Part 1: Tidal Power in the Pacific

  • Research teams are looking for turbines that make tidal power work without harming sea life, like this one. (Photo courtesy of Charles Cooper with Oceana Energy)

For decades, people in the Pacific Northwest have relied on hydropower
for most of their electricity. But dams hurt salmon runs and river
ecosystems. That’s sent Washington utilities on a quest for new, cleaner
sources of power. As Ann Dornfeld reports, some are looking for new ways
to harness the power of flowing water:

Transcript

For decades, people in the Pacific Northwest have relied on hydropower
for most of their electricity. But dams hurt salmon runs and river
ecosystems. That’s sent Washington utilities on a quest for new, cleaner
sources of power. As Ann Dornfeld reports, some are looking for new ways
to harness the power of flowing water:


It’s a brilliant day outside. Craig Collar is perched on a rocky outcropping
overlooking rushing green water swirling and eddying below. Collar says
the water is moving so quickly because this is one of only two spots where
the Pacific Ocean flows into Puget Sound:


“As the tide comes in, it comes into this constrained passageway at
Deception Pass. Y’know, all that energy gets channeled, focused
through this very narrow area. So that’s what results in these rapid
tidal currents that we’re seeing right here.”


Collar researches new power sources for Snohomish County Public Utility
District. His goal is to use a sort of underwater windmill to convert some of
this water’s energy to electricity and funnel it onto the power grid. It’s called
“tidal power.”


Collar says there are dozens of underwater turbine designs to choose
from. Some look like a standard wind turbine with three big blades; others
look like a metal donut or a fish tail.


The Utility District is considering putting underwater turbine farms at half a
dozen locations around Puget Sound. It estimates tidal energy could power
at least 60,000 homes. Collar says the technology has a lot going for
it. It doesn’t emit carbon dioxide or other pollutants. He says underwater
turbines can be much smaller than wind turbines because they’re so
efficient:


“And that’s just as a result of the higher density of water. Water’s
roughly 800 times denser than air, so it contains a lot more energy.”


Unlike the wind, tides aren’t really affected by the season. You know the
saying: “predictable as the tides.” Collar says lunar phases let you forecast
the tides for decades into the future:


“Where with wind, you’re doing good if you can forecast hours or
even a little bit ahead. That really helps utilities like us integrate that
power into the power grid.”


Collar acknowledges there are a lot of questions about the impact of tidal
turbines on marine ecology.


These questions worry nearby Native American tribes. The Tulalip
reservation is close to Deception Pass, and they fish throughout Puget
Sound. Darryl Williams is the tribes’ environmental liaison:


“Five species of salmon, orca, grey whales, eagles, hawks, falcons…
y’know, we have numerous species of fish and marine mammals and
migratory birds that use the areas that are being proposed for these
turbines, and the studies really haven’t been done yet to show what
the impacts may or may not be.”


Along with the marine environment, Williams says the tribes are worried
that tidal turbines could scare away fish or get tangled in fishing nets.


“For the tribes, the fisheries aren’t only an economic source but
they’re also part of the tribes’ culture. Most of our cultural activities
are centered around salmon, and if we can’t catch the salmon, then
that part of our culture really goes away.”


A research team at the University of Washington is looking for ways to
make tidal power work without harming sea life. Brian Polagye is a
mechanical engineering graduate student whose focus is renewable
energy. His team is working with the oceanography department to look at
the ecological risks of tidal power. But Polagye says there are a lot of
misconceptions about what those risks are.


“The most obvious one is the question of ‘Oh! So you’re going to put
these rotors in the water and you’re gonna make sushi in addition to
electrical power.’ People view these turbines kind of as almost a
propeller that’s moving through the water so rapidly that if anything
gets near it it’s gonna get chopped to pieces. In practice, you can’t
actually run the rotors that fast. The maximum speed that the tip of
the rotor can turn at is about 25 miles an hour. Which is actually
relatively slow.”


Polagye says one of the biggest risks is that removing some of the energy
from the tidal currents will change the ecology downstream. He’s studying
how much power can be extracted from an estuary before it has a
noticeable effect on the ecosystem.


