Tag: audubon society

Clearing the Air for Wind Turbines

  • Wind turbines can capture the power of wind along ridgelines, but environmentalists worry government restrictions are not strong enough to protect birds that fly along the ridgelines. (Photo by Lisa Ann Pinkerton)

The process for protecting wildlife from new wind turbines varies by state and sometimes within states. Lisa Ann Pinkerton reports wind developers and the
federal government say that is hindering the nation’s ability to take advantage of this renewable energy:

Transcript

The process for protecting wildlife from new wind turbines varies by state and sometimes within states. Lisa Ann Pinkerton reports wind developers and the
federal government say that is hindering the nation’s ability to take advantage of this renewable energy:


The federal government is looking into wind turbine guidelines on two states,
California and Pennsylvania, and they couldn’t be more different. California’s
guidelines restrict wind farms from certain areas and hold them responsible
for the deaths of any wildlife, such as birds that run into the spinning blades.


In Pennsylvania, the guidelines are voluntary and if they’re followed, they exempt the wind
turbine developers from fines for wildlife deaths. Along the western edge of
the Appalachians there’s a ridgeline that stretches from the top of
Pennsylvania all the way to Maryland. There are breathtaking views of rolling
hills and farmland.


And we’re at one lookout point, called Shaffer Mountain. Veterinarian Tom Dick is
here counting migrating birds for the Audubon Society. Watching a pair of
broad wing hawks soar by, he says the wind here creates invisible highways:


“The wind is coming out just right, they found the lane, they’re making no
movement at all. They have a long migration to central and South America, and they
want to make it as effortless as possible, so they’re using the energy of the wind.”


That wind energy is attractive to wind turbine developers, too. Less than a
mile away, the Spanish wind turbine manufacturer, Gamesa plans to build a
30-turbine wind farm.


Tom Dick is against the project. He says the US Fish and Wildlife Service
discourages wind farms on migratory corridors like Shaffer Mountain:


“They just don’t want to see them on there, but there’s no teeth in the laws today.”


The laws Dick refers to is called a “Voluntary Agreement.” And nearly every Wind
Developer in the US has signed on. They agree to work closely with the state
conservation agencies to reduce impacts to wildlife. And in exchange,
Pennsylvania shields developers from liability if animals happen to die as a
result of the proposed wind farm.


Developers like this working relationship with Pennsylvania’s Game
Commission. They know what’s expected of them and they can adjust their
plans as wildlife problems arise. Tim Volk is Gamesa’s Shaffer Mountain
Project Coordinator and he says spring bird migration data the state required, has
already reshaped the project:


“So that lead us to set some of our windmills back about 400 feet to avoid any
potential impact to them.”


Critics say protecting developers from liability rather than protecting wildlife
from death is the opposite of what Pennsylvania should be doing. But
advocates for renewable energy say without such assurances, wind
development in the US will never live up to its potential.


Mark Sinclair heads the Clean Energy States Alliance:


“Every wind project is going to kill a couple of birds. It will happen. The problem right
now is that these wildlife laws are so strict, they really create a financial and
development challenge for wind projects.”


Sinclair says Pennsylvania’s system is the best in the nation, while guidelines
recently released in California might hinder development there:


“There’s less of incentive in California for a developer to follow these guidelines, because, what do I
get out of it? No permit and no guarantee the state won’t go after me for killing
several birds unintentionally.”


California’s guidelines are intended to assist local governments in deciding
where turbines should and should not go, but to use them is optional, and
wind turbine developers still responsible if they end up killing a lot of birds.


Everyone acknowledges that federal guidelines are needed and while some states
want more protection for their wildlife, other states like Texas don’t consider it
an issue. So for the next two years, a federal committee plans to weigh all
the options. It’s made up of representatives from various states, the wind
industry, the Audubon Society, and research scientists. Whatever
guidelines the committee develops, US Fish and Wildlife officials predict the
protection from liability that Pennsylvania has established will play a
prominent role.


