Tag: habitats

Scientists to Issue Opinion on Missouri River

  • A day marker for barge traffic on the Missouri River. Environmentalists say there's not enough barge traffic on the Missouri to warrant the millions spent on maintaining the lock and dam system. Barge operators disagree. (photo courtesy of USGS)

A team of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service scientists is putting the final touches on its latest recommendation for the management of the Missouri River. The document, known as the Biological Opinion, will guide the Army Corps of Engineers in deciding how to control the river in a way that best protects endangered birds and fish. It’s the latest turn in a contentious battle that for years has pitted environmentalism against economics. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Kevin Lavery reports:

Transcript

A team of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service scientists is putting the final
touches on its latest recommendation for the management of the Missouri
River. The document, known as the Biological Opinion, will guide the Army
Corps of Engineers in deciding how to control the river in a way that best
protects endangered birds and fish. It’s the latest turn in a contentious
battle that for years has pitted environmentalism against economics. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Kevin Lavery reports:


The new Biological Opinion will be the second such document in three years.
The 2000 Bi Op – as it’s often called – advocated high water releases on the
Missouri each spring to cue the spawning season of the pallid sturgeon.
Reducing the flows in the summer, the Bi Op explained, would expose sandbars
to provide nesting grounds for two endangered birds, the interior least tern
and the piping plover.


That philosophy had been the view of many in the Fish and Wildlife Service,
who have studied the Missouri for more than a decade. But in early
November, the Department of the Interior announced it was replacing the
original scientific team to expedite the process of crafting a new outlook
for the river.


The decision unsettles environmentalist Chad Smith with the group American
Rivers. He feels the switch was an attempt by the Bush Administration to
silence those who offered a politically unpopular opinion.


“It seems to us like there’s an effort being made to try to find
someone to give the administration the answer that they want; that they don’t want to make flow
changes even though the science is crystal clear.”


The Fish and Wildlife Service team leaders deny that politics played a role
in rebuilding the scientific staff. The 15-member team in fact includes
seven who either worked on the 2000 Bi Op or have specific research
experience on the Missouri.


Commercial shippers that do business on the river are hopeful that new
thinking may lead to more growth for their industry. Navigation on the
Missouri has always been negligible, but industry officials say the past
summer was nothing short of devastating. A series of court decisions and
overturns led to a three-day drop in flow levels in August that ground barge
traffic to a halt.


Chris Brescia is President of the Midwest Area River Coalition 2000, which
represents barge operators. He says that incident punctuated their position
that unpredictable flow levels make the Missouri an unreliable
transportation mode:


“The conflicting court orders literally brought everything to a
standstill because it was unsafe for operators to quote freight rates and to
presume that they could navigate on the river when they didn’t know at what
point in time the court was going to reverse a decision to support
navigation.”


Central to the debate over how to manage the Missouri is the issue of
whether the economic value of river commerce is worth the cost of keeping
the river navigable. For the past decade, the Corps of Engineers has spent
just three million dollars a year on navigation. The Corps’ own data
indicates that navigation is worth about three times that amount each year.


One fully loaded 15-barge tow can carry more than 22-thousand tons, about as
much as 870 large semi trucks. Barge operators say having the river as a
viable transportation route keeps the cost of other shipping modes down.
But American Rivers argues that the two million tons of fertilizer, grain
and similar products barges carry each year on the Missouri fall far short
of what the Corps projected decades ago would be carried on the river.


For its part, the Corps of Engineers says whatever the cost-benefit ratio,
navigation is a congressionally mandated purpose it’s obliged to continue
paying for.


The draft of the Corps’ 2004 operating plan does not include the flow
changes environmentalists have demanded. Corps spokesman Paul Johnston says
his agency recognizes that those measures will not provide the biological
conditions the listed species need to survive. Instead, Johnston says the
Corps plans to spend more than 40-million dollars next year to accelerate
its habitat creation program:


“We’ll be looking for opportunities to acquire appropriate land
from willing sellers, and we’ll be looking at building tern and plover
habitat as well. So I’m really convinced we will reach a point where we can
have a much richer river than we have now and still enjoy the economic
benefits.”


The scientific team has until December 15 to complete its Biological
Opinion. The Army Corps of Engineers hopes to have its final operating plan
for the Missouri in place by March 1.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Kevin Lavery.

