Conservation and Management

On tropical wintering grounds, buntings, like most small birds, are commonly killed for food and sport. Species appears to be the most popular cage bird in villages and towns in Yucatán, Mexico, where it is abundant in nearby agricultural lands (M. Kielb unpubl. observ.); and elsewhere in Mexico, where banding recoveries are not reported, and it has been trapped and sold illegally in s. Florida in the 2000s (BBL, G. Hill, K. Groschupf, unpubl. observ.). Popular cage bird in Cuba (Barbour 1923, P. Kykes and J. Craves, unpubl. observ.). Indigo Buntings are common cage birds in Europe, imported from wintering range in the Neotropics. Proportion taken and effect on breeding populations unknown. Many migrating buntings are killed by flying into buildings and into transmission towers (Johnston and Haines 1957, Taber and Johnston 1968 . Birds breeding near roadsides, especially males, killed by vehicles (RBP, UMMZ specimens). Decline in local bunting numbers in s. Michigan when autumn olive (Elaeagnus umbellata) introduced for game cover, then spread and choked out in open fields and roadsides; autumn olive is allelopathic and few plants and insects survive beneath the shrubs. On the other hand, other human modification of habitat (clearing woods, providing hedgerows) increases the habitat suitable for buntings.

Abundant in eastern North America so no special efforts needed to ensure their survival on a continental scale. Locally, they decrease with intensive agriculture, frequent mowing of herbs along roadsides and farms, reversion of old fields to forests, and increasing urbanization. Numbers increase with growth of rank shrubs and herbs.