Back at Deception Pass, Craig Collar with the utility district says even if
there is a small ecological impact, it’s key to look at the overall picture:


“At the end of the day the thing that’s compelling about tidal energy
for us is there just aren’t very many opportunities for clean,
renewable, emission-free energy that’s both predictable and close to
the loads. And all those things are true for tidal energy in the Puget
Sound region, and there simply is no other renewable for which all
those things are true.”


The utility is working with the University of Washington to figure out
whether tidal power is viable in Puget Sound. If so, it could help reinvent
hydropower on the Pacific Coast for the next generation.


For the Environment Report, I’m Ann Dornfeld.

Related Links

Defining Protected Wetlands Gets Mucky

Developers are feeling encouraged by last month’s US Supreme
Court ruling on wetlands. The High Court was deciding on which wetlands deserve protection under the Clean Water Act. Some say it’s more likely
they’ll get their building permits now. Defenders of the Clean Water Act
think those high hopes are premature. The GLRC’s Tracy Samilton takes
us to the wetland where the fight began:

Transcript

Developers are feeling encouraged by last month’s U.S. Supreme Court
ruling on which wetlands deserve protection from development under the
Clean Water Act. Some say it’s more likely they’ll get their building
permits now. Defenders of the Clean Water Act think those high hopes are
premature. The GLRC’s Tracy Samilton takes us to the wetland where the
fight began.


Wetlands are supposed to be wet, right? Certainly wetter than this mucky little forest in
a township in Southeast Michigan, surrounded by subdivisions and strip malls. Tim Stoepker
leads the way through battalions of attacking mosquitoes. He points at a big puddle:


“Basically, you have a forested wetland here, with no diversity of plant life because you have
such a thick canopy of trees and you don’t typically have all your wetland,
typical wetland plants on the interior here because of that and because there’s no standing
water, you don’t have any of your aquatic species.”


Stoepker’s business suit trousers are getting streaked with mud but he keeps going. Next stop
is a drainage ditch at the edge of the property. It’s pretty dry:


“Now, if we were to come out here in August or July, I mean, that ditch would even be, there
would be nothing in that ditch.”


Stoepker has represented landowner Keith Carabell since the mid-1980s. Carabell was denied a permit
to build senior condos on his property. He appealed it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Stoker thinks if the nine Supreme Court Justices had seen this ditch in person, last month’s
wetlands decision would have been different. A majority would have ruled that the test for
Clean Water Act protection is permanent surface water flowing into a navigable water. Even so,
he’s optimistic. Five Justices reaffirmed that the Clean Water Act pertains only to wetlands
with a “significant nexus,” or connection, to navigable waters. He says that’s not the case
here:


“It’s hydrologically isolated from receiving and sending waters.”


But the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sees it differently. The Corps is the agency that decides
if a wetland falls under the Clean Water Act. If so, it then issues or denies building permits.
The Corps told field officers not to talk to reporters about this or any case pending guidance
from headquarters. But a source familiar with Corps regulations says water from this wetland
does flow into the ditch. From there, it empties into a drain, which dumps into a stream and
then leads to Lake St. Clair a mile away, one of the most polluted bodies of water in the Great
Lakes region. The source says the wetland also connects to the drain on another side of the
property, and it will meet the significant nexus test when the case goes back to the lower
court.


Environmentalists like Jim Murphy of the National Wildlife Federation hope that’s true.
Murphy says small wetlands like this one need to be protected, despite their lack of surface
water and showy aquatic species:


“I think we make a mistake when we just feel that the only thing we need to protect are
charismatic wetlands, for a number of reasons. For one, even wetlands that don’t necessarily look that pretty
that pretty are oftentimes performing enormous functions, whether it be habitat, flood control,
water filtration….”


All functions that Army Corps of Engineers mentioned when it denied a permit in this case.
Murphy says the looming question now is, how will the agency react to the ruling? If they pull
back, he thinks we will lose wetlands at a much quicker pace. Or the Corps could interpret
the ruling as broadly as possible:


“We feel that if the Corps is willing to stand firm and be aggressive, that they can still
maintain protection for a good number of waters.”