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Birdwalking With Ornithologist David Allen Sibley

All a birdwatcher needs, really, is a patch of the outdoors – or a window – and something to sit on. Patience and binoculars help. But there are certain skills that earn serious birders treasured sightings of rare or shy species, and a deeper understanding of bird behavior. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Martha Foley got an early morning lesson in the best practices from ornithologist and artist David Allen Sibley, author of the new series of Sibley bird books from the Audubon Society:

Transcript

All a birdwatcher needs, really, is a patch of the outdoors – or a window —
and something to sit on. Patience and binoculars help. But there ARE certain
skills that earn SERIOUS birders treasured sitings of rare or shy species, and
a deeper understanding of bird behavior. The Great lakes Radio
Consortium’s Martha Foley got an early morning lesson in the best practices
from ornithologist and artist David Allen Sibley, author of the new series of
Sibley bird books from the Audubon Society.


It’s a warm, sunny fall morning – fragrant and dewy. Cicadas tick and trill.
We’re walking along a nature trail in northern New York State – destination,
a new wildlife viewing platform on the verge between some woods and a
marsh. On our way, of course, David Sibley is looking up:


“Let’s take another look at those chickadees; they’re sounding more interesting.”


It’s a good time of year for birding, fall migrants are passing through. And
we’ve come to a good place – the trail takes us from deep woods to a bright,
sandy area that’s growing up to berries and birches. It looks like heavy
equipment was through here not long ago. Not pretty, but good for birders.


“It’s kind of ironic that birdwatchers end up going to all the disturbed habitats and
open fields and even garbage dumps, and then avoid the thousands of acres of
unbroken forest which is so important to the birds, but not much visited by
birdwatchers.”


Sibley’s Audubon bird books – five so far – exemplify a new generation of
field guides. They push past identification towards art. The illustrations are
highly skilled, detailed and lush, fitting inheritors of the Audubon name.
Sibley works from sketches made in the field, checking details against
photographs, specimens, and a lifetime of mental images. Now in his forties,
Sibley started drawing birds when he was five, says drawing and looking
gone together ever since:


“I don’t do art so much for art’s sake but for information. I do the sketches and
illustrations of birds to record details, to record information about them so that I can
remember it and pass it along to other people. So I’m able to draw other things but
unless I have some sort of information I want to record about it, it doesn’t hold the
same appeal.”


We’re in the woods again. Sunlight filters through a high canopy of maple,
cherry and hemlock. The group is strung out as we pick our way through the
underbrush. Walking is a little hairy, with uneven ground underfoot, and
our eyes on the treetops. But before long, we’re at the marsh, climbing the
viewing platform. Sibley sets up his scope, but most of the time, we’re just
looking around.


“There’s a blue jay in that half dead treetop in the distance.”


Sibley quotes Yogi Berra in his “Birding Basics” book – “you can observe a
lot just by watching” – but this is a practiced way of watching.


“Well things like that blue jay, I heard it before I saw it, but I think that one of the big
things, one of the big skills in birdwatching is watching for movement and seeing the
difference between a bird moving and a leaf falling. And also you get a sense of
where to look. Not necessarily where the birds are mostly likely to be, but where
you’re likely to see one. There’s not much point of looking through the deep shady
woods, because even if a bird is moving in there, you’re not likely to see it. But if you
scan the treetops and the edges and the open sky you have a good chance of seeing a
bird in one of these treetops.”


A sharp chip means a swamp sparrow somewhere. Sibley tries the universal
call, but it won’t show itself.


“You never know, it might have climbed up onto t twig somewhere and just be sitting
there in the sun looking at us right now.” (laughs)


“Bird watching takes a lot of time.”


“Yeah it’s a big commitment.” (laughs)


“Are we being too noisy?”


“No. Birds don’t mind noise that much. They’re much more sensitive to movement.
One of the worst things you can do is point at a bird. If you see a bird and say, ‘Oh,
look at that!’ and point, it will almost invariably take off and fly away or duck down
under cover. But if you don’t move you can shout, and say, ‘Look over here!'”


