Human uses ofbirds have, for thousands of years, included both economic uses such as food, and symbolic uses such as art, music, and religion.

In terms of economic uses, birds have been hunted for food sincePalaeolithic times. They have been captured and bred aspoultry to provide meat and eggs since at least the time ofancient Egypt. Some species have been used, too, to help locate or to catch food, as withcormorant fishing and the use ofhoneyguides. Feathers have long been used for bedding, as well as forquill pens and forfletching arrows. Today, many species facehabitat loss and other threats caused by humans;bird conservation groups work to protect birds and to influence governments to do so.

Birds have appeared in the mythologies and religions of many cultures since ancientSumer. For example, the dove was the symbol of the ancientMesopotamian goddessInanna, theCanaanite mother goddessAsherah, and the Greek goddessAphrodite.Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, had alittle owl as her symbol, and, in ancient India, thepeacock representedMother Earth. Birds have often been seen as symbols, whether bringing bad luck and death, being sacred, or being used inheraldry. In terms of entertainment,raptors have been used infalconry, whilecagebirds have been kept for theirsong. Other birds have been raised for the traditional sports ofcockfighting andpigeon racing.Birdwatching, too, has grown to become a major leisure activity.Birds feature in a wide variety of art forms, including inpainting,sculpture,poetry andprose,film andfashion.Birds also appear in music as well as traditionaldance andballet. In certain cases, such as thebird-and-flower painting of China, birds are central to an artistic genre.

Culture consists of thesocial behaviour andnorms found inhumansocieties and transmitted through sociallearning.Cultural universals in all human societies include expressive forms likeart,music,dance,ritual,religion, andtechnologies liketool usage,cooking,shelter, andclothing. The concept ofmaterial culture covers physical expressions such as technology, architecture and art, whereas immaterial culture includes principles ofsocial organization,mythology,philosophy,literature, andscience.^[1] This article describes the roles played by birds in human culture, so defined.

Birds are important economically, providing substantial amounts of food, especially protein, largely but not exclusively from the domestic chicken;^[2][3] feathers and down are used for bedding, insulation, and other purposes.^[4]

Birds were among the wild animals hunted for food before theNeolithic Revolution and the development of agriculture. For example, in theEpipaleolithic of theLevant, between c. 14,500 and 11,500 BP, bothwaterfowl andmigratory birds were eaten.^[5] Archaeologists have studied the return in terms of energy from captured food compared to the energy expended to capture it; birds provide a smaller return than larger game such as deer, but better than many plant materials. For example, waterfowl captured in a drive can yield a return of around 2,000 kcal/hour, whereas an antelope can yield as much as 31,000 kcal/hour, and wild rye around 1,000 kcal/hour.^[6]

Birds have beendomesticated and bred aspoultry for use as food for at least four thousand years. The most important species is thechicken. It appears to have been domesticated by 5000 BC in northeastern China, likely for cockfighting, and only later used for food.^[2] Inancient Egypt, poultry including ducks, geese, and pigeons were captured in nets and then bred in captivity.^[8]

Chicken now provides some 20% of the animal protein eaten by the world's human population in the form of meat andeggs.Chickens are often raised intensively inbattery farms; this facilitates production but has been criticised on animal welfare grounds.^[3] Other species includingducks,geese,pheasants,guineafowl andturkeys are significant economically around the world.^[7] Less commonly raised species such as theCommon ostrich are starting to be farmed for their meat, which is low incholesterol; they have also been kept for their feathers, and for leather from their skin.^[9]

Birds are hunted in many countries around the world. In the developed world, ducks such asmallard,wigeon,shoveler andteal have for centuries been captured bywildfowlers, while pheasants,partridges,grouse, andsnipe are among the terrestrial birds that arehunted for sport, generally with guns.^[10] In other parts of the world, traditional subsistence hunting still continues, as in rural Northern Papua, wherecassowaries,crowned pigeons,hornbills andmegapodes are captured for food.^[11]Seabirds such asmuttonbirds,penguins andauks have been hunted for food, formerly with sufficient intensity to threaten many populations and to make some, such as thegreat auk, extinct.^[12][13][14] Seabird hunting continues at more moderate levels today, for instance with the traditional Māori harvest ofsooty shearwater chicks.^[15]

The archaeological and historical records suggest interdependence between humans andvultures for millions of years. Like other animal species, earlyhominins probably used these birds as beacons signalling the location of meat, in the form ofcarcasses, in the landscape.^[16]

Cormorant fishing is a traditional fishing method in which trainedcormorants are used to catch fish in rivers. Historically, cormorant fishing has taken place inJapan andChina since about 960 AD.^[17]

Thegreater honeyguide guides people in some parts of Africa to the nests of wild bees.^[18] A guiding bird attracts a person's attention with a chattering call, and flies in short bounds towards a bees' nest. When the human honey-hunter has taken their honey, the honeyguide eats what is left.^[19][20] TheBoran people of East Africa use a specific whistle, which doubles the encounter rate with honeyguides; they find that using a honeyguide reduces the time to find honey by two-thirds.^[18] TheBushmen of theKalahari thank the honeyguide with a gift of honey.^[20]

Feathers are used to make warm and softbedding, includingeiderdowns from thebelly down of theeider duck, and winter clothing as they have high "loft", trapping a large amount of air for their weight.^[21] Feathers were used also forquill pens,^[22] forfletchingarrows,^[23] and to decoratefishing lures.^[24]

Bird bones were used byStone Age peoples to makeawls and other tools.^[25]Guano, the droppings of seabirds, rich innitrogen,phosphorus, andpotassium, was once important as an agriculturalfertiliser and is still used inorganic farming.^[26] TheWar of the Pacific in 1865 was in part about which country had control of the territory containing valuable guano sources.^[27] Today, birds such as the chicken and theJapanese quail are used asmodel organisms inornithological and more generally inbiological research, for instance intoxicology.^[28][29]

Feathers have been important and colourful items of clothing and fashion from before the birth of civilisation. Elaborate, brightly coloured headdresses containingfeathers are worn byindigenous peoples of the Americas such as theBororo of theMato Grosso.^[30] In Polynesia,sega ulalory bird feathers were major trade items, used to decorate high quality mats in Samoa and Tonga.^[31] The use of bird skins forInuit clothing has been documented across all Inuit groups, although it was most common in the eastern and western Arctic, where larger animals like caribou were less available.^[32][33]

In Western culture, feathers are used inboas and decorating elaborate hats and other items of ladies' clothing. Feathers in fashion were a status symbol well into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. TheBelle Epoque draped its clothing in feathers as ornaments.^[34] TheHudson's Bay Company of Canadatraded in swans and sometimesgeese, for their skins and quills in the 18th and 19th centuries; the skins were then sent to Europe.^[35]Ostrich plumes were a luxury commodity in Europe for centuries, leading to serious harm to wild ostrich populations, and subsequent establishment of ostrich farms.^[36] During the 19th and early 20th centuries,Plume hunting for feathersused in hats decimated bird populations, especially in theAmerican South whereegrets andspoonbills were common targets. Efforts to stop the decline in bird populations caused by these practices by early conservation groups led to the creation of the firstNational Wildlife Refuge,Pelican Island.^[37] Classical 1930s Hollywood films used feathers in abundance, arguably as a metaphor for female sexuality. For example, in the 1935 musicalTop Hat,Ginger Rogers danced "Cheek to Cheek" covered in white plumes that emphasised her movements.^[38] Late twentieth century designers such asYves Saint Laurent andAlexander McQueen used feathers to make fashion statements.^[39]

Raptors from eagles to smallfalcons have for centuries been used infalconry, often to catch other birds, whether for pleasure or for food.^[40]

Cockfighting is an ancient spectator sport. It formed part of the culture of the ancient Indians, Chinese, Greeks, and Romans. It continues to be practised in South America and across South and Southeast Asia, often combined with betting on the result.^[41][42] It is practised in religious ceremonies in Hindu temples inBali,^[43] but is now banned in many countries on grounds of cruelty.^[41]

Pigeon racing involves releasing specially trainedracing pigeons to return to their homes over a measured distance of between 100 and 1,000 kilometres (62 and 621 mi). The sport was popularised in Belgium in the 19th century, and is now competitive worldwide.^[44] Also in Belgium andFlanders isvinkensport, in which participants have male chaffinches compete to make the mostbird calls in an hour.^[45]

Birdwatching has since the nineteenth century become a major leisure activity.^[46][47] Millions of people around the world, amounting to nearly half of all households in some developed countries, put outbirdfeeders to attract birds to their gardens or windowsills, at a cost of billions of dollars each year.^[48][49][50]