For the Environment Report, I’m Lisa Ann Pinkerton.

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Dimming Lights for Migrating Birds

This fall, skyscrapers in New York City are dimming their lights to help migrating birds stay on course as they fly south. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:

Transcript

This fall, skyscrapers in New York City are dimming their lights to help migrating birds stay on course as they fly south. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:


The Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building are famous for lighting up the New York City skyline. But if you look closely this fall, you might notice that the lights have been turned down at several famous New York buildings.


It’s part of a voluntary effort led by the Audubon Society. City lights confuse migratory birds, who typically use the moon and stars to navigate. Ornithologist Daniel Klem says thousands of birds die when they run into buildings or fall exhausted onto city streets.


“It’s an astronomical amount of unintended carnage in my view, and anything we can do to prevent it and make people more aware of it will be helpful.”


Klem says skyscrapers in Chicago and Toronto are also turning down their lights this fall to aid the birds on their passage.


For the GLRC, I’m Karen Kelly.

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Volunteers Tally Migrating Cranes

  • The Phyllis Haehnle Memorial Sanctuary in southeast Michigan is home to thousands of migrating Sandhill Cranes each fall. (Photo by Mark Brush)

The colder weather and shorter days are keeping most of us inside. But for a group of volunteers it’s the perfect time to head outdoors. They’re putting on their gloves and setting up their spotting scopes to go out and watch one of their favorite birds get ready for the long trip south. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush reports these birds gather by the thousands before migrating:

Transcript

The colder weather and shorter days are keeping most of us inside. But
for a group of volunteers it’s the perfect time to head outdoors. They’re
putting on their gloves and setting up their spotting scopes to go out and
watch one of their favorite birds get ready for the long trip south. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush reports these birds gather by
the thousands before migrating:


(Sound of cranes)


It’s a dreary and damp evening next to this marsh in rural southeast
Michigan.
The dampness has that edge of cold to it that’s hard to escape.
And while most people are heading to their warm homes for the day –
things here at the Haehnle Bird Sanctuary are just getting started as
volunteers count cranes:


(sound of cranes flying overhead and volunteers)


“I got a whole line of coming in over the flats out there – oh, man – It’s
startin’… how many?”


“Thirty-four.” (sound of clicks)


With the help of a clicker, three volunteers from the Audubon Society
count the birds.
Fortunately for them, the birds they’re counting are… really big.
The Greater Sandhill Crane is one of the biggest birds in the region.
They glide into the sanctuary by the thousands with their gangly legs
dangling behind them.
They’re counting the birds for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
This is part of a wider effort in the region to get an overall count of the
crane population.
They have one night to count – and tonight’s the night.


Gary Siegrist is one of the volunteers. He says the birds come into this
wetland after a day feasting in the farm fields:


“They’ve been out feeding all day… and they stage… this is one of two
places in southern Michigan where they stage. And when they get to a
point where they have enough fuel in their bodies enough fat built up, and
their food supplies are gone, and maybe the mud lake is frozen over, then
they’ll find a favorable wind and head south.”


The gathering is an instinct for these birds. During the summer months
they spread out across the region in pairs. But when it’s time to migrate
they get together in big flocks before they head to Florida. And when they
gather in large numbers – it can get noisy.


Gary Siegrist says the bird’s call is one of the things that draws him here
to count the birds year after year:


“People don’t realize that it’s the oldest living bird species. They’ve got a
relative that goes back 35 or 65 million years – it’s the time of the
dinosaurs…the bird is fantastic and if you can hear the call, you
can hear it in the background, it kind of sends shivers down your back. It
reminds you of a different time.”


(sound of cranes flying by)


The volunteers also spend their time chatting with people who visit the
Sanctuary. And even on a cold night like tonight – people have come out
to see the birds.


Phil DeLang drove with his wife and grandson two and a half hours just to
watch the gathering… and they do it every year:


“I think all of nature is precious, I me an it’s really precious when you
think of things becoming extinct, like the passenger pigeon, what a
tragedy, it never should have happened. I’m just glad there’s places like
this. People have taken the effort to give these birds a home.”


