The U.S. State of the Birds is a report developed every 2–3 years by a veritable who’s who of bird-related agencies and organizations. The goal is to provide an update on the status and health of America's birds, to celebrate successes, highlight concerning trends, and inspire solutions for the widespread challenges our feathered friends are facing. The 2025 report builds on past reports but again documents widespread declines across nearly every bird group. While ducks and wetland birds remain above historical levels, demonstrating the success of partner-based conservation, recent drought-induced declines remind us of the importance of not letting off the gas. In this podcast crossover episode, American Birding Podcast host Nate Swick welcomes Mike Brasher of Ducks Unlimited and the Ducks Unlimited Podcast, Amanda Rodewald of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and Bradley Wilkinson of the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies to talk about the report and what birders and hunters can do to support bird science and conservation.
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What is Ducks Unlimited Podcast?
Ducks Unlimited Podcast is a constant discussion of all things waterfowl; from in-depth hunting tips and tactics, to waterfowl biology, research, science, and habitat updates. The DU Podcast is the go-to resource for waterfowl hunters and conservationists. Ducks Unlimited is the world's leader in wetlands conservation.
Nate Swick: It has been five years since the alarm was raised by the infamous three billion birds paper that documented declines in North American birds over the last 50 years. And here in 2025, the recently released state of the birds report shows those declines continuing while also spotlighting the benefits of bird friendly policies and the successes of existing conservation efforts. We're going to talk about the 2025 State of the Birds report today and offer something kind of different for listeners. It's a podcast partnership with Mike Brasher of the Ducks Unlimited Podcast DU and the ABA. We're both signatories to this report and obviously two organizations that care deeply about birds and access to bird recreation opportunities. Hello to you, Mike. Thanks for helping to set this up. Absolutely, Nate. It's great to be on with you. Thank you for what you're doing and bringing some attention to this very important report. Absolutely. And rounding out this panel, Drs. Amanda Rotewald from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Brad Wilkinson from the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. Welcome to you both. Thanks. It's great to be here, Nate. Yeah, thanks, Nate. I don't know how you want to do this, Mike. I've got a few questions. I'm sure you do as well. We both come from slightly different sides of the bird recreation coin, but we obviously both care very much about birds and bird populations. I've got something to start. You want to go back and forth, or?
Mike Brasher: Well, I am happy to let you be the lead host on this, Nate. Oh, all right. And I will jump in where necessary, and I have a little bit of involvement with this report, so I'll hopefully be able to answer a few questions that you have as well. Yeah, absolutely. Well, we have some colleagues there, too. So, yeah. Right. So, go ahead.
Nate Swick: Yeah. So just kind of throwing this out there to all three of you, this must have been an enormous amount of work to put together. I know Cornell's eBird plays a huge role in documenting bird populations these days and forming these sorts of reports. But there are tons of databases that you are looking at in addition to all that data from hobby birders. How are you taking all this information and putting it together into this very important document that we're talking about today?
Mike Brasher: Thanks, Nate. That's a great question. And I'm so glad we get to highlight really people and the power of people right from the start. And so, yeah, you're spot on. This report is highlighting really the growing importance of data that are generated by volunteers. So whether it's through these long-term continental efforts like the North American Breeding Bird Survey, which gives us the best lens through which to really evaluate long-term trends in bird populations, or Audubon's Christmas Bird Count, or global participatory science databases like you mentioned with eBird. And all of these different sources, and there are others we haven't even mentioned, the Waterfowl Survey, Shorebird Surveys, they're really game changers for conservation because they complement each other in different ways. So whereas we get that long-term view for breeding bird survey, eBird data now can give us these shorter term over the last decade or so, but very fine spatial scale estimates of population change. And that can help us to both better understand some of the causes of declines or increases that we're seeing, but perhaps even more importantly, they really can enable us to direct our conservation efforts to the places and the species that need the most. And in a time when we have so many constraints, we have dwindling resources available for conservation, getting the most bang for our buck, so to say, on conservation is incredibly important.