Cagebirds such ascanaries,budgerigars,cockatoos,lovebirds,quails,finches, andparrots (companion parrots) are popularpets, whether for their song, their behaviour, their colourful plumage, or theirability to mimic speech. Among reasons for their popularity is that they can be kept in homes too small or otherwise unsuitable for dogs or cats.^{[52][53][54][55]} Thecagebird trade in some parts of the world threatens certain species with extinction, when birds are illegally captured in the wild. For example, in Indonesia, at least 13 species are close to extinction including the Indonesian national bird, theJavan hawk-eagle, while five subspecies including thescarlet-breasted lorikeet may have become extinct in the wild.^[56]

Pet birds are kept in their millions, as are domestic fowls,bantams, andpigeons.^[57][58] These last had an important effect on evolutionary biology, asCharles Darwin took an especial interest inpigeon fancying, adopted the hobby himself, and made use of the wide variation between breeds as an argument for the power ofselection in his 1859Origin of Species.^[51]

The nature writers Mark Cocker andRichard Mabey, reviewing people's love of birds, observe that people are touched by feelings for birds in a variety of ways, such as enjoying thelapwing's "joyous display",^[59] or the "beauty and mystery" of thetawny owl's call on a cold winter's night.^[59] They argue that people feel the simple companionship of birds, are inspired by them to create art, let them mark the seasons and provide a sense of place, and use them "as symbols of joy and love".^[59] A former statesman,Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon, was able to express his feeling for birds in his 1927 bookThe Charm of Birds.^[60] Such feelings, in turn, have stimulated the intention to conserve birds and their habitats.^[59] Around the same time as Grey was writing, the first conservation organisations were coming into being, starting in Britain, triggered by the rapid disappearance of familiar species as they were captured for their feathers or for food.^[59] A substantial folklore rich in symbolism has accrued around birds; it was documented early in the 20th century as something that was already fading from memory. For example, thehouse sparrow has been associated with "sex and lechery"^[59] since ancient Egypt, where libidinousness was written with the sparrow hieroglyph. In the same vein, in the classical era the sparrow was sacred to the goddess of love,Aphrodite orVenus; the sparrow features in an erotic poem by Catullus for the same reason.Chaucer describes the summoner in hisCanterbury Tales as being as "lecherous as a sparwe".^[59][61][62]

Studies have shown how important birds are to individual societies, touching on all aspects of life. In Andean societies such as theMoche (1–800 AD),Nazca (100–700 AD) andChimu (1150–1450 AD), bright parrot and macaw feathers were traded from the Amazon rainforest to the mountains and the Pacific coast, while guano was collected as a fertiliser, and artists and craftsmen were inspired to create textiles, metal jewellery, and ceramics depicting condors, cormorants, ducks, hummingbirds, owls, vultures, and waders. Their religions, too, endowed birds with symbolic meaning.^[63]

TheAudubon society, reviewing the importance of birds in 2013, obtained statements from many people with differing perspectives. Among them, the society's science director, Gary Langham, noted that what is good for birds is also good for humans. The writerDavid Allen Sibley observed that birds bring a little wildness into parks and gardens.^[64] The writerBarbara Kingsolver noted that birds are part of life on earth. The actressJane Alexander wrote "Birds remind us that there are angels."^[64] The forensic ornithologist Carla Dove noted that birds are biological indicators of habitat health, climate change, and the coming of spring.^[64]

Birds have been seen as symbols, and used as such, though perceptions of bird species vary widely across cultures: some birds have a positive image in some regions, a negative image in others.

Owls are associated with bad luck,witchcraft, and death in parts of Africa,^[65] but are regarded as wise across much of Europe.^[66]Hoopoes were considered sacred inAncient Egypt and symbols of virtue inPersia, but were thought of as thieves across much of Europe, and harbingers of war inScandinavia.^[67]

Inheraldry, birds, especiallyeagles, often appear incoats of arms.^[68]In Britain, over 3000pubs have birds intheir names, sometimes commemorating a local family with a bird from their coat of arms, sometimes for other reasons. There are dozens of pubs named "Crow's Nest" (nautical), "Dog & Duck" (wildfowling), "Eagle & Child" (heraldic), and "Falcon" (heraldic, or falconry), while over 600 pubs are named forswans.^[69]

Birds, too, may symbolise human attributes such as stupidity or talkativeness. People have been called "birdbrain[ed]" or "cuckoo", among many otheranimal epithets.^[70] Birds feature prominently in often derogatorysimiles like "noisy as a goose" andmetaphors including "to parrot".^[71]

Birds have appeared in mythology and religion in a variety of guises.