Most of the group getting this impromptu lesson have put in some serious
time with their own binoculars and field guides. There’s a friendly, but
ongoing competition of sitings and stories, and a sense that we should be
able to show Sibley something unusual – but we don’t. Neither do we cover
a lot of ground. From the marsh it’s a quick walk back to the parking lot. It
is, how it is – a simple success.


In the sense that we got outdoors early in the morning and we saw a bunch of birds
that was a very successful birdwalk. A birdwalk is really a birdwatch more than a
walk. And I tend to go very slowly when I’m birdwatching.


For the Great Lakes radio Consortium, I’m Martha Foley.

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The Polemics of Rodents

November 4th is Election Day. Voters throughout the region will choose their mayors and city council members, maybe support a ballot measure or two. Basically, one vote can be the end result of a long argument about what matters most. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Julia King thinks the democratic process would be a whole lot easier if we were all a little less… human:

Transcript

Nov. 4th is Election Day. Voters throughout the region will choose their mayors and city council
members, maybe support a ballot measure or two. Basically, one vote can be the end result of a
long argument about what matters most. Great Lakes Radio Consortium Commentator, Julia
King, thinks the democratic process would be whole lot easier if we were all a little less human.


Things would be so much simpler if people were like – hamsters, or jackrabbits, or snails.


The point here being that if our species were a little more uniform – the way most other species
are – we’d have an easier time with politics.


Seriously, think about hamsters: they like exercise wheels, sleeping during the day, and sunflower
seeds. They don’t like cats. They don’t like pokey little kid fingers in their eyes and they don’t
like bright light. There’s not a lot of controversy in the hamster kingdom because they all pretty
much have the same likes and dislikes. It would be easy developing a policy that hamsters could
really rally around. Can’t you just see their little signs: “More Plastic Tubing!” and “We Heart
Sunflower Seeds!”


But people, oh my goodness, just look at us: some guy likes mountains and some woman wants
the ocean. One kid is quiet and shy and loves butterflies. Another is loud and fast and wants to
play hockey.


We have no set habitat, or diet, or demeanor. Some of us run from a fight and others of us go
looking everywhere for one. There are humans who want to talk everything through, who believe
it’s a civic duty to explore a public policy. And there are others who’d really rather focus on
something, more pleasant, less potentially explosive, like which European woman will fall for the
latest Joe Millionaire .


There are certain needs we do all share – water, food, shelter, love. But even those things we
can’t quite agree upon. Is water for thirsty people, or for swimming pools? Is the food
vegetarian or barbeque beef? Is your shelter threatening a wetland eco system or is the darn
wetland robbing you of your dream home? Does love mean engaging in dialogue or leaving
people the heck alone?


It’s a cruel trick nature plays on our species. We’re tangled up together on this planet, some six
billion of us, with an infinite array of dreams and visions and yet there is just this one great big
ball on which we all live.


Politics brings out the best and worst in humans. We organize into factions that can build or
destroy, that can nurture the spirit or evoke the meanness that resides in all of us.


Unlike much of the animal world, we achieve our goals not through sheer instinct, but through
intellect and focused determination. We have to outthink and outwork our foes to prevail. Yet
win or lose, we’re still tethered to one another, forever sentenced to the toil of negotiation in the
face of endless human want.


Whew.


Sunflower seeds, anyone?

Gps Treasure Hunting in Public Parks

A new outdoor game has park officials worried. Geocaching is a high-tech scavenger hunt: one person hides something and records its location using its latitude and longitude. They post the coordinates on the Internet, and others are encouraged to go and look for it. Often these hidden treasures, called caches, are put in parks. Some park officials worry that the sport threatens plant and animal habitat. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Katherine Glover has the story:

Transcript

A new outdoor game has park officials worried. Geocaching is a high-tech scavenger hunt: one
person hides something and records its location using its latitude and longitude. They post the
coordinates on the Internet, and others are encouraged to go and look for it. Often these hidden
treasures, called caches, are put in parks. Some park officials worry that the sport threatens plant
and animal habitat. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Katherine Glover has the story:


A small tupperware container is hidden in the hollow of an old tree. The global coordinates of
the tree are posted on the Internet. Hundreds of individuals will download these coordinates and
then head out in search of this tupperware treasure. They will take one trinket from the
tupperware as a souvenir, and leave another in its place. This is geocaching.


