ABA Blog

A Tower to Remember

You are forgiven if you can’t guess the purpose of the odd building in this photograph from 90 years ago. You are forgiven, as well, if the name of Althea R. Sherman does not ring an ornithological bell.

She is the woman at the center of the picture, who conceived and designed the building. Her sister, Amelia, is at right, and they are accompanied by a group of neighborhood children in the tiny hamlet of National, Iowa. The photo, probably taken in 1923, is used by permission of the Oberlin College Archives in Oberlin, Ohio, where Sherman studied and taught art for a number of years.

The structure is a fascinating piece of ornithological history that deserves more widespread attention than it has received. The 28-foot-tall, 9-foot-square wooden tower topped by an artificial chimney is ingeniously designed to observe nesting Chimney Swifts. Sherman and other observers climbed stairs winding up three stories through the tower to the chimney.

An extraordinary self-taught ornithologist, Sherman (1853–1943) had the tower constructed to her careful specifications in 1915 at her residence amid the vast farm country of northeastern Iowa. Remarkably, it still exists, and what an achievement it would be to restore it!

That is exactly the goal of a nonprofit organization, the Althea R. Sherman Project, which is campaigning for funds to make it possible. There are good historical and ornithological reasons for the restoration. As leaders of the project note on their website, the tower allowed Sherman to be “the first person ever to witness and record the entire nesting cycle of these birds. Her Chimney Swift journals, covering 18 years and more than 400 pages, may offer the most extensive study of this species in existence.”  

Reading some of Sherman’s minutely detailed day-by-day notes, you will see that the project leaders do not exaggerate. Excerpts from the journals are published as a chapter “The Home Life of the Chimney Swift” in her posthumously published 1952 book Birds of an Iowa Dooryard. A 1996 edition of the book includes a great deal of interesting background on Sherman and her various ornithological projects.

Dilapidated and in storage after many decades of disuse, the rehabilitated tower will be moved to the Cedar County Historical Society’s Bickett-Rate Memorial Preserve near Buchanan, Iowa. The preserve includes a bird sanctuary, a museum, and an environmental education center.

You will not need to go to Buchanan to see the nesting show. The stairs inside will not accommodate visitors, but it will eventually include two webcams and a microphone. If swifts decide to use the beckoning “chimney,” you’ll be able to peep at their domestic life via the Internet. Robert Anderson, executive director of the Raptor Research Project, is donating the webcams.

How soon the restoration will be completed depends on success of the fund-raising campaign. The tower is certified as eligible for status in the National Register of Historic Places, and the State Historical Society of Iowa has awarded the project a matching grant. Now the project leaders are seeking the $87,000 necessary to receive the other half of the grant.

Besides its historical, ornithological, and educational values, the tower will have a third important benefit: conservation. It will call attention to the dire plight of the Chimney Swift, whose relative abundance in the U.S. and Canada has declined 66% from 1966 to 2011, according to the North American Breeding Bird Survey.

That is almost exactly the decline reported for Iowa, which is severe enough to warrant conservation attention there. The plunges in relative abundance are even more severe in southeastern Canada and the northeastern U.S. For example, during the same 1966–2011 period, the survey shows declines of 97% in Nova Scotia and Ontario, and 90% in Maine. Clearly, the Chimney Swift needs all the conservation attention it can get.

An article in my News and Notes column in Birding (July 2011, p. 27) described a combination of dangers contributing to the Chimney Swift’s decline. First is a decrease in acceptable breeding sites as suitable chimneys have dwindled in residential and other architectural designs. Another is a decline in the abundance of flying insects, perhaps because of increased use of pesticides. A third may involve ecological threats in the species’ South American winter range that are not well understood.

It’s worth noting that ABA’s Bird of the Year, the Common Nighthawk, faces the exact same trio of troubles: dwindling nest sites, food shortages, and threats in its South American range. A recent News and Notes article (Birding, March–April 2013, pp. 26–27) reported the nighthawk’s decline, and a feature article in the May/June 2013 Birding will explore the matter in greater detail.

As for the Chimney Swift, there is scarcely a better examination of its breeding behavior than Althea Sherman’s tower and her nearly two decades of observations. One of her comments in Birds of an Iowa Dooryard sounds quaint today, but it represents the feelings she had for the bird:

“During the many summers of intimate living with the Chimney Swift, I have never found it a subject for criticism in any respect—no evil has been detected in its relations with its own or with other species. In short, it appears to be a paragon of perfection—the bird that properly might be chosen as the emblem of peace.”

Yes, quaint, reflecting an almost spiritual relationship between the lady and the bird, but let us not be cynical about the role such statements had in ornithological writing a century ago. They were altogether typical of her time. After all, “modern” bird lovers have a similar feeling about our favorite species, even though we don’t express it in such an old-fashioned way.

The Althea R. Sherman Project is doing its part to help resurrect such personal respect for the Chimney Swift and, in the process, for all of nature. That’s an eminently worthwhile environmental goal.

 

Where's Walda?

 

Missouri River at White Cloud, KS, by Ted Lee Eubanks

Audubon started west at the Missouri, as did Lewis, Clark, Long, and Fremont. The Missouri still delineates the humid, forested east from the dry, treeless plains. Hundreds of thousands of emigrants, traveling the California, Oregon, and Mormon trails, left the familiar here to enter the unknown. I decided to join them, or at least retrace their steps.

Highland Indian Mission, KS, by Ted Lee Eubanks

My work week began in Kansas. I sprinted around the state to meetings in Atchison, Great Bend, Medicine Lodge, Topeka, Fort Scott, Galena, and Baxter Springs. The weather remained vernally accommodating the entire week.

I rested the weekend in Lawrence, preparing for a final flurry of meetings the following week in Broken Bow, Nebraska. My wife, Virginia, had joined me for the weekend, and after dropping her at the Kansas City airport Monday morning I traveled north toward White Cloud.

The Glacial Hills Scenic Byway parallels the Missouri through famous crossings such as Fort Leavenworth and Atchison. I detoured to the Presbyterian Indian Mission near Highland, one of the crossings where the wagon ruts are still visible.

The Missouri runs close to White Cloud, and from the bluffs in the center of town (also the birthplace of the piggy bank) you can see four states. Looking out across the river I imgained Audubon, Sprague, and Harris steaming north toward Fort Union and the North Dakota / Montana border. This troupe would travel for fifty days and 1,400 miles before reaching their summer's quarters in 1843. This would be Audubon's one trip west; in seven years he would be dead.

For my path west I chose the scenic route, US 24, roughly following the emigrant trails across Kansas. US 24 skirts Lawrence, Lecompton, Topeka, and Manhattan as its strikes west. Lecompton served as one of the original territorial capitals of Kansas, and the 1857 pro-slavery Lecompton constitution split the Democratic Party in Washington when Stephen Douglas and his northern Democrats sided with the new Republican Party to reject the proposed constitution. In 1860 the northern Democrats would nominate Douglas for president, while the southern Democrats would choose Breckinridge. The schism would open the door for Abraham Lincoln, the Republican candidate, who won the election with a majority of the electoral vote but less than 40% of the popular vote. 

Edward Harris's sparrow, Marais des Cygnes NWR, KS, by Ted Lee Eubanks

About three miles east of Louisville I passed the crossing of the Red Vermillion on the Oregon Trail that had been operated by Louis Vieux. Yes, in the case of the river the word is spelled with two l's. Here I found a good number of Edward Harris's sparrows. On the banks of the river I also located the 1849 cholera cemetery estimated to contain at least fifty graves. Emigrants would carry the disease from watering hole to watering hole, and graves would eventually line the trails.

