Revelator: “Experts say there’s “no substitute” for the Bird Banding Laboratory or the Breeding Bird Survey, which help reveal the health and status of avian populations across the country. Two federal programs that experts consider indispensable for bird research and conservation in the United States could be eliminated under the Trump administration’s proposed budget for 2026. If you’re not an ornithologist, you’ve probably never heard of the Bird Banding Laboratory or the Breeding Bird Survey, two federal programs managed by the U.S. Geological Survey. But birds in this country — and around the world — would be much worse off without these two programs, which I covered at length in my 2023 book on the history of bird migration research. The Bird Banding Laboratory has a history in the federal government that stretches back over a century. As you might guess from its name, the program oversees bird banding in the United States — the process through which bird researchers humanely capture wild birds, place uniquely numbered metal bands around their legs, and release them. Tracking banded birds allows researchers to learn something about their lives and movements and has produced mountains of scientific data. The Breeding Bird Survey, meanwhile, began in the 1960s. It enlists thousands of eager volunteers each spring to carry out surveys of local birds across the continent, providing long-term data on whether populations are increasing or decreasing over time. We wouldn’t know how well common but vulnerable birds, from hawks to hummingbirds, are doing without these annual surveys. But that barely scratches the surface about how central these two programs are to bird conservation efforts in North America — and what we would lose if they’re defunded. Most wild birds in the United States are protected by a law called the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which makes it illegal to handle or capture them without a permit. And because nearly all research that involves capturing wild birds includes banding them, scientists generally obtain those permits through the Bird Banding Laboratory…The Breeding Bird Survey is one of our top sources of information on bird population trends — whether species are increasing, declining, or holding steady in regions across the continent. That’s crucial data for planning and prioritizing conservation efforts.

Among other things, the program’s data provide the basis for the State of the Birds, a periodic status assessment produced by a group of government organizations and conservation nonprofits….The Trump administration’s proposed budget would flatline these two programs as well as the entire USGS Ecosystems Mission Area, which currently has an annual appropriation of just $307 million. That’s a tiny fraction — less than 0.00005% — of the annual budget of the federal government…”