New Homes for Chimney Swifts

  • The almost-finished tower awaits its new residents on the grounds of the Orono School District's nature center next to Lake Claussen. (Photo courtesy of Stephanie Hemphill)

There’s one American bird that has an unusual habitat problem. Chimney Swifts have adapted in the past as humans encroached on their territory. But now changes in human behavior are presenting new problems for the birds. And some people are trying to help them adapt again. Stephanie Hemphill reports.

Transcript

There’s one American bird that has an unusual habitat problem. Chimney Swifts have adapted in the past as humans encroached on their territory. But now changes in human behavior are presenting new problems for the birds. And some people are trying to help them adapt again. Stephanie Hemphill reports.

In his dad’s window-and-door warehouse in the Minneapolis suburbs, Derek Meyer is supervising the boys in his scout troop as they build a wooden tower for Chimney Swifts.

They’re using rough plywood to build a narrow box twelve feet high with an opening about a foot square.

Derek is doing this project to earn the rank of Eagle Scout. In the process, he’s learned a few things about the lives of Chimney Swifts.

“They originally lived in hollow trees but when the settlers from Europe came over they started destroying the trees, so they decided to live in the chimneys, and then people started putting wire over their chimneys, so over the last 40 years they’ve lost half of their population.”

Not just wire, but rain caps and other devices to keep moisture and critters out of chimneys.

The new home these boys are building for Chimney Swifts is destined for the nature center next to a nearby school. The school district was planning to tear down an old brick chimney as part of a remodeling project. Rebecca Field found out about that, and she tried to stop it.

“I said, wait a minute, I’m sure there are Chimney Swifts in there and they’re really good birds because they eat about 2,000 insects a day, each of those birds. And their favorite insect is the mosquito.'”

Field is on the board of Audubon Minnesota, and she’d been watching the swifts hanging around the chimney in the evenings. Individually they look like fat cigars with wings, but when they get ready to swoop down into the chimney for the night, there are so many of them, they look like a funnel cloud.

“How they communicate I have no idea, how they put the brakes on when they dive into that chimney so quickly, it’s a mystery but it’s a fun thing to watch.”

In the end the school district decided to leave the chimney up.

So now, a few weeks later, and just in time for the Chimney Swifts to fly back up from the Amazon, the tower is standing on a concrete pad at the school’s nature center.

School naturalist Marleane Callaghan has already brought all her classes, grades three-through-five, to check it out.

“We’ve talked about the bird, what it looks like, the dimension of it, I’ve invited them to come back with their parents to watch in the school parking lot in the evening up at the high school where they’ve left the chimney, and then to walk on down, to be able to identify them.”

This project is part of an effort by Audubon groups all over the country to raise awareness of Chimney Swifts and their need for homes.

In Minnesota, project director Ron Windingstad wants to convince homeowners to make existing chimneys more welcoming. He says people can take the caps off their chimneys during the summer, or just raise them high enough so the birds can fly in from the sides.

Soon these school kids will be able to see the amazing acrobatics of the Chimney Swifts. Windingstad says they hardly ever stop flying, from morning til night. They’ll even sip water and take a bath in a nearby pond, without stopping.

“They’ll scoop down, lower their bill, and fly across it and drink in the water. They’ll use some of these shrubs around here to break off little twigs about the size of a wooden matchstick or toothpick actually, and use that to build their nests, and they do that while flying as well. They are marvelous creatures.”

For The Environment Report, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

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World Governments Failing on Biodiversity

  • The recovery of the European Bison is one of the recent successes in the fight against biodiversity loss. Despite some improvements, the UNEP report suggests efforts to address the loss of biodiversity need to be substantially strengthened.(Photo courtesy of Gil Wojciech, Polish Forest Research Institute, Poland)

Transcript

A new report finds an agreement among the world’s governments to protect nature is failing. Lester Graham reports on the assessment which finds more animals, forests and other habitats are being lost.

