Birds
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:
The January/February edition of World Watch, the journal of the
Worldwatch Institute, postulated that wild birds are the “canaries in the coal mine”
whose decline warns of forthcoming ecodisaster. The article cited studies finding that
1,000 of the 9,600 known bird species are endangered or threatened; 70% of known
species are decining in numbers; and 2,600 species are involved in international trade.
Under pressure to provide targets for hunters and faced with crashing
populations of most migratory waterfowl, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is consid-
ering lifting a ban on goose hunting along the Pacific Flyway. The ban was imposed to
protect the cackling Canada goose and the Pacific white-fronted goose, whose num-
bers dropped from 300,000 to 28,500 and from 500,000 to 93,900 during the 1980s,
but are now back up to 164,300 and 275,100, respectively.
Nine thousand volunteer bird-
feeders are monitoring seed preferences this
winter in a study coordinated by the Cornell
University Laboratory of Ornithology, of
Ithaca, New York, sponsored by the National
Science Foundation.
Truck farmers who lease land on
the Tule Lake and Lower Klamath national
wildlife refuges in Oregon have used six
restricted pesticides without permission for at
least seven years, possibly causing two major
bird kills, Portland Oregonian reporter Kathie
Durbin revealed in January––including
Disulfoton, Methamidophos, Parathion,
Terbufos, Permethrin, and Aldecarb.
Moving to protect the limited
remaining habitat of the endangered Bell’s
least vireo, whose numbers were severely
diminished by the brushfires that swept south-
ern California last fall, the Orange County
Water District and U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers on January 14 agreed to create a
124-acre willow forest for the vireos in the
vicinity of the Prado Dam. Then, on
February 2, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
announced the “critical habitat” designation of
38,000 acres, not counting another 9,600 acres
along the Santa Margarita River at Camp
Pendleton, which is protected by the U.S.
Marine Corps. A “critical habitat” designation
means no federal project may proceed on the
land without a review of the potential impact
on endangered species.
