Keeping an Eye on Eagles

  • The bald eagle was protected by the Endangered Species Act for 40 years, but researchers are still finding toxic chemicals in the eagles' plasma. (Photo by William Bowerman)

The bald eagle came close to extinction
before strong measures were taken to help pull
it back. The eagle was protected by the Endangered
Species Act for 40 years. And the government banned
toxic compounds such as DDT that caused damage to the
eagles’ eggs. Bob Allen caught up with researchers
who are monitoring the health of the birds. They’re
finding the birds are still being exposed to toxic
chemicals:

Transcript

The bald eagle came close to extinction
before strong measures were taken to help pull
it back. The eagle was protected by the Endangered
Species Act for 40 years. And the government banned
toxic compounds such as DDT that caused damage to the
eagles’ eggs. Bob Allen caught up with researchers
who are monitoring the health of the birds. They’re
finding the birds are still being exposed to toxic
chemicals:


We’re on a steep, heavily wooded hillside about a mile above a
barrier dam on the Muskegon River in Michigan. The land is part of a private
church camp. So, human intrusion on the site is low. And the
pond behind the dam provides plenty of food for eagles rearing
their young.


Once every five years researchers are permitted to come here and
take young birds from the nest.


“Usually we try to keep people about a quarter mile away from the
nest. And that way we don’t have human disturbance that
would cause them to fail.”


Bill Bowerman is a wildlife toxicologist from Clemson
University. He first became part of this eagle survey as a grad
student at Michigan State more than 20 years ago, about the time
researchers began taking blood and feather samples.


Wildlife veterinarian Jim Sikarskie says eagles sit atop
the aquatic food chain, so any contaminants in the ecosystem
eventually show up in them:


“The contaminants that are in the plasma from the blood and
from the feathers then help us evaluate the quality of the water in
the area around the nest. So we do birds from different watersheds
every 5 years as part of the water quality surveillance plan.”


The nest is a tangled mass of twigs in an aspen tree swaying in a
strong breeze about 60 feet off the ground. As the research team
approaches, the female lifts off and begins to circle and squawk
just above the tree-tops.


They lay out syringes and test tubes on the ground. Walter
Nessen gets ready to climb the tree. He’s worked with
Bowerman monitoring sea eagles in his native South Africa.


Walter buckles into his harness and straps a pair of climbing
spikes to his boots. He has the kind of wiry strength and agility
that makes for a good climber. He prefers not to use gloves to
handle the eaglets because he relies on a sense of feel between
his hands and their legs:


“Immature birds, nestlings, are quite delicate because their
feathers are not hard-pinned. In other words, there’s still
blood circulating inside the feathers as it’s growing. One has
to be careful not to bend them or break them because they
will not develop further. That’s the most important thing.
The other thing is you need to take care the birds have big
claws. It’s one of the first things developing on the birds so
they can attack you and claw you and scratch you and that
kind of thing.”


Walter wraps his climbing rope, really a polyester-covered steel
cable, around the trunk of the tree, locks it into his harness and up
he goes.


First he checks nestlings to be sure they’re old enough and in
good condition before lowering them down in a special padded
“eagle bag.”


With young eagles on the ground, everyone becomes hushed and
businesslike. Bowerman writes down the eaglet’s weight and
other measurements. They’re four to five pounds with some
down-like feathers still clinging to them. Most prominent are
their dark beaks and yellow-orange claws.


Sikarskie carefully drops a cloth hat over an eaglet’s head to keep
the bird calm. Then, he talks a young grad student through
taking her first blood sample from the underside of a delicate
wing.


The two nestlings are examined for parasites. Then, they’re leg
banded, tucked gently back in the bags and hoisted aloft. They’re
out of the nest for maybe fifteen minutes.


Places like this, far upriver from the Great Lakes, were refuges
for eagles back in the DDT era. Eagles survived here because
fish couldn’t pass above barrier dams on the rivers and carry their
toxic burden with them, and Bowerman says the difference is still
noticeable today:


“If you live along the Great Lakes you still have higher levels
of PCBs. You still find DDE, which is the egg shell thinning
compound that caused the eagle’s decline in the first place. If
you’re in an area like this which is upstream of the Great
Lakes, there’s much less level in these inland birds.”


Eagle research in Michigan extends back 47 years.
Bowerman calls it the oldest continuous wildlife survey in the
world. It’s a record that documents the recovery of a species in
trouble, but sometimes the information has a more immediate
impact.


Bowerman says some years ago, tests on baby eagle’s blood
from Michigan showed a spike of an unknown chemical. Lab
tests found it to be from a product called Scotch Guard, a stain
repellent for fabric produced by the 3M Company.


When told about it, 3M hired Bowerman’s professor, John Geise,
to find out how widespread the compound was:


“John’s lab went all across the world collecting tissues of
different wildlife species. And they found it world-wide. And
that’s why 3M took scotch guard off the market.”


Bowerman worries that monitoring efforts will slack off when
bald eagles are off the Endangered Species list, and that new
contaminants will be missed. But he can’t help being inspired
by the birds’ recovery:


“Does it make you any more alive to watch that beautiful
eagle soaring around? And it’s really neat to see how many
there are now. So this is just spectacular.”


For the Environment Report, I’m Bob Allen.

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Rooster Becomes Symbol in Sprawl Battle

  • Matt Lehner owns a farm that sits between two condominium projects. His rooster has become a symbol for his community's fight against rapid development in the area. (Photo by Adam Allington)

Some communities are struggling to find the right balance between new development and preserving the farms and natural areas surrounding them. Some towns feel as though rapid development is out of control. Local residents sometimes feel as though they’re fighting big business to preserve their community’s way of life. Every once in a while, a champion for their fight emerges from the least likely of places. The GLRC’s Adam Allington reports:

Transcript

Some communities are struggling with finding the right balance of new
development and preserving the farms and natural areas surrounding
them. Some towns feel as though rapid development is out of control.
Local residents sometimes feel as though they’re fighting big business to
preserve their community’s way of life. Every once in a while, a
champion for their fight emerges from the least likely of places. The
GLRC’s Adam Allington reports:


Matt Lehner is a mechanic and a small scale farmer. He lives on his
family’s homestead built by his great great grandfather in the late 1800’s.
These days the only animals on the farm a few chickens and geese that
Matt raises as a hobby.


“I’ve got bard rocks, I’ve got Rhode Island reds, I’ve got mini chickens
called banties.”


In a strange twist of fate Matt’s rooster has a become a local icon of sorts
by simply doing what roosters do best.


(Sound of crows)


Located just in northern Michigan near the Village of Suttons Bay, Matt’s
farm sits smack between two big condominium projects sitting on the
Bay, a scenic area off of Lake Michigan. Developers have tried to buy
the farm for years, but the family is not selling.


The new residents of the condos didn’t appreciate the early morning
crowing of Matt’s rooster… or their crowing any other part of the day for
that matter. Rather than an audible reminder of the rural character of the
area, the rooster crowing was a perceived as a problem by the
management of the Bay View Development. So they tried to get a no-
farm-animal ordinance passed by the village council.


“They tried to go to the village meeting to get an ordinance against
chickens without even notifying me they were doing this and the village
told them that this farm is 150 years old and it precedes their jurisdiction
by at least 50 years.”


In other words, Matt’s farm was not only there before the condos… it
was there before the village, and that wasn’t the end of the story. When a
small article about the dispute was published in the local newspaper, the
Leelanau Enterprise, locals rallied around the roosters with
surprising tenacity. Letters poured into the Enterprise. Most of which
were critical of the condominium’s attempt to get a crowing ban. It was
almost like the chicken scratched the surface of a tension that had been
simmering for years. Some residents of the county have the feeling that
their home is gradually becoming swallowed up by developers with no
connection to the land or its communities.


Ashlea Walter is a business owner from the nearby town of Empire. She
says that the rooster issue represents a kind of irony that she sees
happening every day.


“Yeah, I think the sentiment is that there is a lot of development all over
the county that we see and I’m not anti-development at all, but what I’m
seeing is the irony of the development. The great thing about this area is
its agricultural history, it’s picturesque towns and its natural beauty but
then what is so wonderful about the area is what the developers want to
get rid of.”


The developers didn’t think it was that big of a deal. They weren’t trying
to change the community. They just didn’t want the rooster waking up
everyone.


Todd Demock is the construction superintendent for the Bay View
Development. He says that as far as the chickens are concerned he never
thought it would go this far.


“Apparently the roosters that were next door were making a bunch of
noise. It didn’t bother me I wasn’t paying much attention to it. One day
I came in and seen an officer here and Karen told me that she had to file
a complaint against it. So we kind of laughed it off and didn’t think it
would become a big deal.”


But it did become a big deal. As word traveled around the county, the
Suttons Bay rooster has become the hot topic at every local coffee hour,
beauty salon and town meeting. Most people just shake their head and
laugh, others are more animated.


And the chickens, well their life hasn’t got any easier. With their right to
crow already at risk, a fire recently claimed one of Matt Lehner’s coops.


Police Officer Burt Mead was assigned to investigate.


“My initial reaction was, due to the history and the problems that we had
investigated there before that there could be some kind of criminal
involvement there.”


Turns out, no one had in fact put a hit out on the chickens.


“The principle reason it burned was that he had put a heat lamp in there.
Some of the chickens were in there nesting and he thought they would be
more comfortable, because it had been cold the previous two nights. So
he put the lamp in there and it was a temporary fixture. We think that it
probably fell over, the fire started precisely where he had placed the
lamp and the damages spread from there.”


As far as the dust up between the Lehner Farm and the Condo
development, the two parties have smoothed things over a bit. Matt will
keep his chickens but has agreed to slaughter some of the noisiest
roosters…and the developers they’ve offered to replace his coop with a
custom built “chicken condo”.


But the roosters won’t be forgotten. They’ve become a symbol for what
some people see as their threatened way of life… and a bumper sticker
battle cry for keeping the developers’ influence on the community
cooped up.


For the GLRC, I’m Adam Allington.

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Report: Oil Price Spike to Hurt Big Three

  • Some researchers say that car makers risk future profits if they continue to make fuel-inefficient vehicles. (Photo by Gustavo Schonarth)

For the last several years, American car makers have seen their profits falling. Now, a new report says the Big Three will take even steeper hits to their bottom lines if the trend in higher gas prices continues. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush has this report:

Transcript

For the last several years, American car makers have seen their profits
falling. Now, a new report says the Big Three will take even steeper hits
to their bottom line if the trend in higher gas prices continues. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush has this report:


The authors of the report looked at potential impacts to the U.S. car
industry if gas prices go up. They found that if they go up, profits will
fall, and more jobs will be lost.


Walter McManus is with the University of Michigan Transportation Research
Institute. He co-authored the report and says it should serve as a wake up
call to American car makers.


“It shows them that it is costing them a lot more to sell the fuel-inefficient vehicles than fuel-efficient vehicles, that they are putting
jobs at risk and putting their profits at risk because they are unwilling to
accept that the world has changed.”


Representatives from the auto industry say they already offer many fuel-efficient models, but that overall, American consumers rank fuel economy
lower than things such as power, cargo space, and safety ratings.


For the GLRC, I’m Mark Brush.

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