The only claim my friend had on the tree is that it grew on his compound. He had neither planted it nor had he made much for its survival, but protecting it from cows and goats that roamed his compound before he had constructed a fence around it.
He would also prune it from time to time to check its growth, but there came a time when he just let it grow on its own. It grew huge and tall, but it was neither a threat to the buildings in the compound nor to the nearby houses.
“You know, trees attract various bird species and the chirping of some of them makes me relaxed and comfortable. The sound from songbirds is unique, you only have to listen attentively,” he told me.
He explained how at three in the afternoon, two doves would always perch on the highest branches of the fig tree and start “singing” for about an hour. “I think they are male and female. One would come early, probably the female, and start cooing.
Then another would come after 10 or 15 minutes and perch on the same twig close to the next. They would be there for as good as one hour and then they would fly off. That was their day routine,” he said.
The tree and other vegetation surrounding it attracted a lot of other birds, but for my friend, the doves were most interesting and therefore most important.
“You must cut this tree, it is not good,” demanded my friend’s neighbour. I had gone to visit him when I bumped into their quarrel.
“This tree attracts devils and witches. They hold their meetings under it; that is where they plan who should bewitched and who they should kill,” the neighbour claimed in a very serious tone.
“No, I don’t think I will cut the tree. It has been here for decades and I have not heard complaints from the other neighbours,” my friend replied. He went on to say that before he moved into the house other people lived in it and they never told him it attracted devils and witches.
“In any case, there is nothing bad if they just hold their meetings there and then go elsewhere to implement their plans. I have no problem with that,” he told his neighbour.
However, things did not end up there. The neighbour repeatedly harassed my friend and threatened to torch his house if he did not cut the tree.
“I thought I should end the problem; so I have cut all the branches, but the trunk ,” he told me one day, making no attempt to conceal his disappointment.
It was the end of his relationship with the birds. There was neither cooing of the doves nor chirping of sparrows and other species. They disappeared with the branches of the fig tree.
But what happened to my friend is a snapshot of what is happening around the world: the number of birds is dwindling and some species are threatened with extinction mainly because of human activity such as cutting trees to chase away devils and witches.
The IUCN Red List Index (RLI) for birds tracks the movement of species through categories of extinction risk. It reveals a steady and ongoing deterioration in the status of the world’s species since the first comprehensive global assessment in 1988.
BirdLife International is the official Red List Authority for birds, tasked with evaluating the status of the world’s entire bird population and keeping these data up to date. As of 2015, BirdLife has established that worldwide 1,375 bird species (13 per cent of the total, or roughly one in eight) are threatened with extinction. These species have small, fragmented or dwindling ranges, tiny populations, or are declining rapidly.
“Of these, 217 species are considered critically endangered and face an extremely high risk of extinction in the immediate future,” says BirdLife
In 2004, BirdLife conducted a ‘snapshot’ survey from over 100 experts in order to get a more complete picture. It revealed that just 11 per cent of the threatened species could be judged as having their status improved.
Although threatened bird species are found across the globe, the greatest concentrations occur in tropical forests.
This means that cutting trees at whatever rate threatens the safety of birds. Bush fires and deforestation in general may also drive birds to extinction due to loss of habitat.
Of the world’s threatened species, over 80 per cent have populations that are currently in decline and there have been some truly catastrophic recent population collapses. For long-lived, slow-breeding species, such as albatrosses, however, even relatively slow population declines can have alarming consequences.
“Birds are impacted by a range of threats—mostly human-derived—with the conversion of natural habitats to agricultural land the most significant.
The pressure associated with farming seems set to intensify as the human population grows and demand for animal protein and biofuels increases,” says BirdLife, adding that rats and cats have had far and away the greatest impact, threatening the survival of hundreds of different bird species worldwide, but other species have also had devastating impacts.
Hunting and trapping, logging, urbanisation, pollution and fisheries are also major threats, with climate change becoming increasingly significant.
The conversion of natural habitats to agricultural land is currently the most important threat to globally threatened birds. In 2004, for example, agricultural expansion constituted a higher proportion of all threats impacting near-threatened bird species than it did for species in higher categories on the IUCN Red List, implying that pressure associated with agriculture is set to become increasingly important in the future.
Despite global conservation efforts, the overall status of the world’s birds continues to worsen. Some threats can be reversed given enough resources, so targeted actions have been recommended for all threatened birds to directly address specific threats.
However, in the near future the world will certainly witness other sad losses. Given sufficient resources and political will, species can be saved from extinction. Successful interventions in conservation can involve a variety of actions, ranging from raising public awareness to providing supplementary food and translocating birds.
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