bird - The Environment Report

A Battle Over the Treatment of Livestock

The treatment of laying hens is one part of the issue getting a lot of attention in Ohio. (Photo source: LEAPTOUY at Wikimedia Commons)

Recently, six states have changed their laws to require
better conditions for farm animals. But there’s a battle
brewing in one state that’s putting a new spin on the debate.
Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

Recently, six states have changed their laws to require
better conditions for farm animals. But there’s a battle
brewing in one state that’s putting a new spin on the debate.
Julie Grant reports:

The Humane Society of the United States says it’s shameful
the way animals are treated on many American farms. Paul
Shapiro says veal calves, pregnant pigs, and egg-laying
hens are all kept in cages so small – it’s cruel.

“Hundreds of millions of egg-laying hens in the nation are
confined in tiny battery cages that are so restrictive the birds
are unable even to spread their wings.”

Shapiro says some farms house millions of hens, all
squished into tiny cages, and none of them get the chance to
nest, or act in any way like natural chickens. The Humane
Society has spent millions of dollars pushing for change in
California and other states.

But when the Humane Society hit Ohio with its campaign,
the state Farm Bureau Federation pushed back.

Keith Stimpert is spokesman for the Ohio Farm Bureau. He
says there’s a reason cages are a certain size for hens,
calves, and pigs: the animals’ safety.

“You can expand space, but you’re going to increase
aspects of fighting or cannibalistic behavior, or the chance
for that sow to fall down while she’s pregnant.”

Stimpert says the Humane Society doesn’t understand
livestock.

So instead of negotiating with the Humane Society, the Ohio
Farm Bureau is proposing something new: a state board to
oversee the care of livestock.

“I think we, in this case, can get to a better resolution on
animal care by organizing this board.”

The board would include family farmers, veterinarians, a
food safety expert, and a member of a local chapter of the
Humane Society, among others.

Voters will probably be asked in November to decide
whether to change the state constitution to create this board.

But the Humane Society’s Paul Shapiro says the board will
be stacked by the Farm Bureau. He calls it a power grab by
big agriculture.

“Keep in mind that these are people who have opposed,
tooth and nail, any form of agricultural regulation for years,
and now, all of a sudden, in just a few weeks, they’ve gotten
religion and feel grave urgency to enshrine in the state’ s
constitution their own favored system of oversight.”

Shapiro says this board will only protect the status quo. And
that’s not good for the animals.

Egg producer Mark Whipple runs a small farm in Clinton,
Ohio. He’s got about 1,500 hens. We caught up with him
delivering eggs at a local health food store.

He says his hens are free range.

“There ain’t no cages, really. They go in the box, lay their
egg, and go out and run around with the rest of ‘em, go eat,
drink, I don’t know, just be free.”

Whipple says he was never inclined to cage the hens.

You might expect him to side with the Humane Society on
this debate. But he doesn’t trust them to make decisions for
farmers.

“I don’t know that they really know where their food comes
from – other than they go to the grocery store or they go to
the refrigerator. Unfortunately, that’s a lot the mentality of
the world right now, so far removed from the farm at all,
knowing about livestock.”

Whipple says there are good producers and bad producers
out there – just like any business. He would rather see a
board like the one proposed by the farm bureau than a
mandate on cage sizes from a Washington DC-based
lobbying group.

But the Humane Society says the board proposed by the
Farm Bureau won’t make things better. If it’s approved by
voters this November, the Society plans to place its own
initiative on animal treatment on the ballot next year.

Meanwhile, other farm states are considering the Ohio Farm
Bureau’s approach and might soon have their own advisory
boards on how to treat animals.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

EPA Rules on Pesticide Residue

One crop that Carbofuran was used on is potatoes (Photo by Scott Bauer, courtesy of the USDA)

The Environmental Protection Agency says no amount of the pesticide carbofuran is safe on food. Mark Brush has more on the new EPA rule:

Transcript

The Environmental Protection Agency says no amount of the pesticide carbofuran is safe on food. Mark Brush has more on the new EPA rule:

The EPA has been phasing out this insecticide, but it’s still used on some crops like rice, corn, and potatoes.

