OPINION: Birds are vanishing. They need help

If you think you’re seeing fewer birds in your backyard or neighborhood park, you’re right, and you’re not alone. Bird populations are declining everywhere. Two-thirds of North American bird species are at risk of extinction and many bird species have vanished by half since the 1970s. One major reason is the growing effect of climate change.

To help explain this issue and offer possible solutions, the Bird Alliance of Central New Mexico has partnered with the city of Albuquerque Public Art Department, the ABQ BioPark Zoo and the Audubon Mural Project to create murals of birds endangered by the changing climate. Albuquerque artists Jade Cruz and Donny Kelley-Currens were selected to paint the murals. They chose birds from the National Audubon Society’s Survival by Degrees, a scientific report on how rising temperatures threaten birds throughout the country. It provides a list of birds in climate danger for each county.

The new murals include birds commonly seen in and around Albuquerque, such as the western bluebird, the broad-tailed hummingbird and the American robin. These birds are so common it is difficult to believe that unless we slow the rising temperatures, they will disappear. Some will move to more hospitable places while others will die. It is unthinkable that these familiar birds may no longer exist in New Mexico.

The murals are located in the zoo’s Raptor Roost, home of majestic birds such as the Andean condor and the golden eagle (also on the Audubon list). When families walk through the Albuquerque zoo, we hope the raptors and murals encourage them to imagine ways to stop climate change and bird decline.

Solutions do exist. Among others, they include renewable energy, resource conservation, lowering carbon footprints and earth-friendly policies. Most of all, they require talking with friends, family, neighbors and colleagues about the increasing climate disasters that are happening and developing plans about what communities and government can do about it.

If temperatures continue to rise, a majority of some North American bird species, along with other wildlife and plants, could be gone within this century. Our grandchildren would experience a very different world. They and their children might never witness wildflowers in the Sandias, the broad-tailed hummingbird, or the aroma of piñon trees after a rain.

No one wants the Earth to suffer such loss. Slowing the warming of the planet and reversing environmental damage still is possible. Climate is the issue of our time, and all of us can be part of the solution.

To learn more about the decline in America’s bird populations and how to help: stateofthebirds.org/2025.