Birds have featured as gods from the time ofancient Egypt, where thesacred ibis was venerated as a symbol of the godThoth.^[72] In India, thepeacock is perceived as Mother Earth amongDravidian peoples,^[73] while theMughal andPersian emperors displayed their godlike authority by sitting in aPeacock Throne.^[74] In theYazidi religion,Melek Taus the "Peacock Angel" is the central figure of their faith.^[75] In the cult ofMakemake, theTangata manu birds ofEaster Island served as chiefs.^[76]

Birds have been seen as spirit messengers of the gods. InNorse mythology,Hugin and Munin wereravens who whispered news into the ears of the godOdin.^[77] In theEtruscan andRomanreligions ofancient Italy, priests were involved inaugury, interpreting the words of birds while the "auspex" watched their activities to foretell events.^[78] In theInca andTiwanaku empires of South America, birds are depicted transgressing the boundaries between the earthly and underground spiritual realms.^[79] Indigenous peoples of the central Andes maintain legends of birds passing to and from metaphysical worlds.^[80] The mythical chullumpi bird is said to mark the existence of a portal between such worlds, and to transform itself into a llama.^[80][81] Among theParsees of India and Iran, and among practitioners ofVajrayana Buddhism who believe in thetransmigration of souls inSikkim,Mongolia,Bhutan andNepal,sky burial has been practiced for centuries. In this ritual, corpses are left exposed forgriffon vultures to pick clean.^[82] The practice is declining, not least because of theloss of most of the vulture population across South Asia to accidental poisoning by theanti-inflammatory veterinary drugdiclofenac.^[83][84]

Birds have sometimes served as religious symbols. In ancientMesopotamia, doves were prominent animal symbols ofInanna (later known as Ishtar), the goddess of love, sexuality, and war,^[85][86] and, in theancient Levant, doves were used as symbols for theCanaanite mother goddessAsherah.^[85][86][87] Inancient Greece,Athena, the goddess of wisdom and patron deity of the city ofAthens, had alittle owl asher symbol.^[88][89][90] In Greek iconography, Athena is often shown accompanied by an owl^[90] and the owl was used as a symbol of Athens onAthenian coinage.^[89] In classical antiquity, doves were sacred to the Greek goddessAphrodite,^{[91][92][85][86]} who absorbed this association with doves from Inanna-Ishtar.^[86] Aphrodite frequently appears with doves inancient Greek pottery^[91] and, during Aphrodite's main festival, theAphrodisia, her altars would be purified with the blood of asacrificed dove.^[93]

In Medieval Christian iconography, thecormorant's "wing-drying" pose represents the Christian cross, and hence is a figure of Christ. InJohn Milton'sParadise Lost, on the other hand, the bird's cross-like pose is a travesty of Christ: "Then up he flew, and... Sat like a cormorant; yet not true life Thereby regained, but sat devising death To them who lived".^[94][95]

In mythology, birds were sometimes monsters, like theRoc and theMāori'sPouākai, a giant bird capable of snatching humans.^[96] In Persian mythology, thesimurgh was a gigantic bird, the first to come into existence, and it nested on the tree of plant life that grew in the great ocean beside the tree of immortality. Its task was to shake the seeds of all the plants out of the tree.^[97]

Birds have been depicted throughout the arts from the earliest times to the present,^[98] including in painting and sculpture, in literature, in music, in theatre, in traditional dance and ballet, and in film.^[59]

Birds have been depicted in paintings, sculptures and other art objects from the earliest times, including incave paintings.^[98]

InChinese art,bird-and-flower painting forms one of the three major subjects (the others being landscapes and figures), from the time of theFive Dynasties in the 10th century.Huang Quan created the naturalisticxiesheng style for bird paintings.^[99]Birds have long been celebrated in thearts of Japan, including in painting, woodblock printing, cloisonné, ceramics and indeed poetry from the 18th and 19th centuries. Print artists likeUtamaro andHokusai made use of Western and Chinese influences to give a sophisticated effect, whileHiroshige reworked the traditional bird-and-flower genre.^[100]

Inmodern art, some of the paintings ofJoan Miró include "A tangle of lines and small, colored ideograms suggesting birds, allegorical characters, stars, and animals".^[101][102] In modern sculpture,Pablo Picasso's 1932 bronzeCoq (Cockerel) is an assemblage of "spiky, elongated forms."^[103]

In publicstatuary, theMagyars's mythicalTurul symbolises national power and nobility, and is represented by many statues inHungary, including the largest bird statue in the world, on a mountain nearTatabánya.^{[104][105][106]}

Birds have been celebrated inpoetry since ancient times, when for example the Roman poetCatullus wrote in one of his most famous works about a girl and her petsparrow inPasser, deliciae meae puellae, "Sparrow, delight of my girl".^[107]

Birds featured in medieval poetry, for example forming the characters of the 1177 Persian poemThe Conference of the Birds, where the birds of the world assemble under the wisest bird, thehoopoe, to decide who is to be their king.^[108]

In English romantic poetry,John Keats's 1819 "Ode to a Nightingale" andPercy Bysshe Shelley's 1820 "To a Skylark" are popular classics.^[109][110] Bird poems byGerard Manley Hopkins include "Sea and Skylark" and "The Windhover" (on the kestrel).^[111] More recently,Ted Hughes's 1970 collection of poems about a bird character, "Crow", is considered one of his most important works.^[112][113]

Birds have similarly appeared in literature from ancient times.^[114] AmongAesop's Fables areThe Wolf and the Crane^[115] andThe Fox and the Stork; thesefables, which have analogues in eastern traditions such as the BuddhistJavasakunaJataka,^[116]use birds to imply moral conclusions about human behaviour.^[117]

More recently, birds have appeared in books illustrated by some exceptional artists, producing images that were accurate and beautiful, and that made use of the latest available printing techniques. Thewood engraverThomas Bewick's 1797–1804A History of British Birds brought affordable illustrations to the public for the first time, and the book formed in effect the firstfield guide to birds,^[118][119] whileJohn James Audubon's enormous^[120] and impressive images of birds in his 1827–1838Birds of America are among the most admired by art critics^[121] and by collectors: early editions fetch among the highest prices paid for any printed books.^[122] The ornithologistJohn Gould's bird illustrations, in books such asA Century of Birds hitherto unfigured from the Himalaya Mountains (1830–1833) with 80 plates, and his 7-volumeThe Birds of Australia (1840–1848) with 600 plates, related directly to his research, were both beautiful and scientifically useful.^[123]

Birds are popular characters in children's books, which are often handsomely illustrated.Beatrix Potter's 1908The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck created an enduringly popular bird heroine.^[124] Other authors followed with many bird characters in books for children of different ages.^[125]

In books for adults, birds may have symbolic or psychological significance. For instance,Paul Gallico's 1940The Snow Goose: A Story of Dunkirk was a parable about the regenerative power of friendship in wartime; the goose symbolises both the hero, Rhayader, a wounded artist, and the world wounded by war.^[126]T. H. White's 1951The Goshawk describes the author's "monstrous and often cruel battles" to train his bird of prey, whileHelen Macdonald's 2014H is for Hawk, which references White's book, tells how her obsession with the same species as a falconer helped her through the loss of her father.^[127]

In music,birdsong has influenced composers and musicians in several ways: they can be inspired by birdsong; they can intentionally imitate bird song in a composition, asVivaldi andBeethoven did, along with many later composers; they can incorporate recordings of birds into their works, first seen in the work ofOttorino Respighi; or asBeatrice Harrison did in 1924 with anightingale, andDavid Rothenberg did in 2000 with alaughingthrush, they can duet with birds.^{[128][129][130]}

At least two groups of scientists, namelyLuis Felipe Baptista and Robin A. Keister in 2005, and Adam Tierney and colleagues in 2011, have argued thatbirdsong has a similar structure to music. Baptista and Keister argue that the way birds use variations ofrhythm, relationships ofmusical pitch, and combinations ofnotes is somewhat musical, perhaps because some birds exploit variation in song to avoid monotony, ormimic other species.^[131] Tierney argues that the similar motor constraints on human and avian song drive these to have similar song structures, including "arch-shaped and descending melodic contours in musical phrases", long notes at the ends of phrases, and typically small differences in pitch between adjacent notes.^[132]

Birds feature as central characters indance traditions around the world.For example,Goldie's bird of paradise is celebrated in Papua New Guinea in a "beautiful"^[133] dance by two men who dress in grass skirts with the bird's plumes on the rump; they carrycassowary feathers in their hands and on their armbands, and imitate the bird's calls while they dance. It is performed on important occasions, carrying "special magic",^[133] and the performers are obliged to prepare for a week, avoiding certain foods, and undergoing a prolonged submergence in a cold stream to prepare their minds. The dance is preceded by a "magic chant" to the bird of paradise.^[133]InBalinese dance, thecendrawasih dance illustrates thebird-of-paradise's mating rituals.^[134]

In Africa, theEwe people of Ghana, who were said to have been guided from Dahomey to Ghana by a bird, incorporate the flapping of the bird's wings in dances such asAgbadza,Atsiagbekor, andGakpa.^[135]

Inballet,Tchaikovsky's classical 1895Swan Lake andIgor Stravinsky's 1910The Firebird have central bird characters.^[136]

Intheatre,Aristophanes's 414 BCcomedyThe Birds (Greek:ὌρνιθεςOrnithes) is an acclaimed fantasy with effective mimicry of birds. The play's chorus consists of characters playing many identifiable species, including thekingfisher,turtledove, andsparrowhawk; birds feature as messengers and dancers, and several Athenians are compared to specific birds.^[137][138]

Infilm, birds can feature as the major driving force in a story, as inAlfred Hitchcock's acclaimed 1963The Birds. Loosely based onDaphne du Maurier's 1952story of the same name, it tells the tale of sudden attacks on people by violent flocks of birds.^[139] A bird plays the role of an outlet for a person's feelings inKen Loach's much admired^[140] 1969Kes. The film is based onBarry Hines's 1968 novelA Kestrel for a Knave, and tells the story of a young boy whocomes of age by training akestrel that he has taken from the nest.^[140]

Birds feature also in the mass media with iconicanimated cartoon characters such asWalt Disney'sDonald Duck,^[141]Warner Bros.'sTweety Pie,^[142] andWalter Lantz'sWoody Woodpecker. The species involved are not always discernible, though Woody has been claimed to be based on theacorn orpileated woodpeckers.^[143]

Though human activities have allowed the expansion of a few species, such as thebarn swallow andEuropean starling, they have caused population decreases orextinction in many other species. Over a hundred bird species have gone extinct in historical times, including thedodo and thegreat auk,^[144] although the most dramatic human-caused avian extinctions, eradicating an estimated 750–1800 species, occurred during the human colonisation ofMelanesian,Polynesian, andMicronesian islands.^[145] Many bird populations are declining worldwide, with 1,227 species listed asthreatened byBirdLife International and theIUCN in 2009.^[146][147]

The most commonly cited human threat to birds ishabitat loss.^[148] Other threats include overhunting; accidental mortality due to collisions withbuildings andvehicles;long-line fishingbycatch;^[149] pollution (includingoil spills and pesticide use),^[150] competition; predation;hybridisation from nonnative introduced orinvasive species;^[151] andclimate change.^[152] The collection of specimens fortaxidermy andeggs from the wild has at times had a serious effect on some species. It is now forbidden in many countries, such as by the BritishWildlife and Countryside Act 1981.^[153][154]

Effects are not all negative; for example,wind farms producerenewable energy, helping to mitigate the greatest threat to birds, climate change. Wind farms benefit birds; poorly sited ones result in the death of many avianskill many birds in collisions.^[155] For example, at theAltamont Pass in California, thegolden eagle has been reduced by 80%, and nesting has ceased in the area.^[156] Thus, there is atrade-off in the siting of any wind farm.^[155]

Governments andconservation groups work to protect birds, either by passing laws thatpreserve andrestore bird habitat, or by establishingcaptive populations for reintroductions. Such projects have produced some successes; one study estimated that conservation efforts saved 16 species of bird that would otherwise have gone extinct between 1994 and 2004, including theCalifornia condor andNorfolk parakeet.^[157] The BritishRoyal Society for the Protection of Birds, founded as the Plumage League in 1889 to protect birds such as theegret from hunting for their plumes, used in fashion, has grown to have over a million members; it has been followed by similar societies in other countries.^[158] A more specialised organisation, theWildfowl & Wetlands Trust founded in 1946, works to conserve waterfowl and theirwetland habitats, with projects around the world.^[159]

• Human–dinosaur coexistence

• Birds and humans
• Birds in art
• Birds in mythology
• Biology and culture
• Animals in culture

• Webarchive template wayback links
• All articles with dead external links
• Articles with dead external links from August 2024
• Articles with permanently dead external links
• CS1 Indonesian-language sources (id)
• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from July 2018
• Good articles
• Articles containing Māori-language text
• Articles containing Ancient Greek (to 1453)-language text