One of the Eurasia's most abundant bird species has declined by 90% and retracted its range by 5,000 km since 1980, a new study shows.
Yellow-breasted Bunting was once distributed over vast areas of Europe and Asia, its range stretching from Finland to Japan. New research published in the journal Conservation Biology suggest that unsustainable rates of hunting, principally in China, have contributed to not only a catastrophic loss of numbers, but also in the areas in which it can now be found.
"The magnitude and speed of the decline is unprecedented among birds distributed over such a large area, with the exception of the Passenger Pigeon, which went extinct in 1914 due to industrial-scale hunting", said Dr Johannes Kamp from the University of Münster, the lead author of the paper.
"High levels of hunting also appear to be responsible for the declines we are seeing in Yellow-breasted Bunting."
During migration and on the wintering grounds, Yellow-breasted Buntings gather in huge flocks at night-time roosts making them easy to trap in large numbers. Birds have traditionally been trapped for food at these roosts with nets.
Following initial declines, hunting of the species — known in Chinese as 'the rice bird' — was banned in China in 1997. However, millions of Yellow-breasted Buntings and other songbirds were still being killed for food and sold on the black market as late as 2013. Consumption of these birds has increased as a result of economic growth and prosperity in East Asia, with one estimate from 2001 of one million buntings being consumed in China's Guangdong province alone.
The species has now all but disappeared from Eastern Europe, European Russia, large parts of Western and Central Siberia, and Japan.
