Marsh harrier
group of birds
The marsh harriers are birds of prey of the harrier subfamily. They are medium-sized raptors and the largest and broadest-winged harriers. Most of them are associated with marshland and dense reedbeds. They are found almost worldwide, excluding only the Americas.
Until recently, two species were generally recognized: the marsh harrier (Circus aeruginosus) and the African marsh harrier (C. ranivorus). The marsh harrier is now usually split into several species, sometimes as many as six. These are the western marsh harrier (C. aeruginosus), eastern marsh harrier (C. spilonotus), Papuan harrier (C. spilonotus spilothorax or C. spilothorax), swamp harrier (C. approximans), Réunion harrier (C. maillardi maillardi or C. maillardi) and Madagascar marsh harrier (C. maillardi macrosceles or C. macrosceles).
At the beginning of the 20th century, the marsh harrier was hunted to extinction in the United Kingdom. After being reintroduced from other regions, its population steadily increased until DDT threatened it, along with other raptors in the 1950s and 1960s. Since, the population has slowly and steadily increased.
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This entry incorporates text from “Marsh harrier” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.