(1) Background: The acceleration of urbanization poses an increasingly serious threat to avian diversity. Consequently, accurate species identification of avian remains is essential for biodiversity monitoring, bird rescue operations, and conservation management. (2) Methods: This study employed DNA barcoding technology based on the cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) gene to analyze 112 avian remains samples collected from urban and peri-urban areas of Tianjin city. (3) Results: A total of 47 bird species were identified, belonging to 11 orders, 24 families, and 30 genera, achieving an overall identification success rate of 95.54%. Passeriformes were dominant, accounting for 70.21% of the identified species. The species list includes 3 species listed as Class I nationally protected birds and 7 species as Class II nationally protected birds. Discrepancies between preliminary morphological identification and molecular identification results highlighted the complementary roles of the two approaches. (4) Conclusions: This study demonstrates that DNA barcoding is an effective tool for efficiently identifying degraded avian remains in urban environments. It provides reliable data for biodiversity assessments, wildlife rescue, and conservation management, while also supporting improved identification accuracy through the integration of molecular and morphological methods.
Nie et al. (Thu,) studied this question.