When people are exposed to carbofuran, it can cause damage to the nervous system. And the EPA is particularly worried about kids exposure when eating food or when drinking water near treated farm fields.

Potato farmers say they use carbofuran to kill bugs that resist other pesticides.

John Keeling is the CEO of the National Potato Council. He says they were hoping the EPA would let them keep using it.

“We had tried to work with the agency to modify use patterns, or limit the use to particular areas, so that we could continue to use the product – but they obviously didn’t continue in that direction.”

FMC Corporation makes the chemical. Officials there issued a statement saying they’ll fight the EPA’s new rule.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

Osprey Nest Near Fish Hatchery

The osprey is a bird that scoops fish out of rivers and lakes (Photo courtesy of the National Parks Service)

Ospreys are birds of prey that eat fish. Todd Melby tells us about a pair of osprey that tried to nest near a fish hatchery:

Transcript

Ospreys are birds of prey that eat fish. Todd Melby tells us
about a pair of osprey that tried to nest near a fish hatchery:

The osprey is a raptor that scoops fish out of rivers and lakes.

So when a pair of osprey decided to mate near a DNR fish hatchery south of
Minneapolis, biologists were delighted and worried.

Ospreys rarely nest so far south. So that was good news. What worried biologists was
whether the birds would eat the fish. Biologists decided these fish were too small.

Another worry was the ospreys’ choice of a nesting site. In this case, the birds picked an
electrical power pole.

Lisa Gelvin-Innvaer is with the Minnesota DNR.

“They like high areas. Places that have room for them to put their nest. Transmission
poles often provide that.”

Biologists decided that was a bad idea, so they’ve built a tall nesting platform near the
power pole.

“We’re hopeful with the new nesting platform, that they’ll come back and attempt to nest
again.”

For The Environment Report, I’m Todd Melby.

From River Towns to Eagle Towns

This year, the Dubuque, Iowa Eagle Watch organizers invited the World Bird Sanctuary of St. Louis to bring a captive bald eagle so families could get as close a look as possible without feeling the winter chill. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Dubuque photographer and tour guide Robert Eichman says he's been taking photos of wildlife in his area for nearly sixty years, but wasn't able to snap pictures of eagles on a regular basis until recently. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Bret Streckwald with the Army Corps of Engineers tests a scope that's trained on eagles that have landed on the ice sheet near Lock and Dam #11, just north of Dubuque, Iowa. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
The upper reaches of the Mississippi River regularly freeze in the winter; here, the dam creates a patch of open water that attracts fish- hungry bald eagles. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

The American bald eagle is the Endangered Species Act’s poster child, it’s Come-back
kid. This time of year, a lot of towns organize eagle watches to celebrate the success
story and to attract tourists. Reporter Shawn Allee couldn’t resist visiting one:

Transcript

I wasn’t exactly sure where to spot eagles in Dubuque, Iowa, so for the annual Eagle Watch, I
started indoors – at the city’s convention center.

There were plenty of eagle-related knick-knacks for sale – like eagle bobble-heads, plush toys,
and photos.

But locals there told me where to find eagles, and why the Eagle Watch means so much.

“Twenty years ago, we read about eagles, we heard about eagles but we never ever saw
one.”

That’s Dubuque photographer, Robert Eichman.

Eichman: “I’ve been taking pictures for 65 years. I probably never got a picture of an eagle
until about 7 or 8 years ago, so I have witnessed their comeback.”

Allee: “So, now this is one of their hotspots.”

Eichman: “Right. This time of year, there may be four- to five-hundred eagles roosting on
the bluffs on either side of the river.”

Eichman said the best place to see them is on the Mississippi River. There’s a dam that stops the
river – and a lock that let’s boats through. He suggested I try the Eagle Watch trolley.