I turned north on US 281 toward my eventual destination. US 281 enters Nebraska at Red Cloud, the home of Willa Cather of the Prairie Trilogy fame. Nearing the Platte (where the emigrant trails turn west) I began to notice sandhill cranes scattered throughout the corn stubble. I had feared that I would miss the cranes this year. I had no reason to worry, though. There were tens of thousands still in the area, lazily fattening on corn left in the field from harvest.

Sandhill cranes near Fort Kearny before Walda by Ted Lee Eubanks

I knew of Willa; I had yet to hear of Walda. Tuesday morning I awoke to light sleet and a 50-degree drop in temperature from the previous afternoon. Thunder, lightening, gale-force winds, snow, and finally ice braced the sleet. I know sleet. I know hail. But I cannot remember being stuck in an ice downpour.

For an hour ice fell in torrents, and by Tuesday night ice locked western Nebraska in a tight grip. My meetings on Wednesday were cancelled. I would be grounded in the Hampton Inn in Kearney until the thaw. I faced a choice, a conundrum. Either I would spend two days cloistered in the Hampton, or I would get out and test my ice driving skills. I grabbed binocs and camera and slid back toward Fort Kearny. How would be cranes handle the weather? More importantly, how would I?

I found few cranes on Tuesday away from the Platte. Given the choice between gale-force ice rain and the relatively warm river, they chose to stay put. I skated out the Fort Kearny rail-trail to check the river, and a bald eagle assisted me by putting a flock of cranes into flight. I decided to return to the Hampton and wait to see what Wednesday would bring.

Cranes over the Platte at Fort Kearny, NE, by Ted Lee Eubanks

Wednesday brought more of Walda, although the ice turned to light snow. I ventured back toward Fort Kearny and immediately noticed cranes on the move. Flocks were lifting off the river to make their way to the iced corn fields. The cranes seemed to prefer the fields with the tallest stubble and the deepest rows. Birds hunkered down between the furrows, at least partially protected from the winds. Robins, doves, blackbirds, and sparrows crowded behind the shelter belts. Ducks stuck to the running water still flowing through the drainage ditches.

Walda caught thousands of robins migrating through the Great Plains. They crowded into any protected scrap of habitat. I found them in ditches behind shelter belts, in the driveways of farm houses, and in the deep grass behind grain elevators. In one ditch the robins were joined by red-winged blackbirds, common grackles, and a few yellow-headed blackbirds. Desperation seemed to break down any territorial barriers.

American robin in ice, near Fort Kearny, NE, by Ted Lee Eubanks

Eastern phoebes hugged the edges of open ponds deep within the woods along the Platte. Ducks and kingfishers joined cranes in drainage ditches. A northern shoveler mistakenly landed on the frozen road in front of me and almost skidded into my vehicle. Sparrows and horned larks sneaked about the corn stubble in search of any ground not covered in snow or ice.

In the 1800s migrants and emigrants were Platte River bound. Cranes still move north past the trails that carried emigrants west. Emigrants drove oxen, wagons and themselves west only until the advent of the railroad. Today I-80 is the trail of choice.

Yet I still wonder about the dramas that were played out on this stage, Stephen Long's Great American Desert. The land is brazenly open here. Man and beast are exposed to the elements and to each other. I see this relationship most clearly in the Sandhills, the unplowed prairie grasslands where nature still overpowers. For how long, I wonder?

There are substantial public lands in western Kansas and Nebraska. The Cimarron and Oglala National Grasslands protect expansive grasslands. Yet most of the Sandhills is ranch land in private hands. Many of these ranch families date back to the Homestead Act. For 150 years they have managed these grasslands for grazing. Yet nature also depends on the stewardship of these families.

Walda is ephemeral. Spring will return in a few days. Yet there are storms on the horizon such as climate change that are not so transitory. These same ranches are part of the solution for climate change as well. Prairie grasses store carbon. These areas in the western Great Plains emit little and store much. The Great Plains also has high potential for biomass, solar, and wind power production.

Sandhill crane near Fort Kearny in frozen corn field by Ted Lee Eubanks

I hope that these ranchers keep ranching. I appreciate the challenges they face, and understand when their kids choose to pursue careers elsewhere. But if we care about grasshopper sparrows, lark buntings, and Audubon's assistant Isaac Sprague's pipit, then we too must care about Sandhills' ranchers.

I have finished this phase of my work in the Sandhills. I have completed an interpretive plan for the 272-mile Sandhills Journey Scenic Byway that stretches between Grand Island and Alliance. I began my work in Nebraska almost 20 years ago when I worked on a socio-economic assessment of the Platte River for the EPA. This study included an appraisal of the value of birding along the river. I hope to continue returning to the Sandhills, one of the remaining places where one can recalibrate. Perhaps the Sandhills will help our climate recalibrate, too.

For those interested in Audubon's Missouri River adventure, I recommend Audubon's letters from that trip, as well as Edward Harris's Up the Missouri with Audubon.

 

Sandhills rancher by Ted Lee Eubanks

 

What's Involved in Getting Involved: Part III

No matter how hard we work on a conservation project, and no matter how strong a case we may make, we may still lose in the end. Is the work and the heartbreak worth it? This is the final post in my 3-part series about getting involved in local or regional bird conservation issues.

On April 4, 2013, AT&T announced that it had completed a cell phone tower constructed in Ely, Minnesota, on the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. The lighted, guyed, 450-foot tower was initially proposed in 2010, and the Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness, a nonprofit organization, filed a lawsuit on June 22, 2010, to prevent construction, suggesting that two 199-foot towers (which would not require FAA lighting and could be free standing) would provide cell phone service over a wider area of the wilderness without costing much more, without compromising the scenic beauty of the wilderness, and without the bird-killing elements towers are notorious for. The Friends organization asked me to evaluate the potential impact regarding birds and to write an expert report, and then to serve as an expert witness to testify about the dangers lighted towers present to migrating birds. I was asked to do this because of my previous involvement with tower proposals, especially in 1987-1988, when a tower was proposed to be constructed just northeast of Duluth on our major hawk and songbird migration flyway. In that case, potential bird mortality turned out to be the prevailing issue, and the company ended up building a 100-foot, unguyed and unlighted tower specifically to prevent the tower from killing migratory birds. (This may be the only case in the US in history where a tower was downsized only because of its potential impact on migratory birds.)

In the current case, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area is a true wilderness, with genuinely dark sky. Lights on the proposed tower (required by the FAA on all structures higher than 199 feet to prevent aircraft collisions) would be the first artificial lights ever seen by many songbirds on their first migration from Canada and northernmost Minnesota, including the vast majority of species most vulnerable to tower kills. In my statement and testimony, I said that it’s impossible to predict how many birds could be killed at the tower each year, but that a single TV tower in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, not along any particular migration path, killed about 20,000 birds on a single foggy night in 1957, and about 35,000 birds on a foggy weekend in 1963, and pointed out that the very foggy conditions prevalent during spring and fall in the Boundary Waters area are associated with the worst tower kills.

