6. Field Trip: Predatory Bird Research Group

Archive of Past Articles for Chapter 6

2008 June 4. 7 Condors Poisoned by Lead; One Dies. By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Excerpt: LOS ANGELES (AP) - Seven endangered California condors, about 20 percent of the population in Southern California, have been found to have lead poisoning.
The birds started turning up sick about a month ago during random trappings at Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge in the San Joaquin Valley.
One of the birds died during treatment at the Los Angeles Zoo, and six others are still being treated there.
Officials do not yet know the source of the contamination, but a United States Fish and Wildlife Service official said the birds had probably been poisoned by eating the carcasses of animals shot by hunters.
...The California condor nearly became extinct in the 1980s, but a trapping and breeding program has helped restore the species. There are about... 200 in the wild over all.
Experts believe that lead poisoning is a major factor in preventing the species' recovery.
Under a ban that takes effect July 1, it will be illegal for California hunters to possess or fire lead ammunition when they are in the birds' habitat.

12 November 2007. Md. Scientists Monitor Saw - Whet Owls. By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. Excerpt: BOONSBORO, Md. (AP) -- The high-pitched, staccato mating call of a northern saw-whet owl pierces the night and lures birds into a gossamer net that researchers have strung along the Appalachian Trail.
The owls -- fluffy, brown-and-white raptors about the size of a human fist -- are weighed, measured, banded and released to help scientists learn more about their migration patterns.
By Thanksgiving, the Department of Natural Resources hopes to have banded and released more than 1,000 saw-whet owls captured while flying from the northern United States and Canada to southern destinations including western Maryland and West Virginia.
...''Three a.m. to dawn, we can get slammed,'' said David F. Brinker a DNR ecologist and founder of Project Owlnet....
''This is a species that for many years people thought was rare, but it was rarely seen,'' Brinker said.
In the fall, many northern saw-whet owls migrate hundreds of miles south while others stay within their breeding ranges -- patterns that are well documented in some areas but still poorly understood, according to Project Owlnet.
Every four years, an ''irruption,'' or sudden population increase, provides opportunities for studying the owls at dozens of banding stations. Brinker said the numbered leg bands include instructions on how to report an owl found dead or alive.
The saw-whet owl is named for its distinctive alarm call, which sounds like the whetting of a saw blade....

8 October 2007. Conservationists Work to Save Sea Bird. By ANNIE HUANG, The Associated Press
Excerpt: TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Taiwanese and mainland Chinese conservationists are joining hands to save an endangered sea bird from extinction by urging fishermen to stop collecting and eating the birds' eggs, a Taiwanese birdwatcher said Monday.
The Chinese crested tern -- white with a black-and-white crest -- migrates to eastern Chinese coasts between May and September, Taiwanese conservationists say. It's thought the birds fly there to escape the heat in South Asia, although they have not been seen outside of China or Taiwan.
...Taiwanese have stopped eating sea birds' eggs in recent years, but Chinese fishermen often sneak onto Matsu to collect the eggs, which are prized as a delicacy in parts of China, said Chang Shou-hua, head of the Matsu Birdwatching Society.
...A Chinese survey conducted over recent successive breeding seasons found that the number of crested terns had fallen to 50 birds, about half the population found three years ago, according to Birdlife International, a conservation group based in Cambridge, England. The group warns that the crested tern could become extinct in five years if protection efforts are not stepped up.

21 August 2007. Birds Band Together to Raise Offspring in Dire Times. By HENRY FOUNTAIN, NY Times. Excerpt: While the verdict may be out on the human race in this regard, African starlings are a different matter. Some starling species exhibit remarkable cooperative behavior, and a new study shows one factor that has influenced its evolution: climate uncertainty.
The behavior is cooperative breeding, in which some individuals delay their own breeding to help raise the offspring of others, who may or may not be relatives. Among the 45 African starling species, some breed cooperatively and some do not.
Dustin R. Rubenstein, now at the University of California, Berkeley, and Irby J. Lovette of Cornell's Laboratory of Ornithology undertook a genetic analysis of all 45 species and used it to build a family tree showing evolutionary patterns. Then they used rainfall data, in some cases going back more than 140 years, from across Africa to determine how predictable the weather is in various starling habitats. ...Cooperation would be expected to confer an evolutionary advantage, because in very dry years, when food and other resources are scarce, it helps ensure that more offspring survive.

28 June 2007. Bald Eagles, Thriving, Settle into Suburban Life. The New York Times. By Felicity Barringer. Excerpt: OCALA, Fla.— Bald eagles, whose numbers dwindled to historic lows in the early 1960s, are again flourishing and no longer need the protections of the Endangered Species Act, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne announced Thursday.
Here in Florida, bald eagles have thrived for a decade, multiplying to a statewide population of 1,150 breeding pairs and giving this state, with Minnesota, bragging rights as the top eagle haven in the country. ... They can be found nesting in cellphone towers and raising chicks near landfills and airport runways, along highways and high up in the pine trees of the state’s upscale developments. ... The only thing required of residents — in return for feeling that they are living in a National Geographic special — is a willingness to tolerate the odd fish skeleton on the lawn, or the occasional white pile on the drive. ...
In Florida, home to about 12 percent of all eagles in the lower 48 states, the question is no longer whether these birds can cope with development and commotion, but how much is too much? … Biologists, after recovering from the initial shock of finding eagles in the suburbs, have documented in a six-year study that suburban birds breed as well as their rural counterparts. But the young birds have slightly higher mortality, thanks to ill-timed meals of roadkill or too-comfortable seats on power lines. ...
Property-rights advocates have argued in court that restrictions on the use of eagle-occupied land should be loosened; conservationists have countered that eagles still need buffers against the hubbub of humanity. …
This month, the federal Fish and Wildlife Service announced its intention to continue to prohibit activities — like running a bulldozer — that are likely to make eagles abandon their nests or interrupt their normal activities. …