(sound of counting)


The birds continue to arrive by the hundreds as the sun begins to set. As
darkness falls – the volunteers tally up their final number:


“Twenty nine seventy five. Tweny-nine seventy five? Yeah. O.k.”


The count for the evening is over. And by their calculation nearly 3000
birds are settling down for the night.


(3 seconds of sound at night)


The volunteers head home to double check their math – and send in their
final numbers.


(bring up morning birds)


The next morning at the sanctuary the birds are waking up and heading
into the farm fields.


We caught up with Ron Hoffman here. He’s the guy who coordinates the
official crane count for this region. And between all the volunteers that
counted last night – they spotted 4,600 cranes.
Ron has been studying these birds since the 1960’s when they were just
coming off the threatened species list. And he’s seen the bird’s population
grow steadily over the years.


But Ron Hoffman and the other volunteers see a pattern developing in this
area – a pattern that could threaten the number of cranes that use this
sanctuary. The Haehnle sanctuary is surrounded by spreading housing
developments. They fear these developments would use up farmland,
which is important to the birds:


“I’m sure we’ll always have cranes, but at the same time if this area within
ten fifteen miles of hear is so built up that there’s not the food reserves
here for the cranes to feed, then the number of cranes using this would be
diminished.”


But no matter how many cranes are out here, you can bet Ron Hoffman
and the other volunteers will be counting them year after year.
They care about these birds.


While we were talking, he interrupted to watch a young bird fly by:


“This guy is really lost – look he’s coming back over.” (sound of little
bird) Did you see him craning his neck and looking? He’s trying to find
his parents…”


Hoffman says his biggest hope for the Greater Sandhill Crane is that the
population will remain stable, so that he and others can continue to
experience what he calls one of the wildlife spectaculars in this region.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mark Brush.


(sound of cranes)

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Bugs Released to Munch on Invasive Plant

  • Purple loosestrife's looks are deceiving. It's a beautiful plant, but researchers say it has caused enormous damage in many parts of the country. An imported beetle has now shown significant signs of controlling the plant.

Purple loosestrife is a beautiful plant. It’s tall… and each cone-shaped stem produces hundreds of flowers. When the plants bloom in mid-summer they can create a sea of purple in wetlands throughout the region, but the ability of the plant to spread and reproduce in great numbers is what concerns scientists and land managers. Over the years they have been working to control it. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush says one way they’re trying to control it is by releasing a bug to eat the plant:

Transcript

Purple Loosestrife is a beautiful plant. It’s tall… and each cone-shaped
stem produces hundreds of flowers. When the plants bloom
in mid-summer they can create a sea of purple in wetlands
throughout the region… but the ability of the plant to spread and
reproduce in great numbers is what concerns scientists and land
managers. Over the years, they have been working to control it.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush says one way
they’re trying to control it is by releasing a bug to eat the plant:


Roger Sutherland has lived next to this wetland for more than 35
years.

He helped build a boardwalk over the soggy marsh so that he can
get a close-up view of some of his favorite plants:


“You see that plant with the big green flower? Yep. That… and
there’s more along here… that’s a pitcher plant. These are insect
eating plants and there’s another one called sundew here… here’s
some right in here…”

(sound under)


But like many wetlands throughout the country, this wetland has
been invaded by a plant originally found in Europe and Asia.


Purple Loosestrife was introduced as an ornamental plant.
It was a
beautiful addition to gardens, but once it took
hold in the environment,
it out-competed native plants.

Frogs, birds, and insects have relied on these native plants for
thousands of years. Purple Loosestrife is crowding out their habitat.


“We’re going to get a lot more shade with this loosestrife.. and so
these plants that are on these hummocks here…
these little insect
eating plants and so on… just can’t tolerate that shade, so we’ll
probably lose ’em unless I can keep it open here… and I am trying
to keep some of it open.”


The plant spreads quickly… that’s because one plant can produce
more than two million seeds that spread with the wind, like dust.

So when it moves into an area, it often takes over creating a thicket
of purple with a dense root system.

Land managers have seen populations of ducks, and turtles
disappear when loosestrife takes over…

And research has shown that the plant can reduce some frog and
salamander populations by as much as half.


So land managers wondered what to do to stop the spread of this
weed.

They initially tried to control the plant by digging it up… or by
applying herbicide to each plant.

Trying to kill the plants one by one is hard work… especially
considering how abundant purple loosestrife is.

But researchers have hope because of a bug.


(Sound of volunteers planting loosestrife)

Volunteers have gathered here in Ann Arbor, Michigan to plant
purple loosestrife.

They’re putting dormant loosestrife roots into potting containers and
adding fertilizer.


(more sound)


When the plants leaf out they’ll be covered with a fine mesh net and
become home to a leaf-eating beetle known as galerucella.

And galerucella loves to munch on purple loosestrife.

The volunteers are creating a nursery to raise more beetles.

Once they’ve got a bunch of beetles growing on the plant… they’ll
take it to a nearby wetland… and the bugs will be released into the
wild…


(sound up)


Linda Coughenour is a member of the Audubon Society.

Her group is working with state and local agencies to raise and
release these beetles.

She says tackling purple loosestrife invasions is a big task – and
governments need help from volunteers to deal with the problem:


“This is a serious problem throughout the entire Great Lakes
wetlands… it has migrated from the East Coast to the Midwest…
so, uh.. the problem’s just too big – so they thought up doing this
volunteer project and they’ve enlisted people all over the state… and
we’re just one of those.”


Volunteers have have been releasing their beetles into this wetland
for few years now and they’re beginning to see progress:


“It’s going really well… for a while we got off to a slow start, but for two
years now we’ve found evidence that the beetles are reproducing on their
own. We see little egg masses, we see larva that are starting to eat
the plants, we see adult beetles on the plants that have wintered
over. And that’s the thing, to get them to do it on their own.”


But releasing a foreign species into the wild is always a concern.

There are a number of examples of bugs released into the wild to
eliminate a pest, but ended up causing a problem themselves.

But before importing a bug that will prey on plants – the federal
government requires testing to make sure it won’t eat other plants.


The tests have been done.


And researchers feel that this is an extremely finicky bug…


Berndt Blossey is a specialist on invasive plants and ways to control
them.

He says the beetles were tested on native plants before they were
allowed to import the bugs:


“And it was shown there that they will not be able to feed and
develop on the plants. They will occasionally nibble on them, but
they will not be able to develop on them and they usually move off
after they have taken a bite, and they move off to other plants.”


The leaf beetle is not the only bug researchers are importing.

They’re also importing two other beetles known as “weevils.”

One that feeds on loosestrife flowers, and one that feeds on its root
system.

Blossey says more than one bug is needed to keep the plant from
growing back:


“Loosestrife will rebound from resources in the root stock. If you
have the root feeder in the system as well, these fluctuations will be
dampened, so loosestrife will not be allowed to comeback to higher
levels.”


(sound of wetland up)


People who admire the diversity of plants and animals in wetlands
like the idea of keeping purple loosestrife in check.


Roger Sutherland welcomes the bugs.

He believes they’ll help him keep this wetland open for the plants,
birds, and insects he’s come to know over the years:


“We know that the purple loosestrife will probably always be here.
But if we can bring it down to a manageable level, where you’re going
to have a pocket here and a pocket there… and you can kind of
maintain the integrity of this wetland system… then you can’t ask for
anything more than that.”


And researchers say that’s the goal.