Mike Brasher: Yeah, Nate, one thing that I'll add in here, in addition to all the great information that Amanda talks about, the surveys, the data collection efforts that help us keep an eye on the status and health of bird populations, equally important are those data collection efforts that help us understand what's going on with the habitats that these birds rely on. One example that's highlighted in the State of the Birds report this year, there's actually probably a couple, but one that I'm very familiar with is U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Wetland Status and Trends Report, which came out last year. provided an update on sort of the trajectory and the change in wetlands across America. And I was talking to somebody here recently, they were asking about the importance of that data set and others. And I kind of use the analogy that these data sets are to bird conservationists, bird scientists, what an EKG is to a cardiologist. You know, they are the tools and the data that we use, as Amanda has said, to help us understand what's going on. where it's happening and then so we can we use that information also to diagnose the issues and then develop those effective conservation solutions. So data, the people that collect it, the programs that collect it are absolutely critical to keeping an eye on the health of these birds and their habitats.
Nate Swick: just happy that my five checklists from my backyard helped out on this enormous undertaking. Absolutely. The threats to birds across the board seem to be issues that we have, sadly, been familiar with for some time. Habitat loss due to development and or climate change. sort of being the predominant one, the sort of overarching concern to bird populations. Are there threats to bird populations that are sort of newer that you are sort of unable to get a full reading on for this report? I'm thinking in particular, maybe you're reading me, I'm thinking in particular of bird flu and the way that it's sort of affected seabird colonies in the North Atlantic in particular. Are there concerns for bird populations that you're looking at perhaps for the next State of the Birds report?
Mike Brasher: Wow, who wants to take that one? Nate, are you speaking specifically about bird flu or that's just sort of an example?
Nate Swick: That's just sort of an example. I mean, that's the first thing that came to mind. I never thought of bird flu as a huge issue for birds, even as recently as like three or four years ago. But looking at the population declines in some seabird colonies in the North Atlantic and the UK, in Atlantic Canada, places like that. This is clearly something that we need to be paying attention to, but it's not necessarily something that would show up on the long-term scale that perhaps we're drawing from for this particular State of the Birds report.
Mike Brasher: I'll take a stab at that and then Bradley or Amanda can chime in. And since you kind of mentioned bird flu as an example, I think it would be remiss if we didn't at least address that a little bit. So from a waterfowl standpoint, what I can say, obviously waterfowl are big in that story of being, you know, the group of birds that's that plays a role in where that virus shows up across the landscape. We know that. And we have seen some outbreaks among some species of ducks and geese. But at present, our scientists still do not see or believe that it's having a sort of population level effect on waterfowl. Now hunters and others will see thousands or hundreds and in some cases thousands of dead geese in certain areas, but those situations still do not seem to be rolling up to a continental level population effect. For other groups of birds and other species, that is certainly a different story. You mentioned some of the colonial nesting seabirds. I know there have been some massive outbreaks in some of those areas. There are a few duck species as well that have sort of inherently small population sizes about which we do have some concerns. So, babying influenza is a good example to kind of keep in mind. But the other thing is that there's probably a list of dozens of these things, depending on what bird species or groups we want to talk about, where there are persistent threats. And with each passing day, month, we have others that prop up. Bradley, Amanda, anything? You need one to come to mind?
Bradley Wilkinson: Yeah, I was just going to add in, you know, I think a highlight of this state of the birds report is a return to their tipping point species concept. And these are species that have been, you know, highlighted as having steep declines in the past 50 years. They're projected to experience continuing declines in the future. And they're, they're birds that have, that are in need of, you know, urgent conservation action. But in a lot of those cases, sometimes we're not sure what the acute drivers are for those population declines. We know that they could be A common species that's in decline, a species that we're not seeing more of, and I think that's, you know, included in the data sets that we are working with. But there is initiatives to kind of bridge that science gap to understand exactly, you know, where are bird declines happening? And then within those geographies, what are those acute drivers? And so that's really a need for specific conservation action centered on those species. An example that we have in this report this year is on oyster catchers. And the formation of a specific group to recover American oyster catchers was invaluable in bringing that population back. And there's an initiative called the Road to Recovery Initiative that is working to develop species-specific working groups to bring together the science on those birds together with the policymakers and the decision makers or the private landowners who can affect change for those species. But a big part of their mission, and I think we've included that in this report, is highlighting the scientific needs around some of those species that we have as well.
