Study that argued China’s solar policy hurt birds may have miscounted 2 billion egrets

A study in one of the world’s top scientific journals that concluded China’s policy-driven solar energy expansion was harming bird diversity has come under fire after allegations emerged that the analysis may have used observations of 2.1 billion little egrets in a single park – more than the entire global population of the species.It also brought up heated conversations on social media about negative narratives surrounding China’s green energy sector.The study in question – by researchers in China, Vietnam and the United States – published in Science magazine, a leading US peer-reviewed journal, on August 20. It compared the strength of China’s solar policy against changes in bird diversity from 2014 to 2023.The data used to plug into a bird diversity index was taken from the China Birdwatching Record Centre, the largest citizen-science platform for bird observations in the country.Late last month, a social media post from the China Ornithological Society warned of potential errors in the centre’s records, which it said may have influenced the paper’s conclusions.It pointed to a logged observation in 2015 of 2.1 billion little egrets in a wetland, and another in 2022 of 1.3 billion red-billed blue magpies in a park, both in Guangdong province.