Allee: “Hi there. Are you going to the lock?”

Driver: “Yeah.”

Allee: “Great.”

Dubuque’s had an Eagle Watch event for twenty one years, but dozens of towns in the
upper Midwest sponsor them in January and February.

Eagles were declared endangered in the early seventies because a pesticide was killing their
young. They’re now off the federal endangered and threatened list.

Seeing an eagle is still novel enough that there’s a small tourist industry built around their winter
hunting grounds.

Driver: “Right up here to the left folks, there are four, five, six right in a row.”

Allee: “There they are. It’s amazing. I’ll get out here.”

I’d seen a few eagles before but never this many at once; they were in trees and swooping over
the river. I headed to a lookout run by the army corps of engineers.

Park ranger Bret Streckwald was there to answer questions.

Allee: “Why is it this is such a good location to see bald eagles in the winter time?”

Streckwald: “Well, it’s the lock and dam, and they’re primary food is fish.”

Allee: “So, on our left, it’s solid ice on the Mississippi River, then what do we see on the
right?”

Streckwald: “Open water. The dam keeps the water open and the fish go through the dam
and they’re stunned a little bit, and it makes it pretty easy for the eagles to feed on them.”

Allee: “Hardly seems fair, but it keeps the eagles pretty healthy.”

Streckwald: “Yeah, they’re all pretty well-fed.”

Allee: “So what do you have set up here?”

Streckwald: “We have some spotting scopes set up on the various eagles that are stationary
and obviously we have the birds that are flying. We have a lot of people that like to take
pictures.”

Allee: “I don’t know how good this shot is going to be with my very amateurish camera,
but…”

Boy: “Dad – I saw one in the telescope. I saw one in the telescope flying! Whoa … ahuh.”

Allee: “I think this boy had the right idea, I’m now looking through one of these telescopes
the army corps of engineers set up for us. And I can see this eagle perfectly. The ice is
bobbing up and down, and he’s going with it. He’s staring out on the water, steely-eyed. It’s
a nice image.”

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Lead Poisoning and California Condors

Adult California Condor in flight (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

It’s been decades, but there are now more California Condors in the wild than there
are in captivity. That’s thanks to two condor chicks who recently left their nests in
the Grand Canyon. As Sadie Babits reports, biologists are thrilled, but one of the
problems that caused the decline in condors still exists:

Transcript

At the World Center for Birds of Prey in Boise, Idaho, there’s a wood fence that
protects the California Condors that live behind it.

“Just lately in order to minimize the exposure of our adult breeding pairs to humans,
we’ve built this security fence or actually it’s a visual barrier, we call it.”

That’s Bill Heinrich. He overseas the California Condor Recovery program at the
Center.

There is this one small break in the fence – a part that hasn’t been built yet. And
behind some chain link, I can see some very large birds…

Sadie: “Is that a Condor right there??”

Bill: “Yeah… you can see an adult condor standing, a pair of them on a perch.”

Sadie: “Ooohhhh!”

Bill: “You can kind of get an idea of just how big they really are.

Sadie: “They’re huge!”

Bill: “They weigh anywhere from 18-25 pounds and have close to a 10 foot wingspan.”

In the early 1980s the California Condors almost went the way of the Dodo –
extinct. Only 22 of these birds remained in the wild.

The big birds were killed by hunters. They died from lead poisoning after eating
animals killed with lead bullets. And their own genetic makeup didn’t help much
either.

These birds, shall we say, have a low sex drive. Rather than produce chicks every
year and gamble that they’ll survive, condors lay one egg every other year. That
hasn’t worked so well.

So biologists thought they’d help. They started capturing the endangered condors to
begin a captive breeding program. In 1987, the last wild bird was caught.

Bill Heinrich recalls there was plenty of controversy over that decision.

“People thought well you should let them go extinct with dignity or you can try to
breed them in captivity but you might fail and then you would have lost them in the
wild that much quicker.”

But the move saved the birds from being killed by hunters or from eventual lead
poisoning.