Amanda Rodewald: Yeah, and I'll just add to that, that while it's true, there are just so many different factors that can contribute to population declines for species, right? And there might be, you know, the degree to which one is more important than another are going to change across systems and species. We can say that habitat loss and degradation are by far the greatest contributors to population declines. And so whether habitats are lost due to conversion to other land uses, whether they're degraded from chemicals, pollution, or from factors related to the changing climate. You know, that's something that we can act on. So I will say that even though there are some groups of species or individual species that we may not yet be able to diagnose the decline, right now as a community, as a bird conservation community, you know, for those interested in natural resource management more broadly, we do know enough to take some really important and transformative steps to bend that curve on the loss of bird populations.
Nate Swick: Yeah. Brad, you're coming from the perspective of fish and wildlife agencies. I always think of the fish and wildlife system, the system of refuges that are across the country, as very much like one of the crown jewels of this country's natural heritage. People will talk about the national parks. I love a national park. But in terms of biodiversity, the National Wildlife Refuge System is right on the front line of protecting a lot of these birds. Where do you feel does the refuge system feel they are best served in protecting some of these species? What sort of things are they doing to protect not just shorebirds, waterfowl, waterbirds, but also this whole suite of birds in the United States that need help? Sure.
Bradley Wilkinson: Well, I can't speak for the National Wildlife Refuge System per se, but I can tell you that state fish and wildlife agencies are very committed to assisting bird conservation in a meaningful way. You know, I think over the past few decades or so, state fish and wildlife agencies have really leaned into, you know, all the game and non-game species conservation equally.
Nate Swick: And… I've certainly seen that in my state.
Bradley Wilkinson: Yeah. You know, we have great private lands biologists. We have ornithologists throughout all of our state fish and wildlife agencies who are working on these issues. I think a critical role that state fish and wildlife agencies play in particular is that, sort of interface with a private landowner. We often see that state biologists are trusted members of a local community. They're really in tune with what the needs are potentially of communities with which they operate. They're very good, I think, at communicating with private landowners. And without the buy-in from the private person, a lot of our bird conservation initiatives are not going to be as successful as they should be. And I think the state Fish and Wildlife Agencies can play a particular role in helping cultivate those local actions that need to be undertaken.
Amanda Rodewald: And that's going to be, I'll just add, especially important for some of the steepest declining groups, right, like grassland birds, which have lost 43% of their population since 1970. Any solution is going to require that private landowners are engaged and incentivized in one way or another. to take conservation measures.
Nate Swick: For sure. And I think that shows up with regard to the eastern forest birds, because looking through this, eastern forest birds, these are the birds in my own backyard. I think it's interesting that the species that are most at risk are those that do require that disturbance, be it through fire or selective management. And I've certainly seen that in the breeding bird surveys that I run, for instance, of how succession, even on a relatively small scale, on a relatively short geological time scale as well, can impact those local bird populations. I'll go from a field where I regularly see grasshopper sparrows, for instance, and then over a period of like three or four years, it starts to grow up and then I start seeing fewer grasshopper sparrows, start seeing more field sparrows and indigo buntings and things like that. It seems like that partnership managing those lands in particular is one that can really benefit from a private-public sort of situation there, as can so many of the bird conservation issues that we deal with in this country.
Amanda Rodewald: Right, completely. And one thing that's really important to remember is that with a lot of these disturbances that we're now trying to really reintroduce or to maintain within systems, it's not only the birds that are benefiting. In many cases, those disturbances are keeping the forest more healthy and productive for human uses, and they can reduce the risk of other catastrophic events like the wildfires that we're seeing.