World governments signed the 2002 Convention of Biological Diversity, agreeing to protect more habitat and species that are at risk. An assessment of the progress has been published in the journal Science and it finds biodiversity is at greater risk than it was when the agreement was signed eight years ago. Matt Foster is with the environmental group Conservation International. He says despite some government efforts to protect habitat, there have been more pressures destroying habitat and biodiversity.

“And it’s a scary prospect, not just from a biodiversity side, but considering that there are so many vulnerable people around the world for whom the services provided by nature and biodiversity are essential such as for water, for food and all of us depend on nature and forests especially to try to mitigate climate change.”

Foster says much more needs to be done by governments and the private sector to preserve natural areas and protect species.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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The Great Blue Heron

  • An island in the Upper Mississippi, not far from downtown Minneapolis, is home to many Great Blue Herons.(Photo courtesy of Stephanie Hemphill)

Some people say robins are the first sign of spring. But there’s another bird that makes a dramatic entry in northern states. The Great Blue Heron soars in to make a nest… and guard it:

Transcript

Some people say robins are the first sign of spring. But there’s another bird that makes a dramatic entry in northern states. The Great Blue Heron soars in to make a nest… and guard it:

On an island in the Upper Mississippi River, a stand of cottonwood trees is silhouetted against a gray sky. The bare branches are festooned with big nests, made of twigs and branches. Next to the nests, like sentinels at the castle gate, stand Great Blue Herons. These birds are four feet tall. More than a hundred of them are claiming their domain in these trees, just upriver from downtown Minneapolis. When one takes off and glides away, its six-foot wing span dwarfs the ducks and songbirds sharing the island.

It’s hard to tell the males from the females because they’re the same blue and gray. Birder Sharon Stiteler is leading me on a tour of this rookery.

“The males arrive first, and they work out who’s going to take which nest. Where you see one bird standing up, that is most likely a male. He’s hanging out there because the other males who are still waiting to attract a female could come by and steal sticks out of his nest to make his nest look better.”

On some nests, you can see females already sitting on pale blue eggs the size of small mangoes. But Stiteler says herons are not always good parents.

“If the chick falls out of the nest and lands on the ground, that chick is toast: the parents will not continue feeding it. And oftentimes you’ll see turkey vultures hanging out at rookeries, and they’re waiting for the young to fall and starve, and then they’ll have a whole bunch of food.”

But at least on this island, there won’t be many predators like coyotes or foxes.

These birds were once threatened by humans. Their cousins the egrets were hunted for their beautiful white feathers, and both suffered disastrous population loss until the pesticide DDT was banned.

Now you can see them in streams and lakes all over. They breed in Canada and the upper midwest. They spend their winters wherever they can find food. Herons literally stalk their prey.

“They have a lot of patience, and they just stare at one spot for long time, and then they jab down and grab the fish. Their beak is shaped like a pair of super-sharp chopsticks. Sometimes they catch a huge fish and they have to juggle it around, especially if they have it perpendicular with their beak, they have to jostle it around, and the fish is wiggling, and eventually they get it just right so it’s straight in line with the bill, and you can watch this huge thing slide down that long slender neck.”

Sharon Stiteler is a part-time naturalist with the National Park Service, and she writes a blog called bird-chick-dot-com.

Today the herons are pretty quiet. But Stiteler has a Blackberry loaded with their sounds, including the prehistoric squawk they make when they’re startled.

And Stiteler says it can sound really strange when the young are clattering for food.

After the young are raised — at least the ones that survive — the herons will stay here on the river, until it freezes over and they can’t fish anymore. Stiteler says the birds decamp all at once.

“One day we have Great Blue Herons, and the next day they’re gone, and they migrate at night.”

They tuck back their long necks when they fly, forming an S-shape and hiding their true length.

Stiteler says the recovery of Great Blue Herons, along with pelicans, eagles, and other birds near the top of the food chain is a sign of a healthier ecosystem.