And, the breeding program, well, let’s just say the numbers speak for themselves.
Down to 22 birds in 1987, today there are now 327 California Condors. And more
than half of those birds are back in the wild.

Bill Heinrich says next spring some of these condors will be released some where
around the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

That’s where the birds will once again be exposed to one of the factors that lead to
their decline. It’s not hunters these days. The birds are protected by the Endangered
Species Act. But lead poisoning. Condors feed on gut piles and carcasses left by
hunters. If a hunter uses lead bullets, the bullet will explode sending tiny fragments
of lead through the meat. It’s enough to make a condor sick. Heinrich says lead
poisoning remains the single biggest threat to the birds.

“You know if hadn’t been for the lead issue coming up, I would have thought, I
didn’t have any reservations about it being successful until the lead problem cropped
up.”

Every year, biologists have to test the birds for lead poisoning. They’ve been working
with the Arizona Game and Fish Department to hand out free non-lead bullets to
hunters in the area. Last year, not a single condor died from lead poisoning. This
year, biologists have had to treat six birds, all of which are expected to make a full
recovery.

In California, the state has banned lead ammunition because of the lead poisoning
concern. But hunters don’t think lead bullets are a real problem, and they really
don’t want to pay for different kinds of bullets because that is a lot more expensive.

For The Environment Report, I’m Sadie Babits.

The Liquid Heart of the Everglades

The state proposes returning some of the land to its natural marshy state, and using other parts for stormwater reservoirs. (Photo courtesy of the National Parks Service)

The state of Florida is working on a plan to restore water flow to its troubled Everglades. It wants to
buy a huge sugar grower and the land it owns between Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades. Ann
Dornfeld went out on the lake to find out what’s at stake:

Transcript

The first thing to know about Lake Okeechobee is that it’s not your stereotypical clear blue lake. It’s
shallow, murky, covered with tall grasses, and thick with everything from birds and rabbits to frogs
and alligators.

The lake is about 35 miles wide. It’s known as the ‘liquid heart’ of the Everglades. And Paul Gray is
here to take its pulse.

Paul Gray: “I think it’s a glossy!”

Ann Dornfeld: “What’s that?”

Paul Gray: “A glossy ibis.”

Gray gets excited about birds. That makes sense – he’s the Science Coordinator for the Audubon
Society’s Lake Okeechobee Watershed Program.

It’s his first time out on the lake since the last big storm, and he’s eager to see how it’s doing.
Stormwater is diverted into the lake from development and farmland like the U.S. Sugar fields. That
floods the lake, which has nowhere to drain because it’s surrounded by a dike.

The best way to get to the middle of a marshy lake is an airboat.

(sound of airboat starting up)

As the boat zips across the grassy lake on a cushion of air, brightly-colored bugs and tiny green frogs
the size of your thumbnail land inside.

Once we skid to a halt, Paul Gray scans the water, and throws up his hands, disappointed.

“We’ve stopped in an area that’s probably four feet deep now. This is very, very sparse – just a little
stem sticking up every four to five feet. If everything was working right this would be all vegetated,
full of birds and stuff. Right now I’m not sure what will happen to it. [sighs] It’s a little demoralizing
right here, but we’ll look for some better spots.”

All this vegetation drowned in the last big storm.

“All of Okeechobee’s water used to flow into the Everglades, but now it doesn’t do that anymore.”

Instead, extra water is dumped into the fragile estuaries. They’re supposed to be a delicate mix of
saltwater and freshwater. And dumping all that lake water into them destroys the ecosystem.

“And the great tragedy is in 2004-2005 we had so many storms, and we dumped so much water
from Lake Okeechobee that we could’ve met all our water needs for a decade. The year after dumping
all that water out, we were in a severe drought and the farmers were only getting 45% of the water
they wanted.”