Bradley Wilkinson: Yeah, I think as a bird conservation community, I think we could be doing a bit better job at understanding what motivates private landowners to take actions on behalf of birds. Often, it's not because of the birds or because of wildlife. It could be the desire for managing your own land or to have clean water. or to leave a legacy to future generations. And understanding and kind of marketing the bird conservation community to that group in a way that benefits that community without leading with birds, I think is an important step that, like I said, we need to take collectively.
Nate Swick: I think the concept of the tipping point species is a really interesting one. Just reading through the birds that are listed as red alert, orange alert, yellow alert, it is a wide swath of different kinds of birds. The red alert tripping point species runs the gamut from things like model duck to bared sparrow. I mean, those are two Both opposite sides of the continent, both opposite sorts of habitats that are acquired. Are there any sort of commonalities within those groups that you have noticed that can help us to facilitate better conservation outcomes for those species?
Mike Brasher: That's a great question. Yeah. I don't know. We're looking at the list here right now, Nate. It's hard.
Nate Swick: I look at this list and I see birds that need all sorts of different conservation projects, conservation efforts. But there's got to be some sort of commonality. A lot of times, I guess, they're species that sort of require a very specific sort of habitat, protecting those very specific habitats. within the sort of larger matrix of a habitat. I think, you know, mountain plover likes this kind of very nice plains area in the middle of very dry air. So this like the part of the prairie that gets a little bit more water. That's where you'll find things like mountain plover or or a Kesha crossbill. Well, this is already pretty range-restricted species, but it exists in these mountains in the absence of squirrels, and they sort of evolved from there. Bachman's sparrow is in my backyard, and it's like these kind of wiregrass forest, palmetto landscape that requires a ton of fire. it seems like they all need something very small and specific within a larger matrix. And I know that can be hard to solve from a conservation logistical perspective, but yeah, I don't know.
Amanda Rodewald: I mean, some of these as a group, shorebirds have the greatest number of species that are tipping point species. And so right there, we can think about some sort of common threads. across species, shorebird species, right? And so like many of them are breeding in Arctic areas, right? Places that are disproportionately impacted. by climate change. They're also migrating really long distances across entire hemispheres. And so that, along with other migratory songbirds that are included in tipping point species, really points to the need to both coordinate and to assist, to promote international conservation, working across borders with partners to make sure that those species are finding the habitats they need to rest and refuel during those journeys, where they're finding the non-breeding habitats that they need to keep them healthy so that they can return north to breed.
Mike Brasher: Yeah, Nate, that was a really interesting question that you posed, and I think it caused all of us to look at this list and try to come up with an answer. And I don't think there's any single one. I think that's what Amanda was saying, too. I don't think there's any single common thread, but you can look at some of these and you can identify that there are some that have a very restricted geographic range. Obviously, because of that, they're going to have a very narrow sort of ecological niche. And those are going to be subject to just inherently more at risk to things that are happening within that restricted range. They just don't have a lot of other places for which they're adapted to go and exploit. Others are widely distributed shorebirds, things of that nature, travel long distances. We can look at Northern Pintail as an example here. It is a very, very widely distributed bird. It's in the yellow alert tipping point species. Now in recent years, that one has sort of leveled off, but it has over the long term. experienced a very steep decline and a lot of the research that has been done over the years has pointed to very specific habitat needs that that species requires over a large area, but nevertheless very specific habitat requirements that no longer exist the way they once did. So it's a combination of things here. Two of these birds really stand out to me, mottleduck and reddish egret down on the Gulf Coast. I worked there for quite a while and to see them both on here, there's coastal systems, restricted ranges, some commonalities in where they breed, their migration strategies or migration distances, a lot of aerial insectivores, a lot of grassland birds. Again, those are habitat types and ecosystems that at large scales are under very significant conversion threat. So, a number of threads that are carried through this list.