For The Environment Report, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

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Seagrass Beds Declining

  • Recent studies show about a third of all sea grasses have disappeared worldwide.(Photo courtesy of NOAA/Heather Dine)

The Gulf of Mexico is losing sea grass beds at an alarming rate. According to a new aerial survey, Mobile Bay has lost nearly 14-hundred acres of sea grass beds in the last few years. And as Tanya Ott reports, that could affect your dinner plate:

Transcript

The Gulf of Mexico is losing sea grass beds at an alarming rate. According to a new aerial survey, Mobile Bay has lost nearly 14-hundred acres of sea grass beds in the last few years. And as Tanya Ott reports, that could affect your dinner plate.

Americans love shrimp. And shrimp love sea grass beds. But as Tanya Ott reports sea grass beds are dying at an alarming rate.

Each American eats on average four pounds of shrimp a year. But a new aerial survey of the Gulf of Mexico finds the place where shrimp, crab and a lot of different fish find their food is disappearing. Scientists say agricultural runoff and sediment from development are killing off sea grass beds. Dauphin Island Sea Lab scientist Ken Heck says part of the problem is PR. Sea grass beds just are’t as sexy as some other ecosystems.

“Many people know about coral reefs and they know about tropical rain forests. But sea grass habitats are a bit under-loved and under-appreciated.”

Sea grass decline isn’t just a problem in the Gulf of Mexico. Heck is part of team doing a global sea grass census. He says worldwide a third of sea grass beds have disappeared.

For The Environment Report, I’m Tanya Ott.

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Birds Threatened by Warming Climate

  • Rising sea levels are infringing on the habitats of coastal birds. (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife service)

Wildlife researchers say that many coastal birds and birds that live around the oceans are threatened by a warming climate. Mark Brush has more on the State of the Birds report:

Transcript

Wildlife researchers say that many coastal birds and birds that live around the oceans are threatened by a warming climate. Mark Brush has more on the State of the Birds report:

The report was put together by the US Fish and Wildlife Service along with state wildlife agencies and other researchers. It finds birds that rely on low-lying islands and other coastal habitats are most at risk from a warming climate. The researchers say these birds are in danger because of rising sea levels. And because the birds are having a tougher time finding the creatures they feed on. They say these kinds of birds would have a hard time finding new places to live.

Ken Salazar is the U.S. Secretary of the Interior. The agency was in charge of publishing the report:

“For too long, in my view, we have stood idle as the climate change crisis has grown. I believe that what this State of the Birds report indicates is that we are at a point in time in our history in America where there is a call to action.”

The report adds to research that shows a third of the nation’s bird species are endangered, threatened or in significant decline.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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Greenovation: The Re-Use Store

  • The ReStore sells everything from building supplies to power tools to toilets and sinks. (Photo courtesy of the Habitat for Humanity of Huron County, Michigan)

Home improvement projects cost
a lot of money. Some environmentalists
have found a way to save some money,
conserve resources, and help other
people get into homes. Lester Graham
reports:

Transcript

Home improvement projects cost
a lot of money. Some environmentalists
have found a way to save some money,
conserve resources, and help other
people get into homes. Lester Graham
reports:

It seems like my friend Matt Grocoff with Greenovation TV is always working on a home improvement project. Not too long ago, he asked me to go with him to his favorite store. So we headed down the road where all the big box home improvement stores are in his hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan, but that’s not where we ended up.

MG: “Just about anything I need, my first stop is always a re-use center. My favorite is, of course, the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. Today I’ve gotta find a– a, uh– what do you call them? A sander, a hand sander, a belt sander?”

Matt turned to Jackie Hermann who manages this ReStore. And she pulled a case from the shelf in back.

JH: “This absolutely beautiful Porter Cable professional random orbit sander with dust collection.”

MG: “This is gorgeous. This is exactly what I need. And how much is this?”

LG: “Looks like it’s never been used.”

MG: “Almost new condition. $35.00. And it’s used material that’s not going to a landfill or sitting in somebody’s basement not being used. And here I get to use it and save money. This is another one of the things where we can debunk the myth that going green costs more.”

Okay, so Matt got a good deal and it extends the useful life of a pretty good tool. But the idea is to raise money for Habitat for Humanity to help get people into homes, so I had to ask Jackie about that.

LG: “How much of that money actually goes to Habitat for Humanity and building houses for folks?”

JH: “We have a 12% administrative overhead, so 88-cents on every dollar into a habitat home.”

There are about 600 of these ReStores across the nation. The administrative overhead varies a bit from store to store, but the money raised at each store goes to homes in that store’s local area.

Jackie says, for her area, that’s meant a bit of a shift for Habitat for Humanity. You might have heard, in Michigan there are a lot of foreclosures.

JH: “We’re not building brand-new as much. We are buying foreclosed houses that are already existing in blighted neighborhoods, and we are rehabbing them and making it livable and improving the neighborhood.”

LG: “You’re recycling houses.”

JH: “We are! We’re recycling houses also. So, when Lowe’s, for instance, donated a large quantity of items, we kept a bunch aside for construction. They come and they look though and say what they can use, and then those items are set aside for them. And then as they need them, they use them.”

And anything left over is sold in the ReStore. It’s donations that make ReStore work. It might be overstock from places like Lowe’s or from local contractors. It could be people who are moving or retiring or just don’t need an appliance any longer. They might have extra cabinets, or carpeting, or a perfectly good sink they don’t need.

JH: “The proverbial kitchen sink. Lots and lots and lots of toilets. Light fixtures, flooring, doors, windows, fasteners.”

MG: “Lester, let me show you some of the stuff they’ve got here. My wife and I spent months looking for a really high-quality, affordable, high-efficiency, front-loading washer. This is a front-loading washer and dryer. (taps on appliance) In fact, this is the same model that we bought. We paid $600 for ours. Here, at the ReStore, it’s $200. And Jackie, how do we know that this works?”

JH: “Everything’s been tested. And, it’s guaranteed for two to three months – I’m really not picky about that.”

Some things are used, some are new. It all works.

Matt Grocoff with Greenovation.TV says it keeps stuff out of the landfill, it means perfectly good building materials and appliances for home improvement projects, saves resources, and raises money to help people get into a home.

MG: “It’s a win-win across the board.”

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Interview: Climate Affecting Fish and Game

  • The National Wildlife Federation is concerned about the nation's fish and game species being impacted by climate change. (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

People are beginning to notice the effects
of climate change – especially people who
get out in nature a lot. Hunters and anglers
with the National Wildlife Federation recently
released a list of some of the game and fish
species that are at risk due to climate change.
Lester Graham talked with one of the members
of the group:

Transcript

People are beginning to notice the effects
of climate change – especially people who
get out in nature a lot. Hunters and anglers
with the National Wildlife Federation recently
released a list of some of the game and fish
species that are at risk due to climate change.
Lester Graham talked with one of the members
of the group:

Lester Graham: Kathleen Law in an angler, a member of the National Wildlife Federation, a former member of the Michigan Legislature, and a retired research scientist. First, what kind of game and fish, besides polar bears and penguins, are at risk because of climate change?

Kathleen Law: Well, everything that nests in the water or tries to have a fishery involved. It is affecting our national and our local bird, deer, the population, the habitat.

Graham: I guess that’s the question, though – how do we know that it’s not something else at work? How do we know that it’s climate change? And, of course, the skeptics will say, ‘how do we know it’s man-caused changes to the climate?’

Law: Well, we can continue being in a state of denial, and wonder where everything went, or we can get ahead. It’s not important to me who’s causing it, it’s, ‘what can I do to help?’

Graham: The US House has passed climate change legislation, the Senate is debating a version. Will the policies in those bills be enough to save some of these fish and game species you’re worried about?

Law: It’ll give us a chance. Without a concerted, willful effort, we have a very limited chance. So, there are things that we can do, that we must do, as a people who want diversity, who want to fish, who want to eat – I like venison. So what do we do to protect that resource and, and in a positive way? Which is the education and resource restoration, I think, is probably the best way to start.

Graham: Opponents of climate change legislation worry a cap-and-trade carbon reduction scheme will cost the economy too much. They don’t want the US to be put at a competitive disadvantage. Will the concerns of hunters and fishers sway any members of Congress to actually support climate legislation, if they believe it’s a jobs killer?

Law: Well, it will certainly be a consideration. The hunters and fishing folk are your constituents, they’re your neighbors, they’re your family. You can look at that, ‘it’s a job killer.’ So is climate disruption a job killer. So, how do we create new jobs? Well let’s get people out planting marsh grass. Let’s, you know, something positive. Something that people can do that makes a difference for them and their neighborhood and their community. That’s positive. That’s hope. We gotta give them hope.

Graham: What is the National Wildlife Federation doing in Washington to affect the debate about climate change?

Law: Well, they have flown in a large contingent of just people who are hunters and fishers and who have represented people in the constituencies to come in and talk to the Senators. Our hunters and fishing people – consider them sentinels. They’re out there in November, hunting ducks. They’re out in April, standing in the water, fishing. These are sentinel people, and to pay attention to what they’re saying is very important, vital, and that’s what we did in Washington DC.

Graham: Kathleen Law is a retired research scientist, a former member of the Michigan legislature, and working with the National Wildlife Federation as part of an effort to save fish and game species the group says is at risk because of climate change. Thanks very much.

Law: Thank you.

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Furry Critters and Chanel No.5

  • Jeff Wilson and Dan Haskell are trapping pine martens in Minnesota for relocation to northern Wisconsin. (Photo by Barbara Jean Johnson)

There are places where some wildlife
that once thrived, are now gone. In
Wisconsin, the Pine Marten has been
wiped out. The shy animal looks a bit
like a ferret. Pine Martens are members
of the weasel family. Barbara Jean Johnson
went out with researchers to see how
they’re bringing Pine Martens back to
northern Wisconsin:

Transcript

There are places where some wildlife
that once thrived, are now gone. In
Wisconsin, the Pine Marten has been
wiped out. The shy animal looks a bit
like a ferret. Pine Martens are members
of the weasel family. Barbara Jean Johnson
went out with researchers to see how
they’re bringing Pine Martens back to
northern Wisconsin:

You probably have never seen a pine marten. But I’m spending the day with two guys who spend weeks at a time looking for them. They work for the Wisconsin DNR. We’re actually in a county in northern Minnesota. We’re crammed into a Ford Ranger pickup, driving on the back roads to check trap lines. We’re looking for Pine Martens in Minnesota that will be released in northern Wisconsin.

Pine Marten’s were wiped out or extirpated in Wisconsin over the last hundred years. The Marten’s were in trouble once European settlers moved in. A combination of forest fires reduced animal habitat. Already too many of the animals were trapped for their pelts. But then the Great Depression hit.

“Trapping was a valuable commodity. Fur prices were high and many farmers and farm boys feed their families off their trap lines, and given that there’re weren’t many regulations, or limited regulations, and the high value, I don’t doubt that they over harvested, as well.”

That’s Jeff Wilson. He’s on the frontlines of this varmint capture mission. He and his partner Dan Haskell are seeking to right some of the past wrongs. Dan and Jeff are fun guys. They love the wilderness and they like to chat. The only downside to our little expedition is the smell that permeates the cab. I didn’t say anything, but it smells like skunk.

“Now you do admit, you do smell a little skunk essence in here, do you not? We do our best you know. we shower everyday, but we have been getting a few looks at the grocery stores and the places we’ve been shopping in your Grand Marais community. We hope we haven’t offended anybody.”

These guys us a skunk scent to lure Pine Martens to live-traps. They love the scent. And, they’re not the only ones. Apparently this skunk compound is used in the famous French perfume Chanel No. 5. Some of their colleagues have actually used the perfume as a lure when trapping lynx in Canada.

“However, Chanel No. 5 is like $90 an ounce. (laughs) So we don’t use it.”

Dan and Jeff don’t want just any kind of marten. They already have all the males they need. They want females. As we make our way from trap to trap we catch male after male – seriously, five males – and no females.

“My wife says it’s because they are smarter, but I think it’s because they have a much smaller home range – maybe a half a mile to a mile. In contrast, males cover around two to three miles. You’re just going to get more males. If you set a trap line and spread it out, there’s going to be about two or three times more possibility of a male capture than a female capture.”

(sound of animal screaming)

Catch six, and we’re all hoping it’s a girl. But they have to check to make sure. Marten’s may be small, but they’re certainly not known for being cuddly.

Jeff coaxes the marten head-first into the corner of a laundry bag. He puts a tight hold on its head while Dan peels back the bag to check the genitalia. Once they know they’ve captured a female, they sedate her and run through a series of basic tests to collect data. They also give each animal they take home a name.

“This one is obviously going to be called ‘Barbara’ after you, our colleague. (laughter) You’re a breath of fresh air – literally. (laughter)”

Yeah, they’re a little lonely out in the field. Not a lot of people spend much time with them – smelling a little like skunk and all. And they’re away from home for extended periods of time. But, all in all, they both enjoy what they do and find real meaning in it.

“We can restore what we’ve mismanaged in the past and it’s inspirational for me to see there’s no doubt there’s a niche for this animal there. This animal is a really important part of biological diversity and I’m really happy I can participate in that.” For The Environment Report, I’m Barbara Jean Johnson.

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Alaska Targets Polar Bear Protections

  • The governor is promising to spend another $800,000 for outside legal help and he’s putting money into next year’s budget for a new attorney in the Alaska Department of Law. That attorney’s only job? Dealing with endangered species. (Photo courtesy of the US Fish And Wildlife Service)

The Governor of Alaska plans to fight
the Endangered Species Act protection
of the polar bear. Rebecca Williams
reports the governor plans on hiring
more lawyers:

Transcript

The Governor of Alaska plans to fight
the Endangered Species Act protection
of the polar bear. Rebecca Williams
reports the governor plans on hiring
more lawyers:

Governor Sean Parnell is picking up where Governor Sarah Palin left off and suing the federal government over the polar bear. Polar bear protections could get in the way of drilling for oil.

He’s now promising to spend another $800,000 for outside legal help and he’s putting money into next year’s budget for a new attorney in the Alaska Department of Law. That attorney’s only job? Dealing with endangered species.

“We’re going to continue to take this fight to the mat to protect our jobs and our economy so that the ESA, the Endangered Species Act, is used to truly protect species and not lock up our opportunities here.”

The Governor says those opportunities are jobs and money connected to oil and gas drilling in the polar bear’s habitat.

Governor Parnell will have more than the polar bear to worry about. Environmental groups are also trying to get several other species on the endangered list – including three types of ice seal.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Forests, Carbon, and Critters

  • Some suspect that in Copenhagen, rich countries might agree to pay poor countries to stop cutting forests. (Photo by John J. Mosesso, courtesy of the National Biological Information Infrastructure)

World leaders are meeting in Copenhagen,
Denmark next month to begin dealing with
global climate change. A firm treaty is
off the table for now, but one idea they’re
thinking through is to preserve forests
and have them absorb heat-trapping carbon
dioxide. Shawn Allee reports,
some scientists want all this forest talk
to include animals, not just trees:

Transcript

World leaders are meeting in Copenhagen,
Denmark next month to begin dealing with
global climate change. A firm treaty is
off the table for now, but one idea they’re
thinking through is to preserve forests
and have them absorb heat-trapping carbon
dioxide. Shawn Allee reports,
some scientists want all this forest talk
to include animals, not just trees:

Stuart Pimm is a biologist at Duke University. He says in Copenhagen, rich countries might agree to pay poor countries to stop cutting forests. Pimm says that’s great but not all forests are equal.

“Some forests have more carbon in them than others, and some forests have more species in them than others.”

Pimm and other biologists say carbon pricing alone might mean carbon-poor forests get cut – even if they’re home to lots of animal species. They want negotiators to somehow tweak any climate agreement.

“So we should be encouraging countries not to burn their forests, but we should encourage them not to burn the forests that are so biologically rich.”

Climate negotiators could take up Pimm’s idea next month in Copenhagen.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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