Last summer, the state of Florida announced a tentative deal with U.S. Sugar Corporation to buy the
company out. U.S. Sugar’s land blocks the flowaway between the lake and the Everglades. The state
proposes returning some of the land to its natural marshy state, and using other parts for stormwater
reservoirs. Gray says the U.S. Sugar deal would be a huge boon to the lake and the Everglades. It
could even improve the birdlife in northern states and Canada that fly south for winter.

“When those little warblers and things reach Florida, they’ve gotta get fat. They need to double their
body weight before they fly across the Gulf of Mexico, or they can’t make it!”

We arrive at a shallower part of the lake, and Gray pumps his fist in victory.

“This is much better news. We’re sitting in a big patch of green plants with little white and pink
flowers. It goes on for several hundred yards. This is called smart weed. It produces little very hard
black seeds. And ducks love these seeds, and migratory seed-eating birds like sparrows and other
things love these seeds. When all of the wintering waterfowl get down here they’re gonna have a ball
with this! [laughs] Wow. That’s nice. Alright, we can go.”

It’s a small success. But Gray says until the flow of water into Lake Okeechobee is returned to normal,
the liquid heart of the Everglades will be struggling to beat.

For The Environment Report, I’m Ann Dornfeld.

Penguin Species in Peril

African penguins at the Bristol Zoo in England (Source: Arpingstone at Wikimedia Commons)

At the north pole… polar bears are threatened by melting sea ice. Now, on the other end of the earth… some penguin populations are dropping because of climate change and other threats. Rebecca Williams reports:

Transcript

Melting sea ice and warmer ocean temperatures are affecting the fish that penguins eat. Overfishing and oil pollution are other threats.

Pamela Hall is with the Fish and Wildlife Service. The agency wants to put seven species of penguins on the endangered species list.

“Hoping that by going forward with the listing of these particular penguin species we’ll be able to work with countries to do some cooperative conservation.”

The Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the government to get these penguins on the list. The group is upset that the agency denied protection for the Emperor penguin. You might remember them from the movie “March of the Penguins.”

Government scientists say the emperor penguin populations are stable right now… though they say that could change in the future.

For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Growing a Garden on Your Garage

David Lanfear recently ‘installed’ one on his own garage roof, so his neighbors could see the benefits (Photo by Joyce Kryszak)

When most people put a new roof on
their home they usually use standard asphalt
or tile roofing. But other people are going
for something more natural. They’re planting
grass and flowers on their houses. Joyce
Kryszak talked with one builder in
Western New York who planted a green roof on
his garage to show his neighbors how it works:

Transcript

About 90% of all residential roofs are made out of manufactured
asphalt.

But builder David Lanfear knows that nothing tops mother nature.
He makes roofs out of gardens.

Lanfear recently ‘installed’ one on his own garage roof, so his
neighbors could see the benefits. There are beautiful flowering
plants visible over the edge of the flat roof. Lanfear says they’ve got
the whole birds and bees thing going on.

“We’ve noticed a big increase in insects, butterflies, birds all
sorts of new birds that I haven’t ever seen. They’re up there
eating something. Bugs? But its kind of nice to sit on the deck
and watch this nature in the city thing,” said Lanfear.

But the living roof isn’t a novelty. Lanfear says the roofs are more
eco-friendly. He says a living roof provides a whole cascade of
environmental benefits.

“Especially in a downtown when you get a hard rainfall the water
washes off all at once. There’s nothing to absorb it. If you had
a roof like this it absorbs the water and let’s it off slowly. So, it
not only slows the runoff, it cools the water and it starts to filter
the water. It filters some of the atmospheric crud out.
Otherwise, you get super heated water rushing off into the storm
sewer, and then out into the river or the lake and effecting the
environment there,” said Lanfear.

Once his neighbors understood the concept, they stopped thinking
Lanfear was crazy. A few even offered to give him a hand planting
his roof.

First the roof was reinforced with used lumber. Next are the
waterproof barriers – a rubber membrane, a root barrier made out of
old billboards and some old carpeting. Finally, recycled, crushed
concrete is shoveled on to be used as soil for the plants to grow in.