Amanda Rodewald: Yeah, and Nate, you know, it's interesting and on the one hand, I think it would be in some ways satisfying or reassuring if we looked and saw, oh, wow, there are just really two types of habitat that clearly identify tipping point species. But the very fact that we're looking across tipping point species and seeing just about every habitat, including urban areas, like our Chimney Swift example, where we're seeing these declines. And that also parallels the fact that we're seeing declines across all the biome types for the report as a whole. That's an important signal to people because we share the same environments as birds. And if they're not healthy enough to support bird populations, then they're not going to be healthy enough for people either. So it's really a signal, a warning sign that we should pay attention to.
Nate Swick: Yeah, I want to talk about waterfowl a little bit because I have you here, Mike, and I know that waterfowl has long been sort of one of the bright points in a lot of these state-of-the-bird reports, and that is due in large part to the conservation legacy of hunters and bird recreation of the hunting community, both actively through a lot of support of habitat protection and also passively through things like the duck stamp and whatnot. There is a little bit maybe of a canary in the coal mine in this year where there was… Waterfall has shown the greatest increase, but the increases have maybe not as high as they have been in the past. What do you think is causing this? Do we need to continue to push for a lot of these policies that have been so successful over the years? Is there a danger of those policies, perhaps, of us losing the gains that those policies have helped to facilitate?
Mike Brasher: Yeah, appreciate that question, Nate. Now, I'll offer one thing to start with here. What we've tried to do over the last two State of the Birch report, one very important move within this waterfowl sort of group is pull out the different guilds of birds. If you go back to that 2019 report, It lumped all waterfowl together. And so geese, swans, dabbling ducks, diving ducks, and sea ducks as well. And at that time, the signal that we were getting from explosive growth of geese was kind of overshadowing and obscuring some of the underlying trends that were happening with some of the other duck species. But again, that report was done overall at a time when duck populations were just coming off of some record highs even still. So the past two reports, we pulled out those different groups of waterfowl so that we can show what's happening with geese and swans, but also what's happening with sea ducks, as well as the group of dabbling and diving ducks. And when you look at it more deeply, again, the value of data allows you to look more deeply into what's going on with our species and populations, you see a few different things. And we'll leave geese to the side here for a bit. They will be a focus, pretty big focus, we anticipate in the subsequent, in the next report. They're not featured in this one. We wanted to kind of focus on the ducks. And so, when you look at the information for ducks as two groups here, dabbling and diving ducks and then sea ducks, you do see that for dabbling and diving ducks, while they are still above those levels of the 1970, here in recent years, we have seen some declines. They're below the long-term average. And if you go back to record highs of 2015, we are now down 30% from those levels for dabbling and diving ducks. Those are your mallards, your pintails, redheads, canvasbacks. A lot of those species rely heavily, heavily on the prairie pothole region. And what's driving the decline that we're trying to draw attention to are two things. One is normal drought that is cycling in the prairie, but that's happening against a backdrop of continuing loss of wetlands and grasslands in that landscape, which is the most productive landscape for ducks. in all of North America. And I've thought about this a lot, Nate, and we have a really unique opportunity with what we see in these species that are so dependent on wetlands that are subject to these periodic droughts where you have wetlands go dry across a massive scale. That is essentially the same type of sort of functional response that would happen if we lost those wetlands permanently. at least over the short period of time. You think about a dry wetland, a duck doesn't care what made that wetland go dry. If it's permanent drainage or if it's a three to seven year drought, it looks the same to that duck. So what we see in the Prairie Pothole region right now as a result of this five to seven year drought across that landscape is what we could expect to be permanent if we lost those wetlands in a more permanent fashion. So, we're really talking about a unique opportunity to tell a story about the consequences of habitat loss if they became more long-term. And so, it's both wetlands and grasslands. And so, it is a reason to not be complacent when we think about waterfowl populations being still above the levels of 1970. It's certainly something to celebrate. And we can point to the collaborative international conservation that has helped us get to that point and the important policies and programs that have fueled that and the role of a whole ton of people and user groups that have been part of that. But we can't be complacent. And so it's, you know, conservation is a long game, as we oftentimes say, and you got to keep our foot on the gas. For sure.
