The familiar swooping flight and forked tail of the barn swallow are not as common as they used to be.
A year ago, the Committee on the State of Endangered Wildlife in Canada added the species to its list of threatened birds.
Some have questioned COSEWIC’s decision, including the Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association.
Producers at the recent SSGA annual meeting voted in favour of a resolution to lobby for the bird’s removal from the COSEWIC threatened list.
Those who spoke to the motion said there appear to be just as many if not more barn swallows than there have been in the past.
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Christian Artuso, manager of the Bird Studies Canada Manitoba program, said it’s true the bird is still common, but it was once abundant.
“There have been massive declines at a precipitous rate and if this trend continues it would be devastating,” he said in an e-mail.
“The reason it is still common is only because of the former abundance from which it is falling.”
He said the declines appear particularly steep in Eastern Canada and the far western regions of Western Canada, but not so much on the Prairies.
“This is why many people in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, for example, have a hard time understanding this listing,” he said.
Gary Seib, general manager of Nature Saskatchewan, said the problem is habitat. Barn swallows prefer to live inside wooden buildings.
“Generally, there are far fewer farm buildings out there,” he said. “The countryside used to be dotted with wooden grain bins and there aren’t nearly as many big barns.”
He also said the barn swallow decline is happening in concert with fewer insect-eating birds overall.
Insect control programs are likely one factor.
The threatened status means the swallow is likely to become endangered if nothing is done to reverse the trend.
COSEWIC said the barn swallow population has declined up to 76 percent in the last 40 years.
