House Sparrow, Photograph by Tony Cox, Flickr

Madison NJ is often seen as a place for diverse wildlife, however, invasive species threaten the ecosystem. The Madison Department of Animal Control has seen a rise in certain invasive species. This work will be looking at the population of House Sparrows within Madison. House Sparrows and their droppings often carry pathogens that are harmful to humans. This in addition to their aggressive nature toward other birds proves how invasive this species is.

Monitoring population for House Sparrow density in both 2021 and 2022 shows how the amount of invasive House Sparrows in Madison has changed. The map displayed here presents the most recent estimates, generated by House Sparrow 2022_WFL1 and House Sparrow 2021_WFL showing population density of House Sparrows in 2022 and 2021

In Madison, a drastic decrease in the population of House Sparrows is shown to have taken place from 2021 to 2022. The population decreased by 76.79% in NJ. While it can be speculated that public policy on the controlling of the population could have had an influence, no such policies in NJ were in effect within this time period. An Avian influenza was a true reason for the drop in population. While the decrease in the House Sparrow population will allow local birds to return to their habitats, the disease that affected the House Sparrows may also have an effect of other birds returning to the Madison Area.

Documenting and understanding the population of invasive species allows organizations such as the Madison Department of Animal Control understand what the state of an ecosystem taken over by these invasive species can look like. This data allows for an elevated understanding as well as a means to make decisions and to enact policies that will benefit the ecosystem within Madison NJ, not only for the residents of Madison, but for its diverse wildlife as well.

House Sparrow 2022_WFL1 and House Sparrow 2021_WFL were layers created by Aidan Henbest from the Marine Academy of Technology and Environmental Science on April 27, 2023. The data was scraped from eBird data in New Jersey in Python using pandas, seaborn, and Matplotlib. The above map uses the most up to date data from 2021 and 2022 from eBird data, which is update on the 15th of every month. By leveraging the python tools and the sophisticated data from eBird data, Aiden Henbeast’s layer accurately highlights the population density for House Sparrows in New Jersey. The detailed work, as well as all the code and data used can be found online on Aiden Henbeast’s website here.