COLOMBIA HOSTS THE WORLD’S richest avian biodiversity, but when conservation ecologist Natalia Ocampo-Peñuela attended college there in the mid-2000s, few birders visited. If they did, they usually weren’t casual vacationers but professional ornithologists.
That has changed dramatically, according to an analysis of millions of eBird records. Birders from abroad have increasingly flocked to Colombia’s varied mountains, rain-forests, and coasts. From 2010 to 2022, daily tourist activity on eBird increased by roughly 40 times, making Colombia the fastest-growing birdwatching destination. South Africa, with its sprawling savannas and wetlands, experienced the second-highest growth of 155 nations. Meanwhile, other bird-rich tropical countries such as Bolivia and Venezuela showed little uptick.
40x growth of bird tourist activity in Colombia (2010-2022) Yet ranking the buzziest global birding hotspots wasn’t the study’s main goal. Rather, a…