Nate Swick: The populations of waterbirds have always been sort of, you know, unusual because we are, as you say, we are sort of seeing this growth due to a number of different things, both conservation efforts, but also, you know, the elimination of DDT in a lot of our waterways has caused a lot of sort of large waterbirds to your populations to absolutely explode. Along the same line, you know, and also we're seeing things like Canada geese, you know, that population, it's interesting that you pulled the geese out because I wonder, is that population of the quote-unquote urban Canada geese or suburban Canada geese causing, you know, the data to be a little bit more difficult to pick through in that situation?
Mike Brasher: I think that's one of the groups of waterfowl that were responsible for that dramatic increase or that dramatic, you know, growth percentage. But one of the other at the time was the mid-continent Arctic nesting geese. We're talking about lesser snow geese, Ross's geese, and greater white-fronted geese. And there's a really interesting story going on with that group of birds right now. The Arctic nesting geese, they are facing some pretty interesting and complex interactions between sort of changing climatic conditions in the Arctic and in some of those northern latitudes, and it is constraining their ability to arrive in peak condition such that whenever their goslings hatch, they would be able to take full advantage of of the growth of vegetation and the timing of it. It's a mismatch kind of issue. It's kind of hard to explain. But so there's that. And then there's just some erratic weather patterns that over the past few years have led to some almost complete busts in recruitment from some of those Arctic nesting populations. So this will surprise a lot of people when we when we talk occasionally about Arctic nesting geese populations actually declining here in recent years, but there's still some uncertainty around that. And so, we wanted to wait a few years. We wanted to get a little bit more data to be able to tell that story a bit better. So, that's why I mentioned kind of going forward, we can look to the next report to get a better handle on what's happening with Arctic nesting geese and some of the urban nesting geese as well. But yeah, those, again, some different signals and the importance of having data that allows you to examine those details.
Nate Swick: Yeah, it's a good point. Difficult place to get to sometimes, way up there. I always ask this question to people who are sort of on the front lines, as it were, with regard to bird population declines. It's easy to look at this and see, you know, continued declines, three billion birds gone, and feel very negative about the future of birds and bird populations on the continent. Um, what do you look for, for hope, for optimism in, in these times, uh, in the face of these, these reports?
Bradley Wilkinson: Yeah, that's a great question. It's one that I'm glad you asked. I think an optimistic takeaway from this report and a hope that I have is the leveraging of the huge birding community that we know exists. The 2022 Addendum to Efficient Wildlife Service report that was focused on birdwatching highlighted over one in three US adults considered themselves a birdwatcher. That could be from noticing the birds in your backyard to taking an international trip to look for birds, anywhere along that spectrum. That's an incredible amount of people, over 96 million. We have $279 billion, with a B, generated total economic output from birdwatching. We have billions of dollars to county taxes, state taxes, federal tax revenues. We're creating 1.4 million jobs. We have this giant constituency of people who care about birds. It's growing, it's expanding, and so I think that's a cause for my personal optimism that that group can really start to speak up and use their large, growing voice to speak on behalf of birds to affect the changes that we know that need to take place.
Amanda Rodewald: I'm also very hopeful because when I look at the actions that we need to take to address bird declines, and it's true for other species as well, other groups of species, they're in many cases the same actions that we should be taking to support human health and well-being, and that includes the economy, that includes national security, that includes all sorts of things people may not realize. I don't think it's anymore a case of people needing to frame the question as, well, do we take care of birds or do we take care of people? That's not where it's at. Now we need to think about the creative approaches that allow us to do both at the same time. And that brings us back to people power, because knowledge is power. Knowledge and the information we have from, you know, really the generous act of people participating in monitoring programs, of submitting their observations to these participatory science projects, that allows us to really have a better lens through which we can identify where on the landscape, when during the year we can achieve those sort of win-win solutions for birds and for people. And I can give you just like a simple example. We know in cities, there's increasing temperatures are leading to deaths in many cases. Well, if we can put trees in cities, that not only is going to help to ameliorate some of those high temperatures, that are so harmful for residents in cities, but that can provide stopover habitat for migrating birds that use those trees for resting and refueling. So it's a real win-win.
