually threatened with possible extinction, but might be so soon – “A near-threatened species is a species which has been categorized as “Near Threatened” (NT) by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as that may be vulnerable to endangerment in the near future, but it does not currently qualify for the threatened status.” [ source ]  “Near Threatened” is one of the three “Lower Risk” categories in the IUCN Red List hierarchy.

The IUCN assessment reads:

“This species has a small population which has declined significantly since the 1950s. However, there have been overall population increases since 1991 and the species’s population is thought to currently be growing at a slow rate. The population increase is however largely the result of intensive conservation management and thus it is likely that positive trends would reverse again if conservation action were to stop. Due to its high conservation dependence and the risk of future declines following any stochastic event, the species warrants listing as Near Threatened.”

The Piping Plover faces a number of threats..  They breed in the dunes along the seashores and lakeshores – and waterfront development and the intrusions caused by humans and their pets (dogs and cats) interfere with nesting and endanger brooding chicks.  This sign has Piping Plovers as the right-hand image. 

Increasing populations of the small falcon, the Merlin, a winning species,  whose primary prey is other birds, are listed as a threat in Virginia. 

Any disturbance of beaches during breeding season can disrupt Pipers, including conservation efforts, like beach replenishment, nest surveillance and beach-grass planting.   

But, the bottom line for Piping Plovers is that while their breeding areas can benefit from some protections,  they are not particularly at risk and certainly not in crisis. 

In fact, two-thirds of North American bird species…are at increasing risk of extinction because of climate change.

All of these types of claims have some basis in fact, but, as you would suspect, are alarmist spins produced by advocacy organizations.  Most of the data comes from a report called “State of the Birds 2022”,  “The 2022 U.S. State of the Birds report was produced by a consortium of government agencies, private organizations, and bird initiatives led by NABCI (North American Bird Conservation Initiative).” 

I have written here at WUWT about earlier versions of this report – “About those claims of declining bird populations due to ‘climate change’” and “Birds in Crisis?”. 

There is no doubt that as land-use changes and local weather conditions change, cities are built, farms and ranches expand and, on the other hand, as much agricultural land is abandoned and reverts to transitional forests or grasslands, the populations of birds that inhabit these ecological niches will change.  There are winners and losers, some individual species and types of birds have expanding populations and some have shrinking populations. 

In the latest State of the Birds , the NABCI offers this overall picture:

In this we see that waterbirds of all kinds are booming.  Western Forest Birds are long-term steady.  Eastern Forest Birds, Shorebirds and Grassland Birds populations have leveled out and stabilized in the last decade.  And, a number of birds types declining, some very steeply.  Note that in keeping with Enviro-Climatism memes, NABCI has labelled some species “Tipping Point species”. 

The sources for the data for this (and previous reports) are explained as: “This report describes population change for 259 species of North American birds summarized from 5 surveys: the North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS, 176 species, Sauer et al., 2020), the Christmas Bird Count (CBC, 60 species, Meehan et al., 2020), the Waterfowl Breeding Population and Habitat Survey (WBPHS, 14 species, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 2021), the American Woodcock Signing-ground Survey (SGS, 1 species, Seamans and Rau, 2021), and International Shorebird Surveys (ISS, 9 species, Smith and Smith, 2022).”…

The bird counts may all suffer from the same problems recently found in monarch butterfly counts,  which I explain in this essay: “Modern Scientific Controversies 2024: The Monarch Wars — Part 1”, to wit; the counts are performed by volunteers who count at specified locations on pre-determined days, year after year.  Neither the butterflies or the birds are informed of the locations and dates in advance and may miss their appointments or simply pass by at another time or another location.

There are conflicting reports on some of these trends.  For instance, the category “Sea Ducks”:  in the NABCI report, it says:  “Sea ducks face elevated threats from climate change, including effects on food resources, altered predator communities, and rapid changes to breeding habitats.” And show a sharp declining trend of “30%”.

But, the specialized conservation group “Sea Duck Joint Venture” contradicts that statement,  explictly saying “…for most species of sea ducks, we cannot accurately estimate abundance, relative densities, or population trends, nor determine abundance objectives.”

And the oft-repeated claim:

“Three billion birds lost 1 in 4 breeding birds have been lost from the United States and Canada in the past 50 years.”?  [ State of the Birds 2022, page 4 ]

We have this from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology: 

“In the United States alone, there are 60 million to 100 million free-ranging, unowned cats. These are non-native predators that, even using conservative estimates, kill 1.3–4 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals each year in the U.S. alone (Loss et al. 2013, Nature Communications).”

This does not include the number of birds killed by 58 million owned pet cats allowed to roam free at least part of the day.   In the 50 years covered by the NABCI claim, cats would account for between 65 and 200 Billion birds killed (by feral cats) and untold billions more by pet cats. 

The reports of  “3 billion birds lost”, repeated in Audubon fund-raising,  pales by comparison.

These are staggering numbers, yet there is very little real pressure from National Audubon or NACBI , nothing in the The State of the Birds report,  calling for laws and regulations to prevent this rampant slaughter.  The topic is somewhat toxic for National Audubon as illustrated by the 2013 kurfluffle over a Ted Williams Op-Ed in a non-Audubon publication, resulting in an official apology from Williams..   A search of the National Audubon’s magazine reveals that Audubon took a strong stand on cats in 2013 thru about 2015:

“So let’s be clear: Audubon’s long-standing view, strongly supported by the best available science and laid out in a resolution by our board of directors, is that cats – particularly feral cats – are a leading cause of bird deaths. Audubon strongly believes that cats belong indoors. That’s safer for them and for birds.”

After 2015, their magazine is silent about the cat issue, until recently, with two articles in the Spring 2024 issue in support of keeping pet cats indoors [ here and here ], but no lobbying campaigns for legislation or regulations.

Bottom Lines:

National Audubon is among the many advocacy organizations that are using exaggerated and, in some cases, outright false claims of crisis and disaster to extract money from the gullible and from the caring.

I find it extremely offensive.   In the case of National Audubon, they could make perfectly reasonable requests for money for the support of their good, helpful, and useful projects and programs.  They do have programs that actually improve the situation for various birds, such as protecting wildlands and breeding sites.

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Author’s Comment:

Please take note that this Opinion piece applies to National Audubon, and not to the many affiliated regional and local Audubon clubs and groups, which generally all do great work, educating children and adults about birds and helping to maintain safe places for the birds to live and breed. 

Of course, National Audubon is not the only advocacy groups to use fear as a motivator in fund raising, it is just the one that appears in my email stream regularly with outrageous misleading claims.

If you are a bird lover, support your local Audubon chapter and bring fund-raising the abuses of National Audubon the attention of your local people.

And, keep your cat indoors – or at least prevent it from free-roaming.

Thanks for reading.

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