Murphy thinks even at best, the Supreme Court ruling will encourage even more developers like
Keith Carabell to challenge permit denials in court. That may be true, but Tom Stoepker, the
attorney for Keith Caraball, says all that most developers want are more thoughtful decisions
from the Corps, and they want the Corps to back off from places it ought not to be. He says
that includes this wetland where anyone can see the water in it isn’t going anywhere.


For the GLRC, I’m Tracy Samilton.

Related Links

A Rare Visit From a Northern Neighbor

  • The Great Gray Owl is a rare sighting south of the U.S.-Canadian border. (Photo by Matt Victoria, Camillus, NY. www.fickity.net)

The Great Gray Owl usually lives deep in the northern forests of Canada. But due to scarce food, thousands of the big owls have drifted south. They’ve drifted into southern Ontario and Quebec, even crossing the border into Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Last month, a Great Gray was spotted in New York, the first one documented there in almost a decade. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein was there when it
happened:

Transcript

The Great Gray Owl usually lives deep in the northern forests of Canada. But due to scarce food,
thousands of the big owls have drifted south. They’ve drifted into southern Ontario and Quebec,
even crossing the border into Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Last month, a Great Gray
was spotted in New York, the first one documented there in almost a decade. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein was there when it happened:


Ornithologist Gerry Smith had invited me to see some of the best raptor habitat in northern New
York. We took off in his cluttered Saturn wagon.


“Here we go!…” (sound of engine turning on)


Gerry wears a beat up canvas hat, green sweatshirt, and always has one hand on his binoculars.
He started birdwatching when he was 13 as a sort of therapy.


“My father passed away when I was 15, but he was terminally ill, and I needed an escape, you
know, obviously as a 13 year-old kid I didn’t know that, but I got hooked, and the rest, as they
say, is history.”


More than 40 years later, he’s never had a job not related to birds. And he’s in his element
cruising the back roads of Upstate New York.


These farm fields are near the St. Lawrence River. They’re ideal for hawks and owls. They’re
grassy with occasional tree stands. And they don’t get as much snow as other parts of the state.
So birds can snag the mice and voles they live on all winter long.


In no time, Gerry’s spotting raptors. There’s a hawk perched in a twisted elm…


“Yep, it’s a Red-tailed Hawk and I think it’s got prey because it’s bending down like it’s eating.”


A rough-legged hawk soars above us, black and white plumage glowing in the sun.


“The bird was just lofting along.”


A Short-eared Owl glides past a farmhouse.


“Look how that is flying. It’s flying like a big fruit bat. Cutting left across the hay bales, coming
toward the house, above the house now, and drifting left.”


Smith’s also seen a snowy owl this year. But still no sign of the Great Gray owl.


The Great Gray usually lives in the far northern forests of Canada. But this year it has flown
south to the upper Great Lakes region by the thousands. Conservation biologist Jim Duncan is a
Great Gray Owl expert with the province of Manitoba. He says the phenomenon happens
cyclically, when the Great Gray’s main food source – the meadow vole – becomes scarce.


“It’s a regular migration. It’s like a robin migrating in response to food availability, except in the
case of the Great Gray Owl, it’s a longer period of time. It’s three to five years.”


Gerry Smith’s still waiting for the Great Gray in New York. It’s been spotted just across the St.
Lawrence River in Canada.


“There’s a single Great Gray Owl on Amherst Island, but not one, as far as we know, has made it
into northern New York despite the fact that a whole lot of us have been looking.”


Now, I know you’re going to call that easy foreshadowing. But believe it or not, just an hour
later, Gerry pulls the car over, grabs his binoculars, and peers at something big perched on a tree.


“We have the first Great Gray Owl that’s made it across the border. I’ll be a son of a gun. That is
so…Now I’m very enthusiastic. Hey, I’m gonna set up my scope.”


While Gerry unpacks the telescope, a raven flies to a branch just above the owl and tries to scare
it away. Birders call it “mobbing.”


“Now don’t you mob that owl, you fiend. I think that’s what he’s thinking of doing. Watch this.”


The owl holds its ground, and Gerry gets it in the telescope’s sights.


“That is so cool. It’s not facing us, it’s back is to us, but take a look, that shape is very
distinctive.”


It’s slate gray with some brown and white, round head, stocky body, as big or bigger than the
raven.


“This has been…oh, the owl just hooted. It’s a very low guttural hoot, something like a horned
owl, only deeper.”


Just then, the owl’s finally had enough. It takes flight and drifts slow and low to a stand of trees,
likely its roost. Gerry jots down the GPS coordinates and we get back in the car.


“Well, sir, we’ll finish the route and head back, but we have had undoubtedly the high point of
the day. That’s the high point of my winter.”


This Great Gray Owl migration is the biggest on record. Biologist Jim Duncan says it’s a chance
for all eager birders to help science.


“People have a real opportunity to contribute to our knowledge of the species, be they farmers,
housewives, commuters. They don’t have to be scientists.”


You do have to be respectful, though, if you want to report Great Gray sightings to wildlife
officials. Stay off private land, don’t make noise, and keep your distance. And enjoy a rare
opportunity to see a Great Gray visitor from the North.


For the GLRC, I’m David Sommerstein.

Related Links

Duck Decline Blamed on Fragmented Habitat

  • A mallard duck hen sitting on her eggs in a strip mall tree planter in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Ducks Unlimited researchers have found that recent declines in duck populations are partly due to a lack of corridors between grasslands where ducks nest and wetlands where they thrive. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)

Researchers with the hunters’ conservation group Ducks Unlimited are reporting they’ve found some of the reasons the duck reproduction rate is falling in the Great Lakes region. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Researchers with the hunters’ conservation group Ducks Unlimited are reporting they’ve
found some of the reasons the duck reproduction rate is falling. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


(sound of birds, a duck quacking and a truck door slamming)


YERKES: “Load in.”


Two years ago, we went out in the field with biologist Tina Yerkes and other Ducks
Unlimited researchers.


YERKES: “Every day these guys go out and they track the birds and that’s basically how
we figure out what they’re doing. ”


(sound of newly hatched ducklings peeping with hen hissing)


At the time, they were tracking mallard hens, watching them nest, and watching them as
they moved their ducklings from the nests in the grass to nearby wetlands and lakes.
After three years of study, they found some of the reasons duck reproduction rates are
down. We recently had a chance to sit down and talk with Tina Yerkes about the study.
She says, surprisingly, they found that egg production and nesting are good, despite nests
being destroyed by mowers and predators eating the eggs.


TY: “The problem is duckling survival. We have very poor duckling survival in this
area. And, that leads us to believe that we need to alter habitat programs to actually start
doing more wetlands work.”


LG: “So, what’s happening is the ducks are able to nest, they’re able to hatch out the
ducklings, but then when they move from the grasslands where the nesting is to the
wetlands where the ducks feed, they grow, they’re not surviving. What’s killing them?”


TY: “What we’re seeing is that hens, once they hatch their young, they move right after
the first day into the first wetland and it’s a dangerous journey. Basically, because our
habitat is so fragmented that they’re moving these ducklings through non-grassed areas,
across parking lots, roads. It’s dangerous. And, a lot of the ducklings either die from
exhaustion or predators kill them on the way. A lot of avian predators get them at that
point.”


LG: “So, we’re talking about hawks and not so much domestic animals like cats and
dogs.”


TY: “Ah, cats are a problem, yeah. It’s hard to document exactly what is getting them,
but feral cats and domestic cats are a problem. Hawks and jays, sometimes…”


LG: “Blue jays?”


TY: “Blue jays can be mean, yeah. But, it’s interesting to note that if you put those
corridors back between nesting sites and wetlands, it’ll be a much safer journey for
them.”


LG: “So, what are you proposing?”


TY: “I would look more away from urban areas where those infrastructures are already
intact. We would not certainly expect anybody to tear that type of stuff up. But, outside
the cities and urban areas there are lots of opportunities to look at areas where there is
grass existing or wetlands existing and then piece the habitat back together where we
can.”


LG: “There are places, for instance in Chicago, where they’re working to do exactly that.
Do you see that kind of effort in most of the states you studied?”


TY: “Yes, actually we do. Some states like – Chicago’s a very good example. A very
strong park system not only throughout the city, but out in the suburbs as well and we do
see that in a lot of different places. That’s a positive thing.”


LG: “Where are the worst places for duckling survival?”


TY: “The worst duckling survival was the site that you were at two years ago in Port
Clinton, Ohio. And, if you think about what that habitat looks like, what you have is a
few patches of grass and an area that’s heavily agriculturally based, but all the wetlands
have been ditched and drained so that when a bird has to move from an area where it
nested to get to a nice, safe wetland habitat, they have to make a substantial move across
a lot of open fields that don’t have a lot of cover on them. So, here you’re looking at
maybe piecing cover back between the wetland areas and still being able to maintain farm
operations at the same time.”


LG: “What can farmers do to help duck survival?”


TY: “Oh, let’s see. Leave some patches of grass along the fields, especially if they have
wetlands in their fields. Leave a nice margin around the wetland, a nice vegetative
margin around the wetland because the ducks will nest right in that edge as well. Then
they don’t have to move very far to take the ducklings to a nice food source and a nice
wetland.”


LG: “Now, this is not just about making sure that mallard ducks reproduce. What’s this
going to mean for the ecosystem as a whole?”


TY: “Every time we replace a wetland or replace grass on the landscape, we’re
improving the water quality because those types of habitats remove nutrients and
sedimentation from runoff. So, there’s all kinds of benefits. There are benefits to any
other species that depends on grasslands to nest in or wetlands to either nest in or even
for migratory birds. So there’s just a suite of benefits beyond ducks.”


Tina Yerkes is a biologist with Ducks Unlimited. She says the group will be working
with states to develop programs to encourage development of corridors between the
grasslands where the ducks nest and the wetlands where they thrive.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

Birders Flock to Hawk Mountain

Each fall, thousands of hawks, eagles, and other birds of prey fly hundreds of miles in search of warmer climates. And between August and December, nearly 70-thousand people will climb to the top of a bird sanctuary called Hawk Mountain to get a closer look at those birds. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Brad Linder reports:

Transcript

Each fall, about thousands of hawks, eagles, and other birds of prey fly hundreds of miles
in search of warmer climates. And between August and December, nearly 70-thousand
people will climb to the top of a bird sanctuary called Hawk Mountain to get a closer
look at those birds. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Brad Linder reports:


“Those of you haven’t found the osprey, it’s over there at owl’s head, naked eye here to
the right.”


On a clear day, the view from atop Hawk Mountain stretches for more than fifty miles.
But on this particularly hazy Saturday afternoon, bird-watchers are pushing their
binoculars and telescopes to the limits.


“Well, we’re making them out there, they’re coming in. It’s like you just gotta wait ’til
they get a little closer than what they typically do. They’ve been popping out of clouds
and haze all day for us.”


Doug Wood is a volunteer at Hawk Mountain in Eastern Pennsylvania. This afternoon,
he’s the official bird counter.


“We’re basically taking a lot of field information. Wind, weather, temperature, cloud
cover, wind direction. And then we’re basically monitoring the birds’ species, age, sex,
and recording it every hour.


“Look! An Osprey! And then fade to scene change.”


Researchers at Hawk Mountain have been keeping records of osprey and other migratory
raptors for more than seventy years, making it the oldest monitoring station in the world.


In the early twentieth century, hunters would shoot thousands of birds from the
mountainside each year. Today, people travel from all over the world to shoot birds with
their cameras.


Matt Wong came all the way from New Zealand to study at the sanctuary.


“Hawk Mountain is internationally renowned as a hawk watch site. And also a place
where big research actually happens. Now, not many of the locals around Pennsylvania
actually realize this, but it’s actually huge on the international scene. It’s world
recognized, and that’s one of the reasons why I came here.”


In Wong’s country, there are only two species of raptors. In America, he’s had a chance
to study dozens of varieties.


But even with so many different species populating North America, many people still
think of them as strangers or sometimes even as monsters.


“I still get, amazingly to me, a lot of people that think that these birds are out to get us.”


Volunteer Bob Owens has spent the last 20 years doing education programs at Hawk
Mountain.


“If you intrude into their territory when they have young in the nest, or something like
that, yeah, they’re probably going to chase you. As far as them killing babies and taking
them from baby carriages, this is all old wives tales. This just does not happen.”


Owens runs a small farm for a living, where he says hawks and barn owls help keep
rodents under control. But in a larger sense, Owens says there’s a lot people can learn
from these birds.


“Any three and a half pound bird that can apply four hundred pounds of pressure with its
talons is built to do what they’re doing. They are at the top of the food chain. And that’s
the other big thing that it shows us. It just opens up a door here as to all the reasons the
birds are either dropping or rising in population. What are we doing?”


Owens says in the seventy years researchers at Hawk Mountain have been counting birds,
they’ve seen populations rise and fall. Hawks and eagles are hardy birds. But even the
most successful predators can fall victim to environmental change.


Keith Bildstein is the sanctuary’s director of conservation programs. He says raptors are
like sensitive tools, telling researchers when something’s wrong with an ecosystem.


“Birds of prey are excellent biological indicators. In the middle of the last century they
told us that we were having a problem with our misuse of organochlorine pesticides,
specifically DDT. Today, they’re leading us in explorations of the spread of West Nile
Virus.”


Bildstein says because raptors are at the top of the food chain, when their numbers fall
it’s a pretty good sign that their food source is dwindling, their habitat could be
disappearing, or air quality might be suffering.


But for most of Hawk Mountain’s visitors, the birds are more than barometers of a
healthy ecosystem. According to birder Judy Higgs, they’re beautiful creatures,
especially when viewed from a great height.


“These birds are just majestic. And the other thing is that they go so far. You know,
some of these birds are going to South America!”


Higgs first climbed the mountain in 1970, when she was a student at nearby Kutztown
University. Before moving out of state, Higgs used to come to Hawk Mountain daily…
she stills visits on weekends whenever she can.


“I used to do work in the morning, come here in the afternoon, go home, and finish my
work at night so I could be here.”


By day’s end, Higgs and her fellow birdwatchers count more than 600 raptors. During
the fall season, as many as 70-thousand predatory birds, from vultures to falcons might
pass by on their way to distant points.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Brad Linder.

Rescuing Injured Raptors

Owls, eagles, hawks, and other birds of prey have it rough in the modern world. They have to navigate electric wires, cars, and loss of habitat. A handful of volunteers in the Midwest take on the responsibility of nursing injured birds back to health… The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Brad Linder has the story of a wildlife rehabilitator in Pennsylvania:

Transcript

Owls, eagles, hawks, and other birds of prey have it rough in the modern world. They have to navigate electric wires, cars, and loss of habitat. A handful of volunteers in the (Great Lakes region/Midwest) take on the responsibility of nursing injured birds back to health… The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Brad Linder has this story on a wildlife rehabilitator in Pennsylvania:


(natural sound fading up)


Wendy Looker’s back yard serves as a temporary home for 120 birds, and a variety of other exotic animals. Walking into a sixteen foot cage, Looker opens a box and tries to convince the two small birds inside that it’s dinner time.


“These are fledgling kestrels and they’re just learning to catch food. So we’re tossing baby mice in there just to mimic movement, they’re eating mealworms and crickets, and other things they’re learning to catch.”


By working primarily to rehabilitate birds of prey, or raptors, Wendy Looker has become something of an expert in the region. With a bachelor’s degree in psychology, and some graduate work in animal behavior, Looker has spent most of her life working with animals.


“I worked in zoos for a number of years, and I particularly developed an affinity for owls. I guess I, for whatever reason identify with cranky animal that seem to be misunderstood by people. And I just figured at some point in time, maybe I’d dabble with research, and dabbling became 24-7.”


Ten years later, Rehabitat – a 40-thousand dollar a year non-profit organization, run out of Looker’s back yard – is going strong. Each year Looker and a handful of local volunteers help hundreds of birds recover from injury. It’s often dirty and difficult work for no pay, but Looker says she feels a responsibility to the birds.


“Very few of these animals come in as a result of a failure to thrive, a natural selection sort of a thing. It’s almost always human related, so I feel very strongly that they deserve the opportunity to be given a chance to get back out there.”


Looker says many of the birds brought to her have been hit by cars, have flown into glass windows, or have been caught up in discarded fishing line. But the number one cause of injury for birds is what she calls CBC, or caught by cat.


Even a minor cat bite can be lethal as bacteria infect the wound. Looker says keeping house cats in the house would eliminate countless bird injuries each year.


Feeding the birds at Rehabitat takes 6-thousand dead rodents every week, donated from a local research facility. Looker says in nature, or living in the back of a barn, birds of prey are effective mouse hunters. A single barn owl could save farmers thousands of dollars in crop damage.


“The average owl out in the wild eats about a thousand rodents a year himself, so they’re incredibly efficient and valuable in controlling the rodent population. Eating a thousand rodents, and a single rodent can do about 28 dollars worth of damage to agricultural crops, so that’s a 28-thousand dollar bird, and that’s without him having a family.”


Looker says using rat poison to deal with rodents might not be as effective as having a few raptors around. And if there are birds of prey in the area, it’s likely that they could be susceptible to poison as well.


“Most rat and mouse poisons accumulate in the body of the rodent it takes several days for the rodent to die, and he’s wandering out in the open and it’s very easy pickings for the birds. So we get birds that come in here with what we call secondary poisoning, and they’re seizuring and sometimes we can turn them around and sometimes we can’t.”


“We must have had babies hatching… and let’s go check those babies out….”


While inspecting the newborn barn owls, Looker says some animals spend just a few months at Rehabitat, while others have become lifelong residents due to permanent wing or eyesight damage.


“Our standards for release are extremely high. These birds have a tremendously difficult life out in the wild and they need to be 100% perfect. Because just to have one feather missing compromises the feather next to it, throws them off balance, and may be the difference between life and death for them.”


Not every bird can make it in the wild. A few birds with disabilities such as amputated wings or partial blindness can be used for educational programs. But a number of birds have to be put down every year. Looker says it wouldn’t be difficult to find people willing to adopt injured birds, but Raptors are wild animals that don’t make good pets – and there are few locations with the proper facilities to care for non-releasable animals.


Birds of Prey are federally protected migratory birds, but rehabilitation is a private endeavor. With licenses from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Pennsylvania Game Commission, Rehabitat and similar facilities in the state do all the work of nursing injured wildlife back to health for release in the wild


“There are some restrictions in what rehabbers can and can’t do. Obviously we don’t do surgery, but pretty much everything else medically is done on site. It’s pretty grungy work and it’s pretty labor intensive, but it’s also extremely rewarding.”


(natural sound up)


Looker says she’d love to put herself out of business by convincing people to avoid activities which put birds at risk, such as using rodent poisons or letting housecats roam the neighborhood. But as long as there are birds in need of help, there will be people like Wendy Looker to take them in.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Brad Linder.


(natural sound out)

West Nile Virus Marches West

  • Zoos have helped public health officials monitor the spread of the West Nile virus. Besides concerns about human health, zoos are worried about the birds in their care.

Cooler weather sweeping the Great Lakes region means the end of the mosquito season. It also means a temporary halt to the spread of West Nile virus in the area. But this past summer the virus made headway into the region much faster than experts had expected. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Cooler weather sweeping the Great Lakes region means the end of the mosquito season. It also means a temporary halt to the spread of West Nile virus in the area. But, this past summer the virus made headway into the region much faster than experts had expected. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports.


It’s extremely rare that West Nile virus causes severe illness in humans. But it does happen. While most people won’t even realize they’re infected, about one fourth of those infected will exhibit some mild symptoms. However, the virus can cause encephalitis, which is an inflammation of the brain. In very rare cases it can be fatal.


Zoos have been helpful in monitoring the spread of the disease. It was first identified here in the U.S. by the Bronx zoo in the fall of 1999 after crows started dying in the New York area. Since then, zoos across the U-S have kept watch on their birds and animals. In part to protect them and in part to help health officials track the progress of the virus.


Scientists thought the virus would slowly make its way to neighboring states. But, it’s spread much more quickly than expected. It wasn’t supposed to hit states as far west as Illinois and Wisconsin until sometime next year. But it made it even farther west with reports of it in Missouri.


Researchers have learned the virus is carried by birds such as crows, blue jays, hawks and Canada geese. Dominic Travis is a veterinary epidemiologist at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. He says since West Nile virus infects birds, experts suggested it would spread southward from New York. That’s because many birds, including some infected with the virus would travel south for the winter. Others, though, said it could spread west.


“And, the westward race won. We were fairly surprised that it came past the Michigan and western Ohio area, but we’ve been prepared because we started this surveillance system and started working with the CDC and USDA and everybody last spring for this specific eventuality.”


Travis says zoos across the Midwest started monitoring for West Nile virus this past spring. They worked with local health officials to determine if the disease had spread to birds in the area.


While birds carry the disease, mosquitoes spread it. So, officials at he Lincoln Park Zoo have been trapping mosquitoes and drawing blood from its animals, testing for West Nile virus. They’ve also been working to reduce the chance that animals will be bitten by mosquitoes. Again. Dominic Travis.


“The two strategies are try and limit the mosquito and if you can’t limit the mosquito, limit the contact.”


Most zoos are hesitant to use insecticides to kill the mosquitoes. So, instead, they try to eliminate places where they can breed. Basically, that’s anywhere a puddle of water stands for more than four days. Travis says that helps meet strategy number one, limiting the mosquito.


“So, a) if you don’t have mosquitoes, the risk is fairly low, and b) if you can’t get rid of all your mosquitoes, then you want to stop mosquitoes from biting the animals and so you do things to keep them separate. And those are –depending on the birds, the size, the situation, the zoo– those are keeping them in during mosquito feeding hours or some people have mosquito nets that they’re incorporating and so on and so forth.”


Zoos are especially worried because they’re responsible for some very rare birds, in some cases the last of a species.


At the Saint Louis Zoo, a huge outdoor flight cage and several other outdoor cages make up the zoo’s bird garden. Zookeeper Frank Fischer says outside bird exhibits are at highest risk.


“We’re making sure that, trying to make sure that none of our birds, even the birds in the outside exhibits here in the bird garden don’t contract any of that disease, say, from crows or our blue jays or birds of that type.”


While birds are most at risk of infection, they’re not the only species hit by the virus. In the U.S., as many as a dozen people have died after being bitten by a mosquito carrying West Nile virus. And even more horses have died. People and horses are considered incidental victims. That is, they don’t carry the disease and they don’t spread it. But they can be infected. A veterinarian in southwestern Illinois, Don Van Walleghen, says he’s gotten a lot of calls from worried customers, asking about West Nile virus.


“Basically, they want to know, is it here? Is it a concern for me?”


And because it’s such a recent phenomenon Van Walleghen’s customers have a lot of other questions. They bring in dead birds, wondering if their dog or cat that was playing with the bird might be infected. So far, aside from horses and people, there have been no reports of other animals, livestock or pets, being infected by West Nile virus, or spreading it.


“In humans, if you are a human bitten by a mosquito that had this disease, you could not transmit it to your kids or to anything else. So, at least that limits the disease from even being thought of as any kind of epidemic.”


But it is spreading. Experts hope that weather conditions next year are not good for mosquito production. But even a relatively normal to dry season as this past year was has not seemed to slow the spread of West Nile virus. If next year is wetter, experts say the virus could spread farther and infection rates could rise. That’s why health and agriculture experts are reminding people to work toward reducing the mosquito population next year. They recommend everything from keeping roof gutters unclogged to prevent standing water, to landscaping yards and driveways to eliminate puddles. Anything that will slow mosquito production next year will hopefully slow the spread of the West Nile virus. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

Biologist Fosters Bald Eagle’s Return

In the 1960’s, the bald eagle was in trouble. There were only about 4
hundred birds living in the U-S And in some states, pollution had wiped
them out altogether. But the bald eagle has made an impressive comeback.
The U-S Fish and Wildlife Service recently announced plans to remove it from
the endangered species list. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen
Kelly reports, it’s good news for the scientists who fought to save this
bird: