This week in birds - #609
A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment : This magnificent bird is the American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week . It is the Zone-tailed Hawk , a resident of the American Southwest, Central America, right down into South America. The bird's status is threatened by habitat loss. *~*~*~* Drought conditions now cover as much as 87 percent of the United States. Moreover, severe drought has put at risk nearly half a million children in the Amazon region. The drought is also a threat to the Panama Canal as well as to the entire country of Panama. *~*~*~* With all of that as a background, this year's U.N. climate summit has been taking place . Meanwhile, the U.N. Secretary-General warns that we are still underestimating the threat of catastrophic climate breakdown and ecosystem collapse. *~*~*~* A new agreement would shift some of the profits from the use of genetic information to help pay for global conservation efforts. *~*~*~* It will not come a