Geocaching is an excuse to get outdoors. It’s a way to discover beautiful spots you might not find
on your own. And it’s a way to have fun using new technology. To find the hidden containers,
known as caches, you use a global positioning system, or GPS device.


Arol McCaslin is a park manager at Forestville Mystery Cave State Park in Minnesota. He
explains how global positioning systems work.


“There’s a bunch of satellites orbiting the earth, they relay a radio signal and your GPS unit
basically figures out where you are on the earth.”


GPS was originally set up for military use, but in 2000 the signal was made available to the
public. Within two days, the first geocache was hidden outside Portland, Oregon. Today there
are more than 67,000 caches hidden in nearly 200 countries. McCaslin discovered geocaching a
year ago when caches started turning up in State Parks.


“We weren’t quite sure what to make if it. We weren’t sure if a geocache hidden in one of these
areas would do damage to the resource, safety aspects, if these caches were being located at the
edge of cliffs or if they’d have to climb down – just a whole mess of stuff that we felt we had to
address before we could even think about letting geocachers into state parks.”


Minnesota was one state that banned geocaching in state parks shortly after learning the sport
existed. But in the next couple of months, they will begin issuing permits allowing a limited
number of caches to be placed once again within state park boundaries. Arol McCaslin was one
of three people who drafted the policy. He has also become a geocacher himself. We followed
him on a cache hunt just outside the park where he works.


“All right now, I’m looking at my GPS unit and it’s telling me we’re going in the right direction.”


McCaslin parked his truck a quarter mile from the cache. We strolled down a bike path along the
Rut River, following his hand-held GPS device.


AROL:
The Rut River is down on our right, highway and cliff is on our left. It’s hotter than heck today
and I’m sweating like a pig.”


Our search led us to a tunnel underneath the bike path.


“Well I would almost say that it’s through the tunnel here. (footsteps echoing in the tunnel) Oh,
this is cool, isn’t it? It’s actually cool in here!”


Once through the tunnel, McCasslin climbed up some rocks to look for the cache, but had a hard
time finding it.


We’ll return to his adventures in a moment, but first let’s look at how other states are handling
geocaching. In Wisconsin, some fans of the game formed the Wisconsin Geocaching
Association. T hey are working out their own geocaching policy with the Wisconsin DNR. Ken
Braband is President of the group. He says not everyone understands what geocaching is all
about.


“I think there are a lot of misconceptions on the part of some park officials. We knew that if we
wanted to keep from happening in Wisconsin what has happened in other states such as
Minnesota, where they’ve banned it in state parks, we needed to be proactive and work with our
local parks managers and let ’em know what geocaching is all about, let ’em know the value of it
for them.”


VOICE:
Braband says geocaching is a great way to draw more people into the parks. The majority of
geocachers, he says, enjoy nature and want to protect it. His group and similar groups around the
country promote responsible geocaching. Bryan Roth, who helps run the main geocaching
website, gives an example of what that means.


“You know, we’ve got a policy that’s called cache in, trash out. We encourage geocachers when
they go out geocaching to bring a trash bag and pick up some trash on the way out and leave the
park a little bit better than it was when you found it.”


Roth’s website is where people can post or download the coordinates of where different caches
are hidden. The website, geocaching.com, provides guidelines for hiding caches in ways that
won’t threaten the safety of the environment or of other geocachers. People are encouraged to ask
for permission before hiding caches in parks. They are also asked to remove caches if heavy
traffic starts to wear a trail to a spot where a cache is hidden.


“It’s more likely on this side of the tunnel than the other side (crunching grass in background)
Look out, I’m coming down here, no telling how quick!”


Back on the geocaching trail with Arol McCasslin, he was unable to find the cache near the
tunnel under the bike trail, but he was successful in finding another cache a quarter mile down the
river.


“Right now in the cache there’s, it looks like there’s some kind of decal, we’ve got all kinds of
pens, we’ve got a little, an NFL trading card with Moe Williams on it.”


He noted his success in the cache’s logbook and later plans to get more information from the
website and go back for the cache he missed.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Katherine Glover.

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States Say Feds Falling Short on Invasives

State officials say the federal government is failing to do enough to stop invasive species of plants and animals from damaging the environment and the economy. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

State officials say the federal government is failing to do enough to stop invasive species of plants
and animals from damaging the environment and the economy. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


The investigative arm of Congress, the General Accounting Office, surveyed state officials about
invasive species, the non-native plants and animals that sometimes stow away in shipments to the
U.S.


Many of the pests get loose in the wild and do a lot of damage, such as the zebra mussels that are
harming the ecosystems of lakes and rivers and emerald ash borers that are killing ash trees.


State officials say there are gaps in federal legislation, leaving no money or no requirements to
control the invasive species that have been here for a long time. State officials also say that
international trade agreements can make it difficult to regulate products that might harbor
invasive species because the trade agreements don’t address the problem.


The end result is often cheap imported goods that don’t consider or factor in the cost of the pest
that can be brought in with the cheap goods. Some state officials also noted that it would be more
effective to prevent the species from getting here in the first place instead of fighting them later.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

Army Corps and Enviros Spar Over River Levels

Court battles over the Missouri River have subsided… for now. The debate has focused on whether the Corps of Engineers should drop water levels to protect endangered species… or keep a normal flow to ensure barges would be able to ship cargo. In the end… levels went down… but not for nearly as long as courts had ordered. And as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tom Weber reports… this summer’s fight might just be the first battle in a war over the river’s management:

Transcript

Court battles over the Missouri River have subsided… for now. The debate has focused on
whether the Corps of Engineers should drop water levels to protect endangered species… or keep
a normal flow to ensure barges would be able to ship cargo. In the end, levels went down, but not
for nearly as long as courts had ordered. And as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tom Weber
reports, this summer’s fight might just be the first battle in a war over the river’s management:


On paper, the Corps of Engineers lowered the Missouri River this summer because of three
things: The piping plover and the least turn, two birds hat nest on sandbars, and the pallid
sturgeon, a fish that lays eggs in the shallow water.


Lawsuits by environmental groups like Chad Smith’s argued having too much water flowing in
the summertime disrupts and essentially washes away those nesting areas.


But Smith, who’s with the group, American Rivers, says the issue is much larger than two birds
and a fish…


“What we’re trying to do is to restore some semblance of the river’s natural flow, along with a lot
of habitat and try to make the Missouri River look and act more like a river. Right now it’s
managed like a ditch and it looks like a ditch.”


Smith says years of management by the Corps of Engineers – building dams and levees and
controlling river flows – have made river depths fairly consistent. But he says, really, that’s just
not how rivers work.


“You would have snow melt and rain coming into the river in the springtime, increasing the
flows, and then throughout the rest of the year, particularly during the hot summer months, the
levels would be very much lower, and that’s the kind of natural dynamic that fish and wildlife
adapted to.”


And so when a federal judge in Minnesota told the Corps of Engineers to lower water levels on
the Missouri, it was an attempt to get the river back to its natural ebb and flow. The court order
was for a four-week drop in levels, but the Corps only lowered the water for three days towards
the end of the endangered species’ nesting periods.


But even those three days upset business interests along the river, particularly the barge industry.
Towboats can be seen pushing barges up and down the Missouri River between Sioux City Iowa
and St. Louis. A group of politicians and business leaders, in fact, recently met at the Gateway
Arch in St. Louis to criticize the judge’s order. It’s actually the Mississippi River that passes in
front of the Arch, but because the Missouri spills into the Mississippi just north of St. Louis, the
group noted that lowering one would lower the other. And Missouri Senator Jim
Talent says that has a negative effect on jobs and the local economy.


“When that river goes down the barges can’t move. We’re inhibiting barge traffic already and if
this continues it’s going to stop. And we really need to step back from the brink of an action that’s
really just unreasonable and being forced on us by an extreme interpretation of the law by the
courts.”


Congresswoman JoAnn Emerson, whose district borders the Mississippi, wonders why the
Endangered Species Act that essentially won the lawsuit to lower levels is of higher importance
than people’s livelihoods.


“My mandate in Congress is from the people up and down the Mississippi River, people from my
Congressional district. My mandate isn’t from the piping plover or the least tern or the pallid
sturgeon.”


The debate over the Missouri River might have been moot if not for one other factor: A drought
has plagued parts of the Midwest for more than a year and made the rivers even lower.


A few days after the group met at the Arch, the Mississippi River got too shallow for any barge
traffic and closed for a weekend. Having cargo just sitting there, not getting to market, cost the
economy a million dollars a day by some estimates.


Barge groups blamed the lowering of the Missouri; environmental groups blamed the drought.
Barge traffic is moving again and the nesting season is over for the endangered species named in
the lawsuit. But the fight is far from over as both sides appear ready for another round. Once
again, Chad Smith with American Rivers.


“We’re prepared to stay in court for as long as it takes if the Corps is going to continue to be
obstinate about this. The Corps is now on notice through the court actions this summer that these
things are serious and they can’t hide from them.”


For its part, the Corps has said it will work with other government agencies, namely the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service, to come up with a plan for managing the river for both wildlife and the
barges in time for next year. But it has said that before, and the two sides seem just as
far apart as they’ve ever been.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tom Weber.

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New Zoo Exhibit Connects Visitors to the Wild

  • The Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago is opening a new exhibit that immerses visitors in African habitat. Although these kinds of exhibits have been around for a while, this is a particularly important one because the Lincoln Park Zoo is one the nation's oldest and most visited zoos.

One of the nation’s oldest and most visited zoos has opened an exhibit that takes visitors on a virtual trip into the jungle and onto the savannah. The goal is to give people a better idea of what kind of habitats animals need and why it’s so important to save those wild places. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports on an African Journey that starts in a big city:

Transcript

One of the nation’s oldest and most visited zoos has opened an exhibit that takes visitors on a
virtual trip into the jungle and onto the savannah. The goal is to give people a better idea of what
kind of habitats animals need and why it’s so important to save those wild places. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports on an African Journey that starts in a big city:


The Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago is almost always a busy place. Three-and-a-half million people
visit it each year. For years, the Lincoln Park Zoo, like many other zoos, displayed its animals in
groups of like animals. Big cats in one area… primates in another… birds in yet another. But a
new exhibit, the Regenstein African Journey, groups animals by geography rather than by
taxonomy.


Kevin Bell is Lincoln Park Zoo’s Director. He says the new exhibit appears to be an African
jungle in some places… and the dry plains in others…


“We gutted the inside of the building and then rebuilt the inside. When we create new exhibits,
it’s artisans that come in and make the artificial trees and the rock-work all look real and paint the
lichens on the rocks and what-not. So, it’s a very complicated long process and a very expensive
one.”


The zoo spent 25-million dollars renovating the building. Now that it’s finished, visitors are
encouraged to suspend disbelief for a moment and visit wild places in Africa.


Monkeys sit in trees overhead. Birds are loose with the people. Pygmy hippos are viewed above
and below the water line. And giraffes roam with antelopes and ostriches. For visitors, it’s a
unique perspective on animal interaction. For the animals… it’s a more natural setting.


Robyn Barbiers is the General Curator at Lincoln Park Zoo. She says it’s not the same as being
loose in the wild, but the habitat created for the captive animals is a little closer to the habitat that
is their natural home.


“So, these exhibits provide the space, the shelter, the hiding spots, the feeding spots, the social
aspects that the visitors like to see and that the animals need.”


Not only are the animals grouped together with other compatible species, but in a controlled way.
Barbiers says animals not so compatible are put near each other.


“We introduced the wild dogs and the wart hogs to their exhibits yesterday – side-by-side.
They’re not in together, but it’s predator and prey. But, these animals were born in captivity.
There was some excitement, but I don’t know if they really recognized each other as predator
and prey.”


The Lincoln Park Zoo’s African Journey is the latest in a trend among zoos called immersion
exhibits. It enriches the animals’ lives and immerses the visitors in the environment to give them
a better idea of how the animals live.


Jane Ballantine is a spokesperson for the American Zoo and Aquarium Association. She says
zoos have always entertained, but more recently, zoos have seen their role as one of educating
people about animals that are threatened by habitat loss.


“We want them to think about those conservation issues and how things are all interconnected,
but while having a good time. We’re not there to lecture. We’re there to show and showcase and
get people to have these experiences and realize ‘Wow! This is what it’s really like and we should
care about this.'”


And the hope of zoos is that these new exhibits will do a better job of that than simply displaying
wild animals in a cage.


Lincoln Park Zoo Director Kevin Bell says this new exhibit was a huge effort toward that goal…


“So, hopefully, by doing these more immersion exhibits, people get a sense of how exactly the
animal relates to its environment, what its needs are and what it’s going to take to save that
species, long term.”


The Lincoln Park Zoo’s African Journey just opened to visitors and admission to the Chicago zoo
is free.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

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.

States Tackle Wetlands Protection

In response to a 2001 Supreme Court ruling, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers say they will remove Federal Clean Water Act protection for small wetlands that are considered “isolated” from larger waterways. That leaves it up to the states to decide whether or not to protect them. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Corie Wright has more:

Transcript

In response to a 2001 Supreme Court ruling, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers say they will remove Federal Clean Water Act protection for small wetlands that are considered “isolated” from larger waterways. That leaves it up to the states to decide whether or not to protect them. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Corie Wright has more:


Environmentalists say small, isolated wetlands are crucial to local ecosystems. They filter soil
pollutants, prevent erosion, and provide a habitat for fish and wildlife. But the Bush
administration’s plan to redefine wetlands protection could leave twenty percent of the nation’s
wetlands unguarded.


Critics say the move would benefit homebuilders and other developers, who have long
complained that federal agencies have over-extended the Clean Water Act.


Julie Sibbing is a wetlands policy specialist with the National Wildlife Federation. She says if
states try to protect these wetlands themselves, they’ll meet opposition from the same interests
that lobbied to limit federal wetlands protection.


“Even if state wetlands were protected all along for the last 30 years under the Clean Water Act, it’s still
very politically difficult for states to change their own laws – that will bring a lot of opponents of
regulation out of the woodwork.”


Despite those difficulties, legislators in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Minnesota have all
pushed for tighter wetlands protection. So far, Wisconsin is the only Great Lakes state to pass a
bill protecting areas no longer covered by the Clean Water Act.


Michigan is one Great Lakes state in the process of trying to preserve wetlands that fall through
the regulatory gap. Under Michigan law, isolated wetlands smaller than five acres don’t qualify for state
protection.


State Senator Paul Condino is championing a bill to preserve those areas. He says it’s
up to the state to protect Michigan’s public wetlands.


“I don’t think President Bush and the folks in office on the federal level have any sense that
they’re going to go out to create further safeguards. Michigan has lost an estimated 5.5 million acres
of wetlands, or almost 50% of its original wetland heritage. That’s significant.”


But the National Wildlife Federation’s Julie Sibbing says it will be an uphill battle for any state to
pass regulation.


“They’re being left with pretty large gaping holes in their own state water quality statutes, and at
a time that couldn’t be worse. Many state governments are really reeling from budget deficits, so
right now is just a really hard time for them to step into that breach.”


Sibbing says her group is pushing for a congressional bill that would slightly modify the Clean
Water Act so the EPA can once again protect smaller isolated waterways.


But she says the bill is certain to meet stiff opposition from House Republicans. Sibbing says if
the bill doesn’t pass, it’s unlikely states can shoulder wetlands protection on their own.


And that means that small, isolated wetlands could be left out to dry.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Corie Wright.

Biologists Launch Society to Save Sturgeon

Biologists from seven countries are banding together to protect a large, ancient fish. Earlier this month, scientists launched what they call the “World Sturgeon Conservation Society.” The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Patty Murray has more:

Transcript

Biologists from seven countries are banding together to protect a large,
ancient fish. Earlier this month/last month (March) scientists launched what they
call the “World Sturgeon Conservation Society.” The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Patty Murray has more:


Sturgeon are among the oldest fishes in the world. They’ve been around
since the pre-historic era.


But modern pressures are testing the fish. That’s why sturgeon biologists
recently formed the “World Sturgeon Conservation Society.”


Ron Bruch is a sturgeon biologist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural
Resources.


He says North American sturgeon stocks are fairly healthy. But Bruch says
that’s not the case in the Caspian and Black seas where the fish often wind
up on the illegal caviar market.


“The stocks there are on track to collapse in the next 15-20 years because
of poaching, problems with habitat and pollution. There’s a real need in
the sturgeon community for international help to pull that situation out
before it’s beyond repair.”


Bruch says members of the World Sturgeon Conservation Society will share
research that can help reduce illegal sturgeon harvest. One idea is to
raise sturgeon on aquaculture farms to offset the need for black market
caviar.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Patty Murray.