As the number of Neotropic migrants has declined and the number of towers on the continent has increased, we haven’t documented kills of that magnitude at single towers in recent decades, but some single towers are still known to kill hundreds or thousands of birds annually. The proposed tower’s unique wilderness location makes it especially likely to have higher-than-average bird mortality due to the high number of foggy nights during migration, wilderness dark skies which would make any tower lights stand out, and the high number of bird species nesting there that are exceptionally vulnerable to tower kills. I could not predict how many birds could be killed at such a tower annually, but did testify that it was likely that in the worst years hundreds or thousands of birds could be killed.

I testified that many of the most vulnerable songbirds navigate using stars and seem to get disoriented under foggy conditions. In my experience as a licensed bird rehabber, I discovered that if I turned on a light in a darkened room on a spring or fall night when warblers were present, they instantly flew directly toward the light. My guess is that when they first take off on a migratory journey after dark, they fly directly toward a star or the moon—heading straight toward the light gives them a clear path out of the tree so they won’t collide with twigs and branches. I suspect that the same impulse leads them to fly toward a light when they’re disoriented in dense fog, not realizing that bright light is a bit closer than the stars or the moon.

The species that breed in and migrate through northern Minnesota include some of the species most vulnerable to tower mortality. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and American Bird Conservancy collected every shred of towerkill data they could, and issued a comprehensive report. They found that 230 species have been killed at towers, and ranked them. Every one of the six species killed in the greatest numbers continent-wide (Ovenbird, Red-eyed Vireo, Tennessee Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, Bay-breasted Warbler, American Redstart) breeds in the Boundary Waters and migrates in significant numbers through the area where the Proposed Tower would be sited. Of the 35 species killed in the greatest numbers (>1000 collected), 32 species (91 percent) breed in and/or are regular migrants through the vicinity of the proposed tower. Of those 32 species that breed in and/or migrate through the vicinity of the tower, 7 are listed on either the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s most recent Species of Management Concern List or the Partners in Flight Watch List.

AT&T hired well-known ornithologist and tower and wind farm advocate Paul Kerlinger as their expert witness with regard to bird mortality at the proposed tower. He testified that in his expert judgment, the tower would kill no more than 48 birds per year, and pooh-poohed my information about birds navigating using the stars. For example, he said it would be impossible for Ovenbirds to learn the star patterns before migration because they spend their nestling days and nights in a covered, oven-like nest, and said that magnetism is how birds orient. His testimony was for the defense, and the plaintiffs weren’t allowed to refute his testimony by calling their own witnesses again, so I couldn’t point out that Ovenbirds fledge weeks before migrating, nor bring up plenty of data about songbirds using both magnetism and star patterns to navigate.

The judge’s ruling focused mainly on the issue of largest concern to the Friends of the Boundary Waters, the lighted tower’s intrusion on the natural view. Scenic views are a value protected in Minnesota’s Environmental Policy Act, and the Friends’ testimony included a lot of evidence about the large swath of the wilderness area that would be impacted by the tower on the scenic view.

The organization also produced expert witnesses who established that their suggested alternative, two unlighted 199-foot towers, wouldn’t be much more expensive and would provide wider cell phone coverage. AT&T’s experts testified that they had done an economic analysis of the alternative and decided against it because the return on their investment would take 63 months, missing their corporate profit benchmark by 3 months. Minnesota’s Environmental Policy Act states that a higher cost for complying with the Act doesn’t provide a valid case for violating its terms, an important point that the judge emphasized in his findings when he ruled for the plaintiffs.

Regarding the bird issue, the judge wrote that Paul Kerlinger “is a private consultant who works and testifies exclusively for the wind and cell-tower industries. The Court does not find Kerlinger's opinions about very low probable bird mortality at the Proposed Tower to be credible.” The judge also specifically quoted my report stating that of the 30 bird species most frequently killed at towers, 28 breed in the Boundary Waters, and found that although the bird issue wasn’t primary in his consideration, it was significant and we, the plaintiffs, carried that issue as well as the one about scenic values. (You can read his point-by-point ruling with regard to the bird issue on my blog here: http://lauraerickson.blogspot.com/2011/08/450-foot-cell-towers-potential-impact.html.)

I thought that would be the end of it, but AT&T appealed, and last summer the Minnesota Court of Appeals overturned the District Court decision, citing concerns of safety where cell phone coverage isn’t available, even though the facts determination of the judge included expert testimony not questioned by AT&T that greater coverage would have been achieved by two smaller, unlighted towers at only slightly larger cost. The Friends appealed that decision, but the Minnesota Supreme Court declined to hear the case. Because the determination involves state rather than federal laws, no further appeals were allowed, and tower construction is now complete.

Imagine all the work Bill Evans has done gathering and synthesizing the information in www.towerkill.com, every bit an unpaid labor of love. I was paid for some of my time in this case, but virtually all my conservation work is unpaid, too. The US Fish and Wildlife Service led a committee that put together guidelines for tower construction to reduce bird kills. Unfortunately, those guidelines aren’t binding, and Paul Kerlinger, who served on the committee, now sabotages its work by testifying that the guidelines don’t apply in the situations for which he serves as a paid witness.

People who care deeply about bird conservation issues do what we can in many different ways. We contribute to organizations that focus on lobbying to pass laws and making sure those laws are enforced. We participate in citizen science projects such as eBird and contribute to research organizations to provide the underpinnings for species management projects. We promote public education of important issues and encourage people to find ways of helping birds in our daily lives. Some of us show up and testify in court and at city, county, and state hearings, or at least submit written statements regarding important issues open to public comment.

Why do we burn out and stop getting involved in conservation? No matter what we do and how hard we work and how much money we donate, vulnerable species keep declining, cat colonies continue to get public and municipal support, condors continue to die of lead poisoning from scavenging on carcasses shot with lead ammunition, buildings continue to be constructed of glass, wind farms keep sprouting up along critical migratory paths, and millions of birds continue to be killed each year at communications towers while, over and over, powerful interests continue to prevail over the well being of birds. 

Yet, little by little, some people do get the message. We only have those tower construction guidelines at all because people like Bill Evans got the word out about tower kills. And the more people hear about these kills before a tower is proposed, the more likely people on zoning boards are likely to take bird mortality into account in making decisions to grant or reject permits. Few of us volunteers can effectively and tenaciously work on even one issue day after day, year after year, without burning out, even as corporations keep an arsenal of lawyers and paid consultants at the ready. Supporting the American Bird Conservancy (the only national conservation organization with a policy regarding communications tower collisions, is important, as is supporting one another when we get involved in these issues.

ABA's role in conservation is extremely important, if more subtle than the American Bird Conservancy's. By supporting the fun and sport of birding and birdwatching, and encouraging more and more people of all ages to join us, we're building up the number of people in America who have heard of Ovenbirds and Red-eyed Vireos. Few judges or zoning board officials care about obscure species they've never heard of. And the importance of ABA's role in bringing public awareness of birds in fun contexts can't be overemphasized. Most people tune out dire messages sooner or later, but ABA keeps the fun elements of birding front and center in our mission, which is ultimately just as critical as nitty gritty conservation work at raising public awareness of birds. Ultimately, we save only what we love, and we love only what we know.

No matter how each of us chooses to get involved in protecting birds, the most important thing for us all to remember is that we're all on the same team, and ALL our contributions, whether we're leading local bird walks or telling friends about the fun birds we saw on a tour in the tropics, whether we're reporting our lists to eBird or conducting Breeding BIrd Surveys, whether we're actively working on local or regional issues or simply reading about them, make us part of a small but growing circle of people who know and care about birds and their future. 

Pennsylvania: The Second Snapshot

A review by Troy Corman

Second Atlas of Breeding Birds in Pennsylvania, edited by Andrew M. Wilson, Daniel W. Brauning, and Robert S. Mulvihill

Penn State University Press, 2012

586 pages, $64.95—hardcover

ABA Sales / Buteo Books 13906

I was raised in rural south-central Pennsylvania, but moved away before fieldwork began in 1983 for the state’s first breeding bird atlas. Fortunately, though, projects like this are designed to be repeated, and when data collection for the second atlas started, twenty years later, I was able to spend a week or so of several consecutive Junes in the same forests and along the same streams and trails where my passion for the outdoors and birding had first taken flight, a passion that has guided my career path ever since.

Pennsylvania may not be a major U.S. birding destination, but its varied landscapes attract a remarkable selection of both resident and migratory breeding birds—at least 208 native and established exotic species are confirmed to have bred there, among them an amazing 30 species of warblers. That rich species diversity and the commonwealth’s long and impressive history of ornithological investigation is the subject of several books, including the first Atlas of Breeding Birds in Pennsylvania, published in 1992.

As dedicated atlasers already know, the production of a breeding bird atlas requires monumental effort on the part of hundreds, if not thousands, of skilled volunteer birders and professional ornithologists. And it all has to be repeated. As the North American Ornithological Atlas Committee notes, “The tremendous value of breeding bird atlases will only begin to be realized when each state or province completes their second atlas. At that time, two ‘snapshots’ in time of breeding bird distributions will be available for comparison and conclusions can be reached about the changes in distributions that have occurred.” Repeated atlasing, of course, also provides data on population trends, which can prompt research and conservation efforts for declining species and the habitats on which they depend.

Data for Pennsylvania’s second atlas were collected from 2004 to 2009, and the new book that resulted from that work provides us with an up-to-date overview of the current distribution and status of each breeding species, plus a tremendous amount of insightful analysis.

Early chapters in the Second Atlas discuss the goals and purpose of the project. The project framework and survey methods remained largely the same from the first to the second atlas, though there were efforts made to capture certain aspects missing from the first: For example, field crews were hired this time around to take point counts measuring the geographic variability of species abundance. One of my favorite sections in the new Atlas is the enlightening chapters describing the state’s geography, habitat, and land use. The many color maps and vivid descriptions provide a thorough introduction to the physical aspects of Pennsylvania’s environment that influence the distribution and abundance of the avian life that breeds there. 

Another brief chapter, “Interpreting Species Accounts,” greatly increases the reader’s appreciation of the many fine details to be gleaned from each of the 190 two-page accounts, prepared by no fewer than 52 authors. Those authors and the book’s editors—Andrew M. Wilson, Daniel W. Brauning, and Robert S. Mulvihill—have taken full advantage of technologies and analytical methods that have emerged since publication of the first Atlas, making this second a sharply attractive, revealing, and masterfully prepared book.

Each species account includes a very good to excellent color photo, often, aptly, depicting adults at the nest or engaged in other breeding behavior. As expected, comparison of the data collected for each of the atlases is a significant part of these accounts; distribution changes (or their absence) are noted, and the Pennsylvania information is often compared with that discovered by second atlasing efforts in some adjacent states and provinces, thus placing apparent trends into a regional context.

Understandably, there is an obvious effort to avoid duplicating information already captured in the first Atlas. However, I find it mildly disappointing that so much natural history information has been omitted from the new species accounts. Appendix F in the Second Atlas provides a tabular summary of phenological data for most species; I would have liked to see some explicit discussion of the differences in breeding phenology discovered between the two atlases. Data continues to accumulate suggesting that the average timing of some species’ migration and nesting has already begun to shift, shifts possibly related to climate change.     

The second page of each account features two or three easily interpreted statewide maps. The first and largest depicts where the species was detected during the second atlas. Any changes in distribution between the two atlases are clearly noted on the second map. In the case of more common and widespread species, a third map depicts the geographic density of singing males as determined by point counts.

Each account also includes a table showing the number of blocks in which the species was identified by each atlasing project as a possible, a probable, or a confirmed breeder; changes between the two atlases are expressed as a percentage. Worrisome numbers include those for the Red-headed Woodpecker, which declined by 46 percent, and for the Golden-winged Warbler, down 61 percent between the two atlases. Compare that with the incredible increases in breeding Common Ravens—114 percent—and Bald Eagles—949 percent! These changes are discussed in detail in each account, with insightful suggestions as to why specific species have declined or increased, or why their distribution in the state has shifted.        

Appendix A includes brief accounts for a dozen former nesting species and a table listing ten additional birds that have not been documented nesting in Pennsylvania since the 1970s or before, including the Heath Hen and the Passenger Pigeon. Oddly missing from this list is the Glossy Ibis, noted in the first Atlas as a confirmed breeder on the Susquehanna River in the 1970s.

Few other resources provide so complete a picture of bird distribution over time as a breeding bird atlas, and few are so helpful in the long-term monitoring of avian populations. It is hard to imagine that any birder would not want a copy of the Second Atlas, whether in Pennsylvania or anywhere in the region, a region that stretches as far north as Quebec and as far west as Ontario (both jurisdictions, by the way, with magnificent atlas projects of their own). An exceptional summary of a large amount of data, presented in a sharp and impressive tome, this work sets a new standard for atlases to come.

It may take up a lot of space on your bookshelf, but as an informative and inspiring reference, the Second Atlas of Breeding in Birds in Pennsylvania is a worthy tenant. I am honored to be one of the many who participated in this endeavor. As much as I learned while helping collect data, I continued to be enlightened as I reviewed this fine resource.

Troy Corman is a biologist in the Arizona Game and Fish Department, where he coordinates long-term statewide bird monitoring projects. He coordinated the Arizona breeding bird atlas project and served as co-editor of the Arizona Breeding Bird Atlas (2005). Corman is president and a founding member of the Arizona Field Ornithologists. His interests include the distribution and seasonal status of birds, conservation, and travel.

Recommended citation:

Corman, T. 2013. Pennsylvania: The Second Snapshot [a review of Second Atlas of Breeding Birds in Pennsylvania, edited by Andrew M. Wilson, Daniel W. Brauning, and Robert S. Mulvhill]. Birding 45(3):67.

Gunnison Sage-Grouse Needs You!

When the Gunnison Sage-Grouse was formally described in 2000 - by researchers associated primarily with Western State Colorado University - it was the first new species described in continental North America since the 19th Century, a remarkable occurance in a landmass so populous and well-mapped.  It had been overlooked for quite some time, in part due to its similarity to the larger and more widely distributed Greater Sage-Grouse and in part due to the fact that there are just not that many individuals of this species around.

While they historically could be found in proper habitat throughout the four corners regions, the range of the Gunnison Sage-Grouse now consists solely of tiny disparate pockets of sageland in southwestern Colorado and eastern Utah.  These are unfortunately the same pockets overgrazed by ranchers, sucked dry by argirculture, and marked for development of fossil fuel infrastructure by energy interests eager to take advantage of a boom in the nation's domestic capacity. In the past those species caught at the crossroads of environment and industry have not fared too well, but federal protection under the auspices of the Endangered Species Act has been a critical distinction of those which have managed to endure. Unfortunately, Gunnison Sage-Grouse, despite nearly a decade of trying and at least two near misses, has not yet been granted this distinction. 

The US Fish and Wildlife Service is now accepting public comments on the latest attempt to list Gunnison Sage-Grouse through this Tuesday, March 12.  We urge you to do so, and information on how to make your voice heard is here. 

Our friends at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology are all over this topic.  Director John Fitzpatrick penned an editorial in the New York Times here, and offered more thoughts on Cornell's Round Robin blog. 

Fitzpatrick writes that we are now "entering our last possible period in which emergency actions could save this species.".  So please do your small part to encourage the USFWS to finally do the right thing to officer critical protections to one of North America's most fascinating bird species. 

We overlooked the Gunnison Sage-Grouse for more than a century.  Let's not let it quietly slip away from our own backyard.

Video: Releasing a Rosy-Finch; Looking Out for their Future

Michael Hilchey at the crest. Photo ©Raymond VanBuskirk

For many of us there, the high point, altitudinally and ornithologically, of the ABA's recent Albuquerque Rally was visiting the famous rosy-finch banding station at Sandia Crest. Above, you can see Michael Hilchey, one the dedicated crew from Rio Grande Bird Research that keep this valuable and challenging project going. At the far right, the feeder and finch trap are visible.

Below is a shot of Raymond VanBuskirk, another of the rosy-finch researchers, returning a just-banded Black Rosy-Finch to the flock. Check out the concentration on Raymond's face. These guys, along with all the RGBR gang, are fun, dynamic folks. But, boy, do they bring serious attention and care to the work they do. It's a pleasure to witness.

Raymond focussing. Photo ©Jesse Swift

I went up to Sandia the second of the three field trip days. Things started off very well, with single male Gray-crowned and Brown-capped rosy-finches visiting the feeder shortly after we arrived. A bit more waiting and some skillful trap operation, and we were fortunate to see one gorgeous male Brown-capped Rosy-Finch in the hand, a bird which had been banded there some years before.

Raymond VanBuskirk holds "our" Brown-capped Rosy-Finch. This species breeds almost entirely in Colorado. I wonder if it might be one of those that nest on the tundra of Pike's Peak, visible from ABA HQ?

 Once this lovely bird was quickly weighed and measured and otherwise processed, Raymond gave rally participant Pat Blyer the honor of releasing it. I shot a quick video of the event that I thought you'd enjoy.

 

After an eventful and exciting first couple of hours, our patience and cold tolerance got a bit of a workout. Though it was hardly a brutal day on the mountain weather-wise, it was chilly for sure, especially when standing still for long periods. But we still hadn't seen Black Rosy-Finch, ironically the most numerous rosy species wintering at Sandia.

So we waited...

And we waited...

And we huddled in the vans and ate our lunches. Then we waited some more.

But in an instant, the waiting and the cold were forgotten, as a squall of Rosies shot up over the ridge crest and settled in the trees above the feeders.

Rosy-Finches aren't exactly nervous...they can be incredibly confiding sometimes. But boy, are they ever active! We marvelled as the flocked flowed all around the feeders, and we used our newly-honed ID skills to pick out all three species, plus the distinctive gray-faced "Hepburn's" form of Gray-crowned. It was a thrilling couple of minutes.

We left Sandia Crest smiling and headed lower, where the birding was a little warmer and more diverse. But our time at the banding station was really something to treasure. I've known of the Sandia finches since the early 2000's, so getting to see them and the project members in action is something I've waited for quite a while. It was more than worth it.

As great as our time up high with Raymond, Michael, the rosy-finches was, in some ways we learned even more from the presentation they gave to the entire rally group Sunday night. In it, they shared not only some of the exciting discoveries they have made and important questions they are working to answer, but also how much the Sandia flock, both avian and human, has meant to the shape, direction, and quality of their lives. It was inspiring, all the way round.

Speaking of those discoveries and questions, as miraculous as rosy-finches and their extrordinary life histories are, there are many, many reasons to be concerned for their future. Climate change poses an exceptional threat to them, living as many of them do in tiny islets of tundra habitat which are shrinking rapidly. High altitude stocking of non-native trout and other game fish may also be having a serious impact on their survival. And there are the more prosaic but still essential issues of where exactly the rosies that winter at Sandia, their southernmost outpost, come from and go back to.

All of us from the ABA who got to visit with the birds and birders of Albuquerque came away with a deeper appreciation of the vibrant birding scene there. And we wanted to do our small part to help the rosy-finch study and the other ongoing projects of Rio Grande Bird Research continue. 

The final night of our rally, we passed a basket for donations to the finch study, collecting nearly $700 from the ABA audience. On top of that, the ABA donated $1000 to RGBR in support of all the great work they do, which includes not only rosy-finch project, but also banding in the bosque along Albuquerque's Rio Grande, and the painstaking study of Black-throated Warblers done by Ashli Gorbet, another of our primary leaders on this rally, along with her husband, Larry.

I'd like to invite you to participate in all the great times and sound conservation science that is being done by ABA members like Ashli, Michael, and Raymond. If you're able to contribute funds to support their efforts, you can send checks payable to Rio Grande Bird Research. Write Rosy-Finch on the check if you want to restrict your gift to that project. Mail to P.O. Box 6557 Albuquerque NM 87197

And if you'd like to join Raymond and Michael in New Mexico or elsewhere, check out their newly-formed tour company, High Desert Birding Adventures.

Additional info on the history of the rosy-finch project can be found at www.rosyfinch.com. For the most current updates go to the Sandia Rosy-Finch Project Facebook page. Audubon magazine did a great profile on Raymond, Michael, and the rosy-finches that you can read here.

Thanks to all of you in Albuquerque who welcomed the ABA to your patch! We're looking forward to seeing all the great things you'll do in the future.

Some of the RGBR gang at Sandia Crest. From left: Jason Kitting, Steve Cox (another of our core rally leaders and president at RGBR), Mary Ristow, Nancy Cox, Lee Hopwood, Micheal Hilchey, and Raymond VanBuskirk. Thank you ALL for welcoming the ABA! photo ©Jane Kostenko

Who Shoots for You? Who Shoots for You'all?

 

The news came out this week that the British Columbia government authorized the culling—killing—of Barred Owls more than two years ago in an attempt to protect the endangered Spotted Owl.  Needless to say, the reaction has been outrage.  Sensationalized headlines have blazed across the newspapers, the story has been on every TV and radio news program, and a lot of people are understandably upset that the only owl species that they may have ever seen is the target of a government-ordered “hunt”.

 

The recovery plan for the Spotted Owl is controversial. Should its range be allowed to contract or should efforts be made to keep the owl in its declining habitat?  photo from USFWS

BC is not alone in using this strategy; culling of Barred Owls has been going on in the US, too, according to the Associated Press.  In reality, a limited number of Barred Owls, and only those within Spotted Owl territories, will be killed in BC; it’s by no means an open season on Barred Owls. Given that there are only about 10  Spotted Owls left in the wilds of BC, the number won’t be huge, but reports indicate that 39 have already been shot.