To help these wetlands reach a balance… so that plants and animals
that have evolved to rely on these wetlands for thousands of years…
can continue to do so.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

Birders Flock to Save Crucial Habitat

It’s that time of year again, when those who winter in warm, southern climates travel north for the summer. But for many birds, land development and habitat destruction are making migration an uncertain proposition. Some groups in the United States, Canada, and Central America are working together to protect land for the birds. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

It’s that time of year again, when those who winter in warm, southern climates travel north for the
summer. But for many birds, land development and habitat destruction are making
migration an uncertain proposition. Some groups in the United States, Canada, and Central America
are working together to protect land for the birds. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant reports:


(sound…birding in the rain…)


It’s 6 A.M. It’s still dark outside. And it’s raining. But Rob
Tymstra and Darrell Parsons are
hiking in the woodlands of Pelee
Island, in Western Lake Erie, on the
lookout for birds.


They’ve seen all kinds of warblers,
and herons, even a bald eagle.
They’re trying to spot as many
species as possible in one day as
part of the Pelee Island Birdathon.
They’ve seen or heard more
than 104 species since noon
yesterday, which seems like a lot, but
they’re
competing against six other teams
from the U.S. and Canada for who
can spot the most bird
species.


“Uh oh, those are the Ottawa people,
our other competitors.”


Tymstra and Parsons are in this
contest to win. But they say the
Birdathon is really just for fun and to
raise money for the Audubon Society.
Both men are in their 40’s and have
been birding since
they were teenagers. They’ve got
lists of birds they hope to see in their
lives and have traveled
the world, most recently, to Brazil,
Panama, and Thailand, in search of
them.


“Pelee Island compares really
favorably with the whole area. Point
Pelee National Park, just
north of us, is world famous for birds,
especially in spring migration. But all
these islands here in
Lake Erie are stepping stones as the
birds are traveling north.”


The next stepping stone for many
birds is Point Pelee National Park,
which gets a lot more
attention. But Tymstra likes to take
the ferry to Pelee Island because it’s
less crowded.


“So here we get as many birds or
more birds as Point Pelee, but we
don’t have the crowds. On a
busy day there in May you might get
10,000 people, but here you’re lucky
to see a dozen people.
So the birds here actually outnumber
the people.”


(unveiling of sign)


“Pull from that end, gentlemen.
Everybody got their cameras ready?
Okay, ta-da!”


(clapping)


The unveiling of this sign marks the
significance of a natural habitat that’s
been preserved on
Pelee. Most residents of this
Canadian island want the birds,
butterflies and other wildlife to
continue to outnumber the humans.
So, they’ve recruited organizations
such as the Nature
Conservancy, the Federation of
Ontario Naturalists, and others to
preserve and restore the habitat.
Ric Wellwood coordinates a coalition
of conservation groups concerned
about development in
southern Canada.


“The difficulty we had was that twenty
years ago we realized that this
paradise we were living in
was getting crunched. Intensive
agriculture hurt for awhile, but it’s
eased off. But urban sprawl
is going like crazy. Urban sprawl is
taking away habitat. Our birdies
are not finding as welcome
a time as they used when they were
coming up here from Central
America and Mexico and
South
America and the southern U.S.”


A yellow-breasted chat or a wood
thrush might spend its winter in
Central America, then make the
long trek to Canada for the summer.
Field biologist Larry Roche tracks
birds in the Great Lakes
region.


“That’s a tough life – migratory birds.
You can go to Belize, and/or Mexico,
and go out to the
Yucatan, and watch them leave the
Yucatan in the evening and they fly
somewhat eighteen hours
across the Gulf of Mexico and they
land on the upper Texas coast. And
then they leave that area
and go hopscotching all the way to
wherever they want to go. Some of
these birds come from
Argentina and go all the way to the
Arctic. It’s pretty stunning for a land
bird to do that.”


These tiny creatures can be exhausted
by the time they get to the shore of
Lake Erie. The Nature
Conservancy in Canada and Ohio
are trying to protect land here to
make sure there’s a place for
the birds to make a pit stop, or to
nest and raise their young. But the
North American
conservationists are concerned that
poorer Central American countries
are allowing bird habitats
to be destroyed. Those countries
need the money developers are
offering for the rainforest
timber.