Bradley Wilkinson: I also think too, I mean, just building off of that, I think the bird conservation community has gotten better at operationalizing partnerships as well. I mean, the report itself is a microcosm of this. If you look at the back page, we have so many different groups that are contributing to this report. whether it's scientific expertise, whether it's communications, what have you. But then if you go through the examples of the report as well, they're always, in most every case, driven by partnerships. And it feels like over time, the community has kind of started to come together a little bit and understand the different niches that each organization plays within the birds conservation community and has started to You know, play the strengths of each group off each other in a more meaningful way.
Mike Brasher: You know, Nate, I'll just add to that. I'm glad Bradley brought that up. And oftentimes, so my wife and I go to estate sales sometimes and go to flea markets, all that kind of stuff. And it, it, it never ceases to amaze me when you look through some of the things, the knickknacks, the figurines, the prints, whatever that are for sale. birds of all different types feature so prominently. And there's a reason for that. Birds have captivated humans as long as we have been in existence. And we have captured that fascination in so many things that we see around us. And so I think the three of us and everyone else that we work with in this field and everyone that cares about birds and bird habitats are really fortunate because of how they can serve as such a galvanizing force to bring us all together to do good things when we understand what needs to be done. And when, especially as Amanda has said, we can also understand and communicate how when we do good things for birds, not only does it make us happy to see more birds, it improves other aspects of human life and our economic prosperity. And so it's, It's just birds are cool. It's what's at the end of the day, birds are cool and fascinating and we have to do everything we can to keep them around and keep them healthy.
Nate Swick: That's absolutely true. And when I think about all the places that birds have taken me, I think it's a thing that we share with all sorts of bird recreation people, whether you're a birder, whether you're a hunter, whether you're a photographer, or whatever. It's hard not to be around birds, be in the places that an interest in birds takes you and not want to protect those places for yourself or for the future or for anyone to have those sorts of incredible experiences. It's certainly been a through line in my life. I'm sure it's been for you as well. What can you tell people who want to help in these situations?
Mike Brasher: So, I'll go first here and Bradley mentioned the number of organizations that are on the back of the report. Of course, you were the American Birding Association. I'm with Ducks Unlimited. Amanda's with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Get involved with non-profit organizations that support birds and bird habitat conservation, number one. That is a very easy thing to do. It is a very important thing to do because it improves the collective power of our voice. You support through your financial contributions, but also when you become a member of one or two or three or six of these organizations, that carries additional weight in discussions about important policies and decisions that affect birds and bird habitat. So, get involved and become a member of multiple conservation organizations. And of course, all of my leadership at Ducks Unlimited would be, and all waterfowl hunters and others would be upset with me if I didn't say also, buy a duck stamp.
Bradley Wilkinson: Buy a duck stamp.
Nate Swick: Yeah, we've sold duck stamps through our own shop. Yeah, it's incredible how effective that one thing can be. And the money, what is it? Something like 98, 99%. It's some ridiculously high percent of the money goes directly to helping birds. And there's not a lot of things out there that you can say.
Mike Brasher: It's the single most efficient and effective conservation expenditure that anyone can make. 98 cents out of every dollar from a duck stamp purchase goes to conservation. It benefits migratory birds, it benefits a whole host of other animals as well, and everything else that we, all the other services and benefits that we get from nature.
Nate Swick: All right. Thank you so much, Mike Brashear of the Ducks Unlimited podcast. Please check that podcast out if you are interested in waterfowl topics. And also, I want to thank Drs. Amanda Rodewald from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Brad Wilkinson from the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies for joining me to talk about the State of the Birds report. I'll have a link to the State of the Birds report in the show notes for this episode. I'm sure Mike will do the same for the Ducks Unlimited and also a link to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. Thank you so much for a really great conversation and for all the work you've done in putting this report together. I continue to say that these are so, as you said, Amanda, knowledge is power. Having this knowledge is important for us, all of us who care about birds and bird conservation and bird recreation. So thank you so much for your time. Thank you.
Mike Brasher: Thanks, Nate.
Nate Swick: Thank you, Nate.