29 May 2007. Bald Eagle Nest in Philadelphia Fails. By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. Excerpt: PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A bald eagle nest at the old Philadelphia Navy Yard has failed, but birdwatchers are holding out hope that the first pair of bald eagles spotted in the city in more than 200 years will nest again next year. After the nest was spotted in February, state officials began keeping a close eye on the eagles in hopes that they would breed. But birdwatchers and state officials say the eagles haven't been spotted since April. ''We believe it is failed and that the birds are gone,'' said Debbie Beer, a birder who spotted the eagles in February and has been helping the state to monitor them. ''I'm hoping that they come back next year and nest again.'' ...Dan Brauning, wildlife diversity supervisor for the state Game Commission, said the birds could still be nearby. ''I would not expect them to abandon that area,'' he said. State officials estimate that 20 percent to 30 percent of bald eagle nests fail each year in Pennsylvania. Last year, state officials said they had confirmed more than 100 bald eagle nests in Pennsylvania for the first time in more than a century....The birds are protected by the federal Endangered Species Act, meaning nearby development plans could be altered, delayed or even halted. But the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to delist the eagle next month because of how well it has rebounded. Such a move could ease the restrictions on development near bald eagle nests.

29 May 2007. U.S. to Study Protection for Alaska Loon. By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. Excerpt: ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- A petition seeking Endangered Species Act protection for a rare loon that breeds in Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve has been accepted for review by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Conservationists hope an eventual listing of the yellow-billed loon will curb petroleum development in the 23-million acre reserve that covers much of Alaska's western North Slope. The petition was filed three years ago by the Center for Biological Diversity, the National Resource Defense Council, Pacific Environment and other U.S. and Russian scientific and conservation organizations. ...The yellow-billed loon breeds in tundra wetlands in Alaska, Canada and Russia, and winters along the west coasts of Canada and the United States. Petroleum development through leasing ordered by President Bush could reduce its numbers, said Brendan Cummings, ocean program director at the Center for Biological Diversity. ''The yellow-billed loon is one of the rarest and most vulnerable birds in the United States, yet the Bush administration's plan to 'protect' it is to approve oil drilling in its habitat,'' Cummings said. The Fish and Wildlife Service estimates there are 16,500 yellow-billed loons in the world, including 3,700 to 4,900 that breed in Alaska. More than 75 percent of the Alaska breeders nest in the petroleum reserve. ...According to the Fish and Wildlife Service, yellow-billed loons nest exclusively in coastal and low-lying Arctic tundra, always near permanent, fish-bearing lakes. The large-bodied birds have low reproductive success and depend on high annual adult survival to maintain population levels. Individual birds must live many years before they can reliably replace themselves with offspring that survive long enough to breed, according to the agency. ...Yellow-billed loons do not recover easily from population declines, are susceptible to disturbance and may be vulnerable to habitat loss, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service.

12 March 2007. Groups: Development Threatens Waterbird. By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. Excerpt: THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) -- Worldwide efforts to protect endangered waterbirds are falling short as industrial and urban development eat away at their habitats, and hunting and pollution take their toll, according to a book released Monday. ''Despite global conservation efforts, waterbirds are being sidelined by economic development,'' according to three groups that edited ''Waterbirds Around the World,'' which includes data covering 162 countries and 614 species. In January, a global survey called the Waterbird Population Estimate found that 44 percent of the world's 900 waterbird species numbers have fallen in the past five years, while 34 percent were stable, and 17 percent were rising. In the last such survey in 2002, 41 percent of waterbird populations worldwide were found to be decreasing. ...a ''shocking example'' in South Korea where a land claim project on the shores of the Yellow Sea completed in April 2006 destroyed 155 square miles of intertidal mudflats that were a key wetland habitat for migratory waterbirds in Asia, including the endangered spoonbilled sandpiper and Nordmanns greenshank....

3 February 2007. Alabama's Bald Eagle Population Booming. By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. Excerpt: BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) -- After 15 years of checking bald eagle nests from small planes, there are now an estimated 100 nesting pairs, up from 77 the previous year and 10 times the state's recovery goal under the Endangered Species Act. With the nest-to-nest status check by plane ending last year, the state now will start watching over a few dozen nests to monitor the eagles' health. ''It's getting to be a little costly for airplane time,'' said Keith Hudson, the state biologist chiefly responsible for tracking the eagle's progress in Alabama. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans to remove the bird from the Endangered Species List in June, saying the eagle only needs monitoring now that it has successfully repopulated the lower 48 states. The population increased from 417 nesting pairs in 1963 to more than 8,500.....

Archive of Past Articles for Chapter 6

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