A report from the WorldWatch
Institute says bird species today face
a wave of extinction not seen
since dinosaurs died out. Twelve
percent of the world’s bird species
are considered to be at risk
of extinction and habitat loss is the
single greatest threat to birds.


Some environmental groups are not
only protecting land here, but also in
Central and South
America. To do that, Randy Edwards
of the Ohio Nature Conservancy says
they’re buying land
in Belize.


“Because there are more then sixty
species of birds from herons to
songbirds, warblers, etc, that
overwinter in Belize and elsewhere in
Central America and then come to
Ohio and places north
to make their nests and raise their
young. And the birds that we see
here, and that we enjoy in the
spring and the summer spend time in
Belize, so we need to protect habitat
here in Ohio and
Canada and Belize, all along their
migratory route, or they won’t be
here anymore.”


The Ohio Nature Conservancy was
part of a debt for nature swap in
Belize. In total, the U.S.
provided five and a half million dollars
to Belize for the preservation of
23,000 acres of forest in
the Maya mountain-marine corridor.
It’s a small but significant step to
ensure that birders Rob
Tymstra and Darrell parsons can try
again next year on Pelee Island.


(winners announced)


They lost by one bird species to their
arch rivals from Ottawa.


For the Great Lakes Radio
Consortium, I’m Julie Grant in Ohio.

Golf Course Goes Green, Neighbors See Red

Long known for their expanses of shorn grass and highly manicured grounds, some golf course owners are taking a second look at their landscaping practices and striving to become more environmentally friendly. In the process, however, they seem to have made a few enemies. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Julia King explains:

Transcript

Long known for their expanses of shorn grass and highly manicured grounds,
some golf course owners are taking a second look at their landscaping practices and striving to become more environmentally friendly. In the process, however, they seem to have made a few enemies. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Julia King explains:


In a nutshell, here’s the story: Golf Course Goes Green, Neighbors See Red.


Golf course owner Tony Krebs recently saw the environmental “light” and decided to reduce his use of pesticides, gasoline, and water. He wants to mow less, grow wildflowers, re-introduce native grasses and attract wildlife. The neighbors – instead of cheering – have filed formal complaints with the city.


Golf courses have long been havens for precision landscaping, places where the great outdoors are shaped into forms… well, unfamiliar to Mother Nature. So to some residents around golf courses, a new, more natural landscape looks suspiciously like neglect. But it’s not.


For a little over a decade, the Audubon Society has been helping to “green” golf courses with their Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program. While any course can become a member and receive environmental tips and guidelines, members earn certification by completing projects in specified areas. Out of an estimated 20,000 golf courses in the U.S., a select 2,300 have achieved certification.


In other words, the movement towards greater sustainability in the golf world is still young. And old standards of beauty die hard. According to an Audubon source, it’s not uncommon for bordering property owners to balk at a golf course’s naturalization. Just as one man’s treasure is another’s trash, apparently one man’s “wildflower” is another man’s “weed.”


But this is more than a beauty-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder tale. Health officials have linked weed killers to everything from childhood leukemia, to gender malformation in frogs. Yet here we have well-to-do citizens banding together to fight for such chemicals.


“We live in a community,” one concerned resident said. “We have to be accountable to one another.” But he was talking about standards of property upkeep, not about public safety or about the delicate ecosystem we share.


He’s right, though, we are accountable to one another. And not only to one another, but to those who come long after we’re gone. There is a price to be paid for that so-called “perfect” landscape, and it’s a price we will all have to pay. It’s time for responsible citizens not only to tolerate sustainability, but to demand it.


Host Tag: Julia King lives and writes in Goshen, Indiana. She comes to us by way of the Great Lakes Radio Consortium.

Managing the Cormorants

Wildlife officials around the Great Lakes region are struggling with
the issue of double-crested cormorant populations. There are questions
about the impact of the birds on sport fish and commercial fisheries.
New York State has asked the U-S Fish and Wildlife Service to approve a
new controversial plan for managing cormorants in eastern Lake Ontario.