It’s all sustainable. And the native plants require very little water or
maintenance.

Neighbor Deborah Bach loves to garden. So, she was happy to
pitch in. Bach says the concrete soil needs to be doctored to enrich
it. But they have a reuse idea for that too.

“My son works at Starbucks and they give out free grounds for
gardens. So, we’re going to try doing that to try to balance this
out. You know, using recycled materials and things that have
already been used,” said Bach.

Another neighbor stopped by to help. Alex Sowyrda is a high school
technology teacher who’s interested in the science of green roofs.
He plans to share what he learns with his students.

“I try to bring it into my curriculum at school and, hopefully, the
kids graduating high school now take this knowledge with them
and are able to make responsible choices in the way they build
and the way they design in the future,” said Sowyrda.

The living roof builder David Lanfear says it’s a concept that can grow
on anyone. Even people who grew up with more traditional roofs. He
says to start small – with a garage roof – or maybe even smaller.

“We all have little expanses of roof in front of windows. And in
the summer you might notice that when the window is open the
hot air blows in, a lot of that heat comes from that little bit of
roof. If we could just put sections one square yard of living roof
outside of our windows on the porch roof, that would make a
drastic difference in cooling our house – simple,” said Lanfear.

And pretty cheap. Lanfear says the cost of materials is about the
same as an asphalt roof. But he says there’s savings in the long run
because the green roof can last three times as long.

And he says it’s a whole lot nicer to look at.

For The Environment Report, I’m Joyce Kryszak.

A Dow Jones Index for Animals

Scientists have created a species index that tracks populations much like the Dow Jones (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

Biologists have created a way to
track endangered species that they say is
similar to the way we track financial markets.
Rebecca Williams has more:

Transcript

Biologists have created a way to
track endangered species that they say is
similar to the way we track financial markets.
Rebecca Williams has more:

The new system is nicknamed the Dow Jones Index of Biodiversity.

It’s put together by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the
London Zoo.

Jonathan Baillie is with the zoo. He says the system helps keep track of which
species are doing well and which ones are close to extinction.

“So if you thought of a group of species like a company you can track what’s
happening to birds through time, what’s happening to mammals through time
what’s happening to amphibians through time – and we’re seeing amphibians
are crashing quite quickly, birds are going down but not as rapidly.”

Of course species can’t be tracked exactly like financial markets. The species
index gets updated every few years instead of every day.

Soon they’re hoping to track things like beetles, mushrooms, and lichens on the
index.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Planting More Trees on Coffee Farms

Many coffee growers in Latin America are now replanting the shade trees. (Source: MarkSweep at Wikimedia Commons)

Songbirds on their way south might
find more trees at coffee plantations. Lester
Graham reports there’s a shift in thinking by
coffee growers. And a new study might encourage
more farmers to plant shade trees:

Transcript

A few decades ago, coffee growers in Latin America were given incentives to clear the
shade trees on their plantations. More sun equals more coffee beans. They also found
more sun meant more weeds. So they had to spray expensive herbicides.

Now a new study published in BioScience shows cutting down those shade trees has
also left the coffee plants more exposed to damage from bad weather. Ivette Perfecto
at the University of Michigan is one of the authors.

“The vulnerability of the farms are much higher if they eliminate the shade. The shade
trees provide like a buffer against extremes.”

Many coffee growers in Latin America are now replanting the shade trees. The added
benefit is the trees provide habitat for wildlife, including those migrating birds that spend
their summers here and travel south to that region.

For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Tag: bird

A Battle Over the Treatment of Livestock

Transcript

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EPA Rules on Pesticide Residue

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Osprey Nest Near Fish Hatchery

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From River Towns to Eagle Towns

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Lead Poisoning and California Condors

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The Liquid Heart of the Everglades

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Penguin Species in Peril

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Growing a Garden on Your Garage

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A Dow Jones Index for Animals

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Planting More Trees on Coffee Farms

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