 

The Barred Owl is a relatively recent arrival in British Columbia, working its way from the unpopulated boreal forests of the far north to the bustling cities on the southwest coast. The first one recorded on Vancouver Island was in November, 1969, and the species has now moved well into Washington, Oregon and California.  It is a generalist in terms of diet and habitat, and has truly become an urban as well as a forest owl in this part of the world. Due to its success and aggressive habits, the Barred Owl is also held at least partially responsible for the dramatic decline of the Western Screech Owl in the Pacific Northwest. To further complicate the conservation issue, the Barred and Spotted Owls can and do occasionally interbreed, especially where numbers of Spotted Owls are low.

 

Only one thing is clear in this debate: destruction of the Spotted Owl’s old-growth forest habitat pushed the species to the brink of extirpation in BC. A healthy Spotted Owl population might well have managed the incursion of Barred Owls into its range. What we have now is a human-caused problem. The dilemma is whether we attempt a human-caused solution or let nature take it from here. To do the latter would undoubtedly lead to the extirpation of the Spotted Owl from British Columbia, the only place in Canada where it is currently found.

 

At least six Golden Eagles were killed to protect the Vancouver Island Marmot, still the most endangered mammal in Canada.

We’ve been down this road before, with the Vancouver Island Marmot. Imagine the reaction when the news broke that six Golden Eagles had been shot to protect what was the most endangered mammal in the world at the time. Cougars and wolves had also been baited and killed. It was a success for the marmots. Not so much for the Golden Eagle. The Vancouver Island Marmot’s wild population has increased from 30 to more than 300 individuals since 2003. The recently completed BC Breeding Bird Atlas shows only two confirmed Golden Eagle nest sites on Vancouver Island over the past five years, although there are undoubtedly at least a couple more than reported. Does the end justify the means?

 

What do we do now? A captive breeding program is underway, but is just in its early days. There has been a move to protect more habitat, so there may well be sites which are suitable for Spotted Owls as their population recovers. But that habitat now has Barred Owls moving in.

 

The Barred Owl (Strix varia) has become the most commonly sighted owl in southwestern British Columbia even though it was a rarity just fifty years ago.

If there is any good news in this story, it may be the recognition that the Spotted Owl needs appropriate habitat to survive. If the government is going to go to all this trouble to try to keep the species in the province, there will be protection of that habitat for all of its species, including 25 others currently identified as "at risk". The recovery strategy's managers are aiming for 125 pairs (half the historic level of 250 pairs) and each pair needs 2500 to 5000 hectares. The jury is still out on whether protection will happen, though, as the recovery plan explicitly states that it can’t have a negative effect on the timber industry. Forest habitat preservation, by its very nature, negatively impacts the timber industry!

 

We're left with the double-edged sword of many conservation programs, whether it’s Ducks Unlimited properties, wildlife refuges, predator management programs or protection of endangered warblers.  Have we so altered this planet that killing has become essential for many species’ survival?

 

 

What's Involved in Getting Involved: Part II (my successful fight against a cell phone tower)

On or about October 4, 1987, I learned that my area’s “Baby Bell” telecommunications company, U.S. West, was proposing to build a 300-foot guyed, lighted cell phone tower on Moose Mountain, a hill over which a great many raptors and songbirds fly just before reaching Hawk Ridge, in Duluth, Minnesota. Moose Mountain serves as a landmark for us at Hawk Ridge when pointing out where various birds are coming from.

I waged a battle against the tower. Ultimately, they erected a 100-foot pole, low enough to not require FAA lighting and cemented in the ground without bird-killing guy wires. And one of Minnesota’s senators pressed the FCC to ensure that the tower cannot be modified in the future without notifying Duluth Audubon Society.

In order to fight this battle I needed to do a wide variety of specific things:

1. Gather as much information as I could find about tower kills. This was a very tricky task in 1987, but I tried to get as much current information as possible to answer these questions:
   • How many birds are killed in tower collisions?
   • What factors make a given tower more or less likely than other towers to kill birds?
2. Bring together as much information as possible about the magnitude of migration near the tower site. This was fairly easy because at Hawk Ridge, daily autumn raptor counts had been kept since the 1970s, and for the past few years we’d been keeping careful daily autumn songbird counts at a site very close to where the tower was to be constructed. I also brought together as many clippings as I could find mentioning the importance of our area as an important migratory corridor, from such widely respected sources as National Geographic and National Audubon.
3. I asked people with specific expertise regarding the most important issues to write letters of support, specifying why the proposed tower posed a real danger to migrating birds because of the specific properties of the proposed tower and its location:
   • Harrison Tordoff of the University of Minnesota's Bell Museum of Natural History, past president of the American Ornithologists’ Union and one of the people involved in a long-term study of collision mortality at a tower in Kansas;
   • Dr. Patrick Redig, co-founder and veterinarian at The Raptor Center at the University of Minnesota, who had treated raptors with guy-wire and tower-related injuries;
   • Jack Mooty, our region’s Nongame Wildlife Specialist for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources;
   • Bob Janssen, co-author of Minnesota’s Birds: Where, When, and How Many;
   • Kim Eckert, author of A Birder’s Guide to Minnesota and the birder most active throughout the state, so the best authority on the unique nature of the area’s migration;
   • David Evans, the raptor bander at Hawk Ridge;
   • Molly Evans, the raptor counter at Hawk Ridge.
4. Learn about the two federal agencies involved in regulating communications towers: the FCC and the FAA (involved because the lighting required on tall towers is to protect aircraft and passengers) and find out about their permitting process.
5. Learn about my state’s Environmental Policy Act and the processes involved in objecting to a project. In this case, the first step involved requesting an Environmental Assessment Worksheet.
6. Learn the procedure for filing a complaint in District Court and requesting an injunction to prevent construction until the issue was resolved.
7. Because US West represented to the public that this particular project was essential for providing 911 service to the township, I tracked down the county’s 911 administration to find out the truth. It would have been harder, and perhaps unjustifiable, to fight a project that really could help save human lives. As it turned out, US West was misrepresenting that (the antenna for 911 service for the area was already in place on a tower in Duluth), and my careful homework helped expose the lie.
8. Use letters to the editor, radio commentary, and other media to provide accurate information to the public. I was very careful to never misrepresent the facts, and worked hard to control my emotions (my Irish gets up a bit too easily) so I could effectively but fairly sway public opinion.

I was extremely lucky because of several things:

1. A wonderful attorney volunteered to help me pro bono after I did a radio program about the issue. I’m not sure I would have been able to negotiate some of the legal processes without his help.
2. Janet Green, one of the top birders in Minnesota who was co-author of Minnesota’s Birds: Where, When, and How Many, has an amazingly comprehensive grasp of the ins and outs of Minnesota’s environmental laws and procedures, and knew how the township proceeded with permits for projects like this. She helped me step by step as I negotiated the Zoning Board, Board of Adjustment, and Town Board.
3. Every expert I approached for a letter of support put together a great one, keeping focused on the specific problems the project posed to migrating birds and the specific qualifications s/he had to evaluate the project’s potential harm.
4. While researching tower kills, the most useful resource I found was R.D. Weir’s Annotated Bibliography of Bird Kills at Man-Made Obstacles: A Review of the State of the Art and Solutions, published in 1977 by the Canadian Wildlife Services. I could not find a copy anywhere, including via inter-library loan. But I wrote to the CWS asking if I could purchase a copy and they photocopied and sent me the entire report at their expense.
5. Being a stay-at-home mother (my children were 1, 3, and 5 when I first started working on this), my schedule was very flexible, and the great children’s section of the Duluth Public Library was a great place to keep an eye on my kids while doing research. Fighting this one project involved at least 600 hours between learning of the proposal in October 1987 and August 1988, when the FAA agreed to keep Duluth Audubon apprised of any proposal to change the tower design.
6. I have an unusually supportive husband. My lawyer worked pro bono, but I still had personal expenses of well over $500 (for postage, photocopying, long distance phone calls and other costs) at a time when my personal income was zero and we were still paying 15% interest on our house loan (yes, back in the 80s a mortgage was almost as expensive as buying a house on a credit card). That $500 represented pretty much our family’s entire discretionary income for the year.

Part III will be about my part in a fight against a taller tower to be constructed at the edge of Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in 2011.

I wrote up a 5-page account of the battle, in chronological order, that you can download from my webpage at www.lauraerickson.com/Conservation/MooseMtTimeline.doc

The ABA Area Referendum Results: What's Your Take?

 

Back in late July, I posted on this blog asking for discussion of one of the issues we at the ABA are questioned about most frequently: what, if any, expansion of the ABA Area boundaries ought to take place? I also asked for your feedback on how we ought to go about polling our membership for their thoughts. That post has garnered 70 comments so far, many of them astonishingly thoughtful and well-informed. Though I didn't comment on all of them, I did read them all and they were truly helpful in shaping the non-binding referendum that we then sent out with our annual proxy ballot.

Well, the results are in. If you've received the current issue of Birding, and you should very soon if you haven't yet, you may have seen that I reported on your answers in my "Birding Together" column. If you haven't seen the article, or are not yet an ABA member, you can read that column here.

I encourage you to go ahead and give it a read. It's short, and goes through the tallies with a minimum of editorializing.

But blogs, of course, are all about editorializing. And I'd like to hear what you have to say about the results. Are you surprised? Or did things pretty much go the way you expected? Perhaps even more important, in view of what the membership has told us here, what would you like to see happen next?

Should we move immediately to consider the question of annexing Hawaii? What about the other areas? Their addition wasn't favored by a majority. Does that mean they should be removed from further consideration?

One other thing that may help make the results a bit easier to interpret and which there wasn't space for in print: some pie charts. Below, you can see the results as compiled for each of the 4 areas that we specifically asked you about.

A caution. These results, as informative as they may be, don't tell it all. We got dozens of handwritten comments, with a few major themes emerging, as I mentioned in the column. And we have not attempted to do any kind of deeper analysis; e.g., how did people who voted yes on Hawaii vote on Bermuda?, or similar correlations.

So here are those pie charts. Take a look, read the column, and by all means, tell us what you think.

 

 

Inscrutable Whiteness

Washington Monument by TLE

The National Association for Interpretation (NAI), the professional organization for park rangers, guides, and educators, not to mention those who help you in museums, zoos, and the like, met in Hampton Roads last week. I presented, met a few friends, and caught up on the coming and goings in my profession. I hunkered with my kind.

I am white. Most of my friends are white. My profession is white. NAI is white. My recreation is white. White, white, white.

Nat, Cachote, Dominican Republic by TLE

I am not uncomfortable being white. I have never been otherwise. I spent childhood in the Jim Crow south. I knew separate restrooms and water fountains. As a young boy I entered the library in downtown Houston passing by a fountain installed by the Daughters of the Confederacy. My high school class included one black. We voted him “best dressed” in my senior year.

This election demonstrated, in black and white, that America isn’t. America is white, yellow, brown, black, and gray. We are old, young, Hispanic-American, African-American, Asian-American, gay, straight, male, female, and every blend of the above. America is kaleidoscopic; I am surrounded in my profession and my recreation by monotone white.

My family is white. My grandparents were white. My grandparents were racially insensitive (at best), racist at their worst. Most of my uncles, aunts, cousins, and friends were the same. My parents were not. They walled me and my sisters from the dark side.

I know white. I know hate, racism, ignorance, and indifference. I know that I will be forever grateful for being allowed to live to see this Jacob’s cloak that is becoming America.

Wednesday evening I attended the NAI awards presentation. The agencies honored their own. All had earned the honor, I am certain. All honorees were white; all attendees at the presentation were white. White, white, white.

Hunting is white. Fishing is white. Birding is white. Conservation organizations are white. The American Birding Association is white. Ducks Unlimited is white. Inscrutably white. The American saga is filmed in Technicolor. Yet we project that story in black-and-white.

After ducking out of the NAI awards, I spent dinner at the bar. The television insisted on nonstop sports. I watched a round-table discussion among experts (Dion Sanders, Michael Irvin, Marshall Faulk) dissecting the day’s sporting events. They were passionate. They were knowledgeable. They were black. Black, black, black.

I flew home from the BWI Thurgood Marshall International Airport on Friday. From Hampton Roads I passed Petersburg, Richmond, Spotsylvania, and Manassas on my way north. The blood and gore are gone, the traces washed clean, but the ghosts remain.

Lincoln Memorial by TLE

Saturday night I visited another specter - Spielberg’s Lincoln.

Joining us at the theater were blacks, browns, whites, Christians, and Sikhs. I suspect that we each came with a different expectation and for different reasons. Some came to see the man. Some came to see the time. I hope that all came to find out why.

On June 30, 1864, President Abraham Lincoln signed legislation granting Yosemite Valley and the nearby Mariposa Big Tree Grove to the state of California “upon the express conditions that the premises shall be held for public use, resort, and recreation.” This grant is considered the foundation upon which national and state parks were later established. On January 31, 1865, the US House of Representatives finally passed the 13th Amendment ending slavery, presenting Lincoln with his last legislative victory. Appomattox would soon follow.

Did Lincoln see a relationship between the freedom from slavery and freedom in nature? I haven’t a clue. I doubt it. But I do know of Lincoln’s profound respect for our Constitution, and for the Declaration of Independence that preceded it.

We all understand the unambiguous declaration that “all men are created equal.” The 13th Amendment began to perfect that promise. But how do we come to understand the “pursuit of happiness?” Is to be in nature a worthy pursuit?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Farm and ranch families now comprise just 2 percent of the U.S. population. But in Lincoln’s time most families were still on the farm. Yet already people such as Muir and Olmsted had recognized the need to set aside lands for the people who did not own it. Theodore Roosevelt would extend that recognition to millions of acres in the early 1900's. In fact, Roosevelt directly addressed the relationship between nature and happiness in this way;

It is an incalculable added pleasure to any one's sum of happiness if he or she grows to know, even slightly and imperfectly, how to read and enjoy the wonder-book of nature.

Without access to the outdoors, parks, sanctuaries, and recreational lands, this book is closed. Nature is not a commodity that is the exclusive property of a tiny percentage of Americans. Nature is part of the national patrimony. To share in nature is to share in America's heritage.

If this is so, then how did those who control the gates to nature, who manage nature, who study nature, who interpret nature, who find enjoyment in nature through recreations such as hunting, fishing, and birding, remain so unlike the rest of our country? How did we miss the evolution?

President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, the legislation that finally ended discriminatory practices that the Civil War and the 13th Amendment had “settled.” Perhaps we have not had enough time to integrate our recreations and our organizations. Perhaps people of color look at birding the way I look at Formula One or polo.

No. I believe that over half a century is sufficient time for progress to have been made. Given the advancements on other social fronts, I am not willing to excuse our failures because of a lack of time. Perhaps we have the will but lack the skill. Perhaps we are addicted, as Martin Luther King once said, to the "tranquilizing drug of gradualism."

Anthony Jeremiah (Grenada Forestry), Holly Robertston and Lisa Sorenson (SCSCB) by TLE

The Focus on Diversity, an annual conference of birders hoping to “open an honest dialogue,” is an admirable and inspired effort. Honest dialogue? How about starting with “we are inscrutably white?” Park interpreters are white. Museum guides are white. Conservation organizations are white. Nature writers are white. Environmental leaders are white. Biologists are white. Game commissions are white.

I do not believe this is intentional. I believe that all are committed to offering equal employment and recreational opportunities. But with a rapidly shifting population, relying on glacial evolutionary processes to fill the gap is now and will continue to be inadequate.

How we attract more minority birders is beyond me. I suspect, though, that the emphasis needs to come from the top. This is not an issue in many of the countries where I work. In countries such as Jamaica and Grenada, the wardens, guides, and interpreters are people of color. In the Dominican Republic, environmental leaders are people of color. For a young child in one of these countries, these role models are people of color.

Perhaps this is where we should start. We can demand that our appointed game commissioners reflect the population in general. We can insist that the boards of our environmental organizations are similarly constituted. What about the hiring practices at our local nonprofit parks or sanctuaries? Shouldn’t we voice our concerns when year after year, decade after decade, we see no people of color in positions where they can serve their respective communities as role models?

Here is one example - the Arizona Game and Fish Commission. According to the Commission’s website;

The Arizona Game and Fish Commission establishes policy for the management, preservation, and harvest of wildlife, and makes rules and regulations for managing, conserving, and protecting wildlife and fisheries resources…

The US Census Bureau estimates that 50.3% of Arizona’s population is female, with 30.1% Hispanic. Check out the commissioners themselves – five white guys. The issue is similar in Canada. According to the Vanier Institute in Ottawa;

Canada’s visible minority population has grown steadily, now comprising 16.2% of the Canadian population or over 5 million people – a significant increase from 1.1 million people in 1981. Given current patterns of immigration, by 2017, it is forecast that the visible minority population will reach 7.1 million – or approximately one-fifth of the Canadian population...according to recent projections, by 2031, visible minority groups could comprise 63% of the population of Toronto, 59% in Vancouver and 31% in Montréal.

The Honourable Peter Kent, a Canadian white guy, is the Minister of the Environment. The CEO of the Parks Canada Agency is Mr. Alan Latourelle (another white guy), and the superintendent of Point Pelee is a white woman. The chairman and virtually all of the board of directors of the Canadian Wildlife Service are white. The President and CEO of the Nature Conservancy of Canada is white, as is his staff. White, white, white.

Before I move on from these revelations, I do need to confess that the American Birding Association, American Bird Conservancy, National Audubon Society, Nature Conservancy, Conservation Fund, Trust for Public Land, Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, Trout Unlimited, Ducks Unlimited, National Wildlife Refuge Association, and the Cornell Lab are led by white guys too. The NRDC and Defenders of Wildlife, I am proud to say, have progressed to being led by white women. For the record, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the USDA Forest Service, and the National Parks Service are led by white guys as well.

In comparison, currently there are 5 black head coaches in the National Football League. Two-thirds of the players are black. In the National Basketball Association, there are 13 head coaches in a league where 80% of the players are black. Exactly who would we expect young people to watch and idolize, particularly African-Americans?

I could argue that there are ways in which these professional sports, not organizations that come to mind when discussing the greening of America, are leading us in that regard as well. Here is an example from this last summer. According to an op-ed in the NY Times,

At Major League Baseball’s 83rd All-Star Game last week, the hosts, the Kansas City Royals, bought carbon offsets certified by the Environmental Protection Agency for emissions from the 120,000 kilowatt-hours of energy used during All-Star Week events and purchased credits to restore depleted watersheds for the 600,000 gallons of water used. The 120 solar panels installed at the stadium earlier this year will produce 36,000 kilowatts hours annually. Recycling containers were placed in offices, suites, concourses and parking lots at the stadium, and environmental awareness was promoted with public service announcements in stadium signage and an ad in the 2012 All-Star Game program.

Steps of the Lincoln Memorial where Martin Luther King gave his I Have A Dream Speech by TLE

What did birders do to mitigate for carbon emissions at the most recent birding festivals? Even among the admittedly white crowds in attendance, what example did birding set that would be remotely equivalent to Major League Baseball? Shouldn't we be expected to lead?

I should also mention that baseball became integrated with Brooklyn's Jackie Robinson in 1947, years before the pinnacle of the nation's civil rights movement (the Selma to Montgomery marches were in 1965). The Canadian Football League hired black players (1946) and coaches (1980) at a time when there were none in the National Football League. How many of our organizations and agencies, those involved with the conservation of and recreation in either nation's lands, have been led by anyone other than a white man?

Martin Luther King said;

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

Nature matters. People matter. Whether or not nature is relevant to future generations matters.

What also matters is that people of color be visibly and consistently seen as being involved in the outdoors and with nature. We cannot afford another NAI convention or birding festival blinded by our inscrutable whiteness.

To remain relevant, to remain influential, we need to engage our fellow citizens as they are in the here and now. The place to begin, I believe, is the top.

During this same trip I spent a couple of days with family and friends in Washington D.C. On Veterans' Day I decided to walk over to the Mall. From the top steps of the Lincoln Memorial, the very steps where Martin Luther King gave his "I Have A Dream" speech, I thought of the words he spoke that sweltering day in 1963;

When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness...I have a dream that one day...little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

What can we do? First, support organizations like the ABA that are taking an active role in engaging people of color. The converse, of course, is do not support groups that are making no effort or progress. Do not become addicted to the "tranquilizing drug of gradualism."

Second, attend the annual meeting of your parks, wildlife, and game commissions (every state is different, so you should know which to attend) and ask what the agencies are doing to employ and promote people of color. If your commission lacks diversity (such as Arizona), ask what is being done to rectify this unacceptable situation.

Third, demand that your professional organizations (such as NAI) are similar engaged in recruiting and promoting people of color. Ask what steps are being taken to insure that people of color are able to rise to positions of authority. We need more people of color representing us in the public's eye.

Fourth, let's reach out to organizations that are engaged with people of color. For example, I will argue that access to the outdoors is a critical part of environmental justice.

Shuttle Buses at Point Pelee by TLE

Fifth, along these same lines support organizations in other countries that are effectively engaging people of color. I have written about the SCSCB (Society for the Conservation and Study of Caribbean Birds) in the past. There are dozens of examples in the Caribbean and Latin America.

Sixth, why not consider sponsoring a birding festival in an inner city location? What about Newark? Detroit? Philadelphia? Houston? St. Louis? I mean a festival where you bird in the urban area, not just stay there and then venture out into the hinterlands. A good example is the Spring Bird Festival in Toronto's Tommy Thompson Park. I wonder how many people of color attend this urban festival?

Finally, when is the last time that the ABA or NAI met with the Secretary of the Interior, or the President, or the head of the National Parks Service, USDA Forest Service, or the US Fish and Wildlife Service? What about the BLM? The ACOE? Bureau of Reclamation? The Canadian Wildlife Service? Engaging people of color in nature should be a topic of interest for these public officials and agencies. Shouldn't we take the lead?

I am certain that many of you have great ideas about how to address this challenge. I am assuming, of course, that we agree that this is worthwhile. What are your ideas?