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.
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)
When this mallard hen's ducklings hatch, they'll have to cross a parking lot and busy intersections to get to water. (Photo by Arthur
Cooper)
Another view from the nest. (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.
America’s bald eagle population has grown dramatically in the
past few years. States around the Great Lakes region will be counting
their bald eagle populations to determine if they should be removed from
the federal endangered species list. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Marisa Helms reports:
Transcript
America’s bald eagle population has grown dramatically in the past few years.
States around the Great Lakes Region will be counting their bald eagle
populations to determine if they should be removed from the federal endangered
species list. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Marisa Helms
reports:
This spring, states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota will survey
bald eagles to see if the numbers are high enough to warrant de-listing.
All three states have seen a strong comeback of the raptor. Pam Perry is
with Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources. She says she expects to find
more than 700 nesting pairs in Minnesota.
“The population increase is due to the fact that we’ve gotten DDT out
of the system so that is no longer affecting their reproduction. And there used
to be a problem with people shooting eagles and we see that very seldom
anymore.”
States will finish their surveys by July and submit their recommendation
to the U-S Fish and Wildlife Service. If the bird goes off the list, the bald eagle
will still be protected by the Bald Eagle Protection Act and the Federal Migratory
Bird Act.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Marisa Helms.
According to the National Audobon Society, some species of
songbirds have experienced a 30 percent decline in their population
over
the past decade. Now, there’s evidence that non-native plant species
may
be contributing to the problem. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Karen Kelly reports:
Transcript
According to the National Audubon Society, some species of songbirds have experienced
a thirty percent decline in their population over the past decade. Now, there’s
evidence that non-native plant species might be contributing to the problem. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:
American robins and wood thrushes like to build their nests in shrubs. Typically, they
choose tall bushes with long thorns that keep predators away. But as those plants are
replaced by non-native species, the birds are forced to move into the new shrubs. And
that makes them vulnerable to predators.
Christopher Whalen is an avian ecologist with the Illinois Natural History Survey. His
study found birds that nest in exotic shrubs were twenty percent more likely to lose
their eggs to a predator.
Because of the different way these plants grow, the exotic shrubs provide a
suitable-looking confluence of branches at a lower height above the ground. So, nest
height drops a meter and a half to two meters on average.”
That makes it easier for raccoons to invade. Whalen’s study focused on Illinois, but
he says birds are doing this throughout the Northeast and Midwest.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.
The U-S Fish And Wildlife Service is planning to ban lead sinkers in
parts of the national wildlife refuge system. The agency wants to
reduce lead poisoning in loons. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Stephanie Hemphill reports:
