Passenger Pigeons and Conservation

Martha in 1911. From Arbor Day and Bird Day (1922).

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the death of Martha, the last Passenger Pigeon. Martha likely hatched in captivity sometime in the 1880s and at some point landed in a small collection of Passenger Pigeons at the Cincinnati Zoo. In 1910, she became the last pigeon left in their collection, and by her death in 1914, she was the last known Passenger Pigeon in captivity or in the wild.

In truth, Passenger Pigeons had been extinct in the wild for some time. The last recorded sighting was a wild pigeon shot in Ohio in 1900. By then the species had already been scarce for about a decade.

This was all the more shocking because Passenger Pigeons had once been so abundant, with a total North American population numbering in the billions. Early ornithologists such as John James Audubon remarked on the vast migratory flocks that could take days to pass. The pigeons bred around the Great Lakes region in vast communal nesting colonies. As late as the mid-19th century, Passenger Pigeons were still abundant. However, changes in technology made it easier for market hunters to locate flocks and nesting colones and ship thousands of carcasses to cities for sale as food.

The rapid decline and extinction of the Passenger Pigeon that followed was one of several events that inspired the early conservation movement. Federal laws such as the Lacey Act of 1900 and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 were too late to help the Passenger Pigeon but have protected other birds since then. They, along with the Endangered Species Act, can continue to protect birds (and other wildlife) as long as their protections remain in place and are enforced. The anniversary of Martha's death should serve as a reminder that no matter how secure or abundant a species may appear, it can disappear rapidly under the right combination of circumstances.

Some links on Passenger Pigeons:

• The American Bird Conservancy names the Passenger Pigeon as their bird of the week.
• John Riutta has a review of Mark Avery's A Message from Martha.
• Mark Avery has his own essay on the occasion.
• Here is an account of the Passenger Pigeon's natural history and extinction.
• Audubon Magazine has another account of the species's extinction.
• The National Museum of Natural History has a rotating 3D image of Martha.
• There are discussions of the Passenger Pigeon in New Jersey at NorthJersey.com and mocosocoBirds.
• Rick Wright covers Martha's preparation as a museum specimen.
• Carl Zimmer covers the role of technology in the species's extinction (and in its slim chance at revival).
• Update: Here is also an essay written on the subject by Aldo Leopold.

Migration Hazards in the Mediterranean

Cyprus: A whitethroat, en route to winter grounds in Africa, is caught on a lime stick. © David Guttenfelder/National Geographic See more at the link.

Long-distance migrants pose complex problems for conservation. Such birds have far-flung breeding and wintering grounds and use multiple places to rest and refuel during migration. They may cross national, even continental, boundaries. A rapidly disappearing species may face threats at any or all of the places it visits. These threats may not all be of the same variety, and it may not be immediately clear which place poses the greatest hazard. In North America, we are familiar with the plight of the Red Knot, whose population is severely threatened because of two decades of overharvesting horseshoe crabs at migratory stopover points but which also might be affected by climate change on its breeding grounds. Loss of stopover habitat in eastern Asia may also explain the disappearance of most of the world's Spoon-billed Sandpiper population.

It seems that a similar situation has taken hold in the Mediterranean. Many birds breed in Europe and spend the rest of the year in Africa. While passing between those two areas, they must stop at multiple points around the Mediterranean. There danger lurks in the form of nearly unrestricted hunting, as Jonathan Franzen reports in the July issue of National Geographic:

Italian hunters and poachers are the most notorious; for much of the year, the woods and wetlands of rural Italy crackle with gunfire and songbird traps. The food-loving French continue to eat ortolan buntings illegally, and France’s singularly long list of huntable birds includes many struggling species of shorebirds. Songbird trapping is still widespread in parts of Spain; Maltese hunters, frustrated by a lack of native quarry, blast migrating raptors out of the sky; Cypriots harvest warblers on an industrial scale and consume them by the plateful, in defiance of the law.

In the European Union, however, there are at least theoretical constraints on the killing of migratory birds. Public opinion in the EU tends to favor conservation, and a variety of nature-protection groups are helping governments enforce the law. (In Sicily, formerly a hot spot for raptor killing, poaching has been all but eliminated, and some of the former poachers have even become bird-watchers.) Where the situation for migrants is not improving is in the non-EU Mediterranean. In fact, when I visited Albania and Egypt last year, I found that it’s becoming dramatically worse.

This is not simply subsistence hunting. The most sophisticated operations capture hundreds or thousands of birds to sell at market. Captured falcons may retail for tens of thousands of dollars. Some hunt birds as a form of recreation, but without the bag limits that restrain recreational hunting in North America. Bag totals have gone up thanks to technological improvements:

Even as quail are becoming very difficult to find in much of Europe, the take in Egypt is increasing, due to the burgeoning use of playback technology. The best system, Bird Sound, whose digital chip holds high-quality recordings of a hundred different bird sounds, is illegal to use for hunting purposes in the EU but is nevertheless sold in stores with no questions asked. In Alexandria, I spoke with a sport hunter, Wael Karawia, who claimed to have introduced Bird Sound to Egypt in 2009. Karawia said he now feels “very bad, very regretful” about it. Normally, perhaps three-quarters of incoming quail fly over the mist nets, but hunters using Bird Sound can attract the higher flying ones as well; already all the mist netters in north Sinai are doing it, some of them in spring as well as fall. Hunters on Egypt’s large lakes have also begun to use Bird Sound to capture entire flocks of ducks at night.

Both mist nets and bird sound recordings are useful for conservation. Bird banders use mist nets to capture, record, and release birds as a part of long-term population monitoring. Bird recordings help birders and ornithologists learn to identify bird sounds, and playback can be used for scientific surveys, particularly of nocturnal species. Like other tools, though, they can be used for good or ill, and in this article we see their darker side.

Hunting around the Mediterranean is not the only threat to these birds. On their European breeding grounds, they face habitat degradation and pressure from poachers and egg collectors. Climate change may disrupt food availability. As Franzen's report shows, the solutions for protecting long-distance migrants will not be simple or easy.

Read the full article.

Mercury Poisoning in a Young Saltmarsh Sparrow

Saltmarsh Sparrow / Photo by Wolfgang Wander

Most of us are familiar with the hazards posed by mercury. In the compound known as methylmercury, it becomes a potent neurotoxin, for both humans and wildlife. When infants are exposed in utero, methylmercury causes a variety of developmental problems. Environmental mercury comes primarily from industrial sources, such as waste incineration and the burning of fossil fuels for energy. Burning coal for electricity is a particularly strong contributor. Mercury is aerosolized by these processes and then enters waterways via precipitation. Aquatic invertebrates and fish consume mercury through their diets. It is for this reason that pregnant women are advised to avoid fish, some of which store significant levels of methylmercury in their tissues.

Methylmercury has already been documented in multiple bird species, with particularly high concentrations in Wood Thrushes. Some birds such as raptors and kingfishers have fish as a mainstay of their diets. Songbirds consume mercury by eating invertebrates that spend the early stages of their life in the water (such as mosquitoes, dragonflies, and caddisflies) or by eating spiders that prey on those aquatic invertebrates. Mercury is associated with behavioral changes in songbirds and may skew sex ratios. Like in humans, mercury affects learning and memory in songbirds. It also hampers birds' ability to learn and sing songs.

A new study by Sheila Scoville and Oksana Lane adds to the evidence for mercury's harmful effects in songbirds. When a fledgling Saltmarsh Sparrow (Ammodramus caudacutus) was accidentally killed at a study site on Long Island, it was collected and analyzed for mercury poisoning. Feathers were collected and sent to the Biodiversity Research Institute to test for mercury exposure, and the sparrow's brain was analyzed at the Eastern Virginia Medical School. The fledgling showed some exposure to mercury, though not at the levels measured in adults at that study site (which overall were very high).

Based on feather samples taken from adult birds at the study site, it can be inferred that this fledgling's mother had high exposure to mercury at the time that she laid her eggs. This is analogous to in utero exposure in humans. In humans, in utero exposure can lead to brain abnormalities like Minamata Disease. This fledgling Saltmarsh Sparrow showed abnormalities in its cerebellum that would have similar effects on motor control and coordination. Birds with these sorts of defects would have trouble recognizing and escaping danger, thus making them more susceptible to predation and accidental deaths.

While this fledgling Saltmarsh Sparrow is only one data point, the findings have disturbing implications. Since mercury levels among adult birds were so high, many other young Saltmarsh Sparrows are presumably exposed to mercury at the time of egg formation. We cannot know how many of them have brain abnormalities like the one documented in this study, but it seems safe to assume that the problem is widespread.

Even without human interference, Saltmarsh Sparrows lead a precarious existence. At any time during the breeding season, their nests may be flooded by particularly high tides or destroyed by violent storms. Their breeding range is restricted to a narrow strip of saltmarshes along the Atlantic Coast of the United States. Their habitat is constantly under pressure from human encroachment, as more and more coastal areas are developed as beach resorts. Oil and chemical spills further degrade their remaining habitat. There is an additional threat from sea level rise due to climate change and subsidence. For these reasons, BirdLife rates the Saltmarsh Sparrow as a vulnerable species. Now we know that in addition to all these other problems, the species also faces a threat from ingestion of mercury.

The harm caused by mercury is not something conservationists can easily remedy. Shifting away from coal as a source of electricity would at least reduce the amount of mercury entering our waterways. What we can and should do is protect and maintain as much remaining saltmarsh as possible so that the sparrows that survive to adulthood will have enough habitat for breeding.

Thanks to Peter Doherty for alerting me to this study.

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Scoville, S., & Lane, O. (2013). Cerebellar Abnormalities Typical of Methylmercury Poisoning in a Fledged Saltmarsh Sparrow, Ammodramus caudacutus Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, 90 (5), 616-620 DOI: 10.1007/s00128-013-0974-y

Draft General Management Plan for Sandy Hook and Jamaica Bay

Yesterday the Star-Ledger reported that Gateway National Recreation Area is in the midst of drafting a new general management plan. This is the first I can remember hearing about this, although it is possible that I heard something about it previously and did not recognize its significance. The plan will set priorities for programs and maintenance at all the parks within Gateway. These include Sandy Hook in New Jersey and Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, Fort Tilden, Floyd Bennett Field, Fort Wadsworth, and Great Kills in New York, along with several smaller units. You can read the general management plan and its various alternatives and submit comments on Gateway's website.

Many of these parks were once part of New York City's harbor defenses, a role they played as recently as the Cold War. The remaining coastal fortifications are a unique historic resource that deserves to be protected and as open to the public as possible. Because these areas were involved in harbor defense, much of the land remains minimally developed, in contrast to adjacent parts of the metropolitan area's coastline. This means that the various parts of Gateway are also important wildlife areas. Finally, Gateway provides public access for the metropolitan area's beachgoers and related recreational activities.

Each of these elements is important. However, the first two are what make Gateway unique within the metropolitan area so they should get special emphasis in any future management plan. New Jersey has relatively few areas along its Atlantic Coast where natural dune communities and related ecosystems may flourish: Sandy Hook, Island Beach State Park, the Two Mile Beach division of Cape May National Wildlife Refuge, and the complex formed by Cape May Point State Park and the Nature Conservancy's Cape May Migratory Bird Refuge. Sandy Hook's beachfront, saltmarshes, and maritime forest make it an important stop for migratory birds during both spring and fall migration. They serve as breeding grounds for endangered Piping Plovers and other beach nesters and host numerous waterbirds in the winter months. Dense development of the rest of the state's coastline makes the few remaining natural areas all the more critical. Likewise, the historic structures of Fort Hancock (and elsewhere in Gateway) are a unique resource that should be maintained for future generations and as open to the public as possible. Some of the structures are in very poor condition, and I worry that if something isn't done to preserve them soon, that they will pass a point of no return and eventually be gone forever. For that reason, my preference is that the National Park Service adopt Alternative C: Experiencing Preserved Places as the basis for future management at Sandy Hook and elsewhere within Gateway.

There are some good elements within Alternative B and Alternative D that ought to be considered regardless of which alternative the National Park Service chooses. Under Alternative B, the park's historic structures would see the most adaptive reuse, something that could probably be done under any of the three action alternatives. This means that the buildings would retain their historic appearance but would be renovated for use as restaurants, lodging, or offices. Buildings that are actively in use are more likely to be maintained, so adaptive reuse could further the goal of maintaining Sandy Hook's historic character. Expanding transportation options is also an excellent idea. In particular, a shuttle linking points on Sandy Hook, the ferry terminal, and the closest NJ Transit train station could reduce traffic congestion and provide alternative ways for people to visit the park. Kayaking facilities could enhance the recreational experience as well as provide a vehicle for environmental education if naturalists led kayak tours around Sandy Hook. The hiker/biker trail on Sandy Hook is often very crowded (sometimes with packs of birders) so widening the existing trail or adding other trails could make it easier to get around the park.

However, such recreational facilities should not be expanded at the expense of Sandy Hook's natural ecosystems. I would not want to see expanded camping areas eat away at the unique maritime forest on Sandy Hook. I would not want to see expanded boating activities adversely affect the saltmarshes and coves along the bayside. Both Spermaceti Cove and the inlets at Plum Island (across from Lot B) are heavily used by waterfowl and other birds as migratory stopovers and throughout the winter. Any expansion of beach facilities, particularly at North Beach and including the addition of shade structures and concessions, should take care not to disrupt the breeding activities of endangered Piping Plovers and other beach-nesting birds.

The combination of natural ecosystems and historic structures make Sandy Hook unique, both in New Jersey and in the wider metropolitan area. I hope that the National Park Service will take care to preserve and enhance these resources. This post is based on a comment I submitted to the National Park Service yesterday. I encourage any birders that visit one or more of Gateway's park units to submit comments of their own. Comments do not necessarily need to be long or address every aspect of the alternative plans, but I do think it is important that the National Park Service hear from us.

Birds Hitting Windows in Philadelphia

Like in other cities, buildings in Philadelphia's Center City have reflective glass surfaces that fool birds so that birds die in window strikes. Two researchers that have been studying the problem estimate that about 1,000 birds die each year in their four-block study area on Market Street. Most of the victims are migratory songbirds such as Ovenbirds and White-throated Sparrows, but they also include American Woodcocks and Wild Turkeys. Possible solutions, like elsewhere, involve shutting lights off at night during periods of heavy migration and incorporating designs that make glass surfaces more visible to songbirds:

Films applied to the glass to make it visible are one idea. At Temple University, art students held a competition to come up with attractive and effective designs. The winning version resembled sheet music with the notes shaped like birds.

Another student cut translucent film into the shape of molecules for the chemistry building's windows.

A New York company, SurfaceCare, provided a film with small, almost imperceptible, black stripes for the Bear Country exhibit at the Philadelphia Zoo, which, like many other zoos, has a combination of glass enclosures and trees. The bird strikes stopped.

SurfaceCare owner Marc Sklar is looking at new technologies, including glass that has elements in the ultraviolet light spectrum, which humans can't see but birds can.

Christine Sheppard, a bird collision expert with the American Bird Conservancy, has been testing prototypes of bird-friendly glass at a bird-banding station near Pittsburgh. She said the results could be used to write guidelines for architects.

"Nobody wants to kill birds," she said. But, still, "nobody wants more rules and regulations." Her goal is to educate.

"There are lots of beautiful buildings that are very bird-friendly," she said. "You can be creative and do architecture that will win awards" and still not kill birds.

Recently, the national green building certification program - Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) - began a pilot program that gives buildings points for having bird-friendly windows.

"So-called green buildings . . . are never green to me, no matter what their LEED award, if they kill birds," Muhlenberg's Klem said.

Chicago and San Francisco require that new buildings and major renovations incorporate bird-safe elements.

Minnesota requires that all state buildings turn off lights during migration. Michigan's governor issues an annual proclamation declaring migration "safe passage" dates and asking that buildings remain unlit at night.

A year ago, Illinois Congressman Mike Quigley introduced national legislation, still pending, to mandate bird-friendly construction for federal buildings.

Reforming the USDA's Wildlife Services

Bobcat at Tule Lake NWR / USFWS Photo

Last week I linked to some important investigative reporting from the Sacramento Bee on the practices of the USDA's Wildlife Services program, which is responsible for controlling wildlife that affects agriculture. On Monday, the Sacramento Bee followed up with an article on suggestions for reforming Wildlife Services. There are some who argue that the agency cannot be reformed and should be abolished altogether. Under that view, the agency is too closely tied to agricultural interests, which provide much of the agency's funding, to move beyond the lethal control and inhumane practices that have characterized much of its history. Other approaches include banning specific practices, such as the use of explosive cyanide capsules and leg-hold traps.

One idea is to change the agency's focus from controlling native wildlife to controlling invasive species.

"We believe that current science does not support much of Wildlife Services' lethal control of native mammals, that it is wasteful and often counterproductive," Mares, the society president, wrote in a letter to the agency in March.

"Perhaps the primary emphasis … should be to control invasive, exotic species, a rapidly worsening threat to rare native species and ecosystems," Mares suggested in the letter.

Although Wildlife Services does some work to control nonnative species – such as wild pigs and nutria – Deputy Administrator William Clay would like to do more. "Invasive species have been recognized as a national problem for many years," he wrote in a letter back to Mares, "and was a focus of the symposium we sponsored in 2007 … to inaugurate our new invasive species research building.

"Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of the National Invasive Species Council … resources have not emerged," Clay added. "Thus we usually work on a small scale in response to specific complaints. We would welcome additional ideas for financial support."

This could be a more useful role for the Wildlife Services program, though I would not want to see the inhumane and wasteful practices of predator control transferred to invasive species control. Another idea is better education for field agents:

Recently, Niemeyer traveled to Washington, D.C., to share his concerns with agency managers. Asked what he would do if he were in charge, Niemeyer replied with a long email calling for better training and education in wildlife management, ethics and the humane treatment of animals.

"I would phase in college-trained wildlife personnel," he wrote. "Many (trappers) have a basic high school education … and only district supervisors like myself receive some specialized training while trappers were seldom considered."

He also called for less killing and more transparency....

He said employees in the West could learn from colleagues back East. "The eastern program is much more advanced," Niemeyer said. "They are dealing with disease surveillance, feral animals, including wild pigs and urban wildlife problems: rodents, deer, beaver, skunks, opossums, raccoons, etc., and give me the appearance that they are much more grounded in dealing with the everyday public in urban and farming communities.

"In contrast, I see the western program still hung up, primarily, with killing predators like foxes, coyotes, wolves, bears and mountain lions, not so much because these animals are problems but because they exist and are macho to kill and the 'western culture' encourages and demands Wildlife Services be funded and continue to focus on these species," Niemeyer said.

"I would downgrade predator control in the West to a corrective program and phase out the preventative program of thinning out coyote populations in the event that they might kill livestock in the future," Niemeyer added.

This sounds interesting and could point towards a positive role, as long as the inhumane control methods were ended or scaled back and fewer nontarget species were being affected. Nonlethal control methods are already being implemented with some success. One or more of the ideas included in the latest SacBee article could be a way towards better wildlife management. What is clear is that Wildlife Services should not be allowed to continue with what it has been doing.

Consequences of the USDA's Wildlife-Killing Program

Coyote at Tule Lake NWR / USFWS Photo

This week The Sacramento Bee is reporting on the results of its investigation into the wildlife-killing practices of USDA Wildlife Services. The report is in three parts. Two have already been published, and the third will run on Sunday, May 6. The articles are long and maddening but very much worth reading, as this is some excellent investigative reporting. The articles are based on interviews with past and present USDA employees, as well as outside scientists and documents obtained through FOIA requests. The article focuses on mammals since that is the USDA's primary target in the western states, but the agency's actions affect birds as well.

This federal agency originated in the early 20th century as a means to protect livestock from wolves. Since then its role has expanded to reduce all manner of wildlife impacts on agriculture such as blackbirds eating sunflower seeds. It also includes other missions such as protecting endangered species from predation and airplanes from bird strikes. That all may sound reasonable, but the reality is that Wildlife Services causes a great deal of collateral damage in the process, including killings of species of conservation concern.

In all, more than 150 species have been killed by mistake by Wildlife Services traps, snares and cyanide poison since 2000, records show. A list could fill a field guide. Here are some examples:

Armadillos, badgers, great-horned owls, hog-nosed skunks, javelina, pronghorn antelope, porcupines, great blue herons, ruddy ducks, snapping turtles, turkey vultures, long-tailed weasels, marmots, mourning doves, red-tailed hawks, sandhill cranes and ringtails.

Many are off-limits to hunters and trappers. And some species, including swift foxes, kit foxes and river otter, are the focus of conservation and restoration efforts.

"The irony is state governments and the federal government are spending millions of dollars to preserve species and then … (you have) Wildlife Services out there killing the same animals," said Michael Mares, president of the American Society of Mammalogists. "It boggles the mind."

One critical loss occurred two years ago when a wolverine, one of the rarest mammals in America, stepped into a Wildlife Services leg-hold trap in Payette National Forest in Idaho. It was the third wolverine captured in agency traps since 2004 (the other two were released alive.)

"Shot wolverine due to bad foot," the trapper wrote in his field diary, which The Bee obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

The collateral damage is not limited to wildlife; it includes pet dogs and people, sometimes even USDA employees. Even when the agency is successful in killing the target species, it is unclear that the killings are actually beneficial, either to agriculture or to the ecosystems. This is discussed in detail in part 2 of the series, which focuses on coyote extermination. And yes, coyote extermination is not a thing of the past. Over 500,000 coyotes were killed by the USDA between 2006 and 2011, but coyotes still prosper:

In Nevada, scientists found that when Wildlife Services began killing coyotes to protect deer south of Ely in 2004, the average coyote litter size jumped from one pup to 3.5. In 2007, one coyote killed by a Wildlife Services hunter in Nevada had 13 fetuses in its uterus.

Just how coyotes prosper amid persecution remains a mystery. But many believe they benefit from better dining opportunities that emerge over time as coyotes are killed and rabbits and mice begin to multiply.

"A lot of it comes down to nutrition and competition. When you have fewer animals (coyotes) on the landscape, you have more food available per individual. There is a ton of food on the landscape. Why not have a bigger litter?" said Stewart, the Nevada ecologist.

Coyote extermination is usually carried out either to protect mule deer or (more commonly) to protect livestock. However, the actual impacts of coyotes (and other wild predators) are probably exaggerated:

Wildlife Services spends about $30 million a year to protect livestock from predators – mostly coyotes. On its Web page, it says losses to predators top more than $127 million a year....

Like a crime scene investigator, Niemeyer journeyed into the field to inspect sheep and cattle that ranchers said had been killed by predators. Often, his verdict was not guilty.

"You start looking and you realize nothing killed this," said Niemeyer. "They died from a multitude of things: birthing problems, old age, bad hooves, cut by barbed wire. There were an awful lot of things attributed to predation that really were not."

Niemeyer is not the only former Wildlife Services employee to raise questions about agency practices. In California, biologist Mike Jaeger did, too, with studies in Mendocino County that showed most coyotes don't prey on sheep at all and those that do are the hardest to kill with nonselective traps and poison.

As one ecologist quoted in the article says:

"There is a widespread perception that predators are the root of all evil and I'm tired of it," said Stewart. "More often than not, if you have predation on a mule deer population, you're going to have a healthier population."

Many readers will not find the agency's actions surprising. I was already aware of the agency's existence and that it often killed non-target species, but the extent of the killings and the details of the investigation were still sickening. I can see a case for lethal control of wildlife under some circumstances, such as protecting the nesting areas of endangered birds or individual animals that cause repeated damage or kill humans. Reducing the numbers of large herbivores like white-tailed deer that have no remaining natural predators makes sense if they start affecting other species. However, the widespread and indiscriminate killing is unacceptable, especially when it results in the deaths of thousands of non-target animals. For that reason, I am glad that WildEarth Guardians has filed a suit to force the USDA to stop killing wildlife until it conducts a new analysis of the environmental impacts.

Species Missing Endangered Species Act Protection

Cerulean Warbler / Photo by Lana Hays

It is no secret that the Endangered Species Act gives incomplete protection to vulnerable species in the United States. Not all vulnerable species are listed, and even when a species is listed, a recovery plan may take years to create or lack adequate funding. A new study attempts to quantify just how many species lack Endangered Species Act protections.

A study - now published in Conservation Letters - has compared the ESA list of endangered species with the world's leading threatened species list, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.

The study has found that of the American species included on the IUCN Red List, 40% of birds, 50% of mammals, and 80-95% of other species such as amphibians, gastropods, crustaceans, and insects, were not recognised by the ESA as threatened.

This amounts to approximately 531 American species on the IUCN Red List that have not made the ESA protection list. These include bird species such as the critically endangered Kittlitz's murrelet (Brachyramphus brevirostris), the endangered ashy storm-petrel (Oceanodroma homochroa), and the vulnerable cerulean warbler (Dendroica cerulea).

"The ESA has protected species since its establishment in 1973, and it may have prevented 227 extinctions. However, the implementation of the ESA by successive US governments has been problematic, including poor coverage of imperilled species, inadequate funding, and political intervention," says study leader Bert Harris, a native of Alabama who is undertaking his PhD with the University of Adelaide's Environment Institute and School of Earth & Environmental Sciences.

"Vague definitions of 'endