Audubon Society Member Jean Bratton will present a program at Friends United for a Safe Environment (FUSE) on what an individual can do to create a bird:friendly environment.
The monthly meeting will be at 6 p.m. Tuesday in the Nelson Room of the Texarkana Public Library. The meeting is free and the public welcomed.
Bratton, who taught chemistry at Texas High, will discuss recent studies showing a declining bird population in the United States. She will demonstrate what any resident can do to protect and help birds flourish by simple steps in one's backyard or other space.
Although birds face peril from several sources, national environmental groups have focused on pesticides as a major problem, according to FUSE President James Presley.
Today, highly toxic neonics, the most widely used class of pesticides in the world, have been linked to decline of bee populations, as well as harm to migrating birds and white-tailed deer. Although the European Union banned these pesticides last year, they are still permitted in the United States, according to Presley.
During the Communist era, for instance, Budapest, Hungary, had no birds, the result of pesticides being used so irresponsibly that no bird survived.