The population of tricoloured blackbirds has been plummeting for decades but the federal government has failed to list them as endangered, a group claimed in a lawsuit filed on Monday.
The Center for Biological Diversity initially filed a petition with the US Fish and Wildlife Service in 2004, asking for the bird to be listed under the federal Endangered Species Act.
The group claimed the agency’s failure to act on their request for 16 months led to the federal lawsuit, which asks for emergency protection. It cited studies showing the tricoloured blackbird population declined from the millions in the 1930s to about 162,000 in 2000.
The population has continued to drop as birds deprived of their natural habitat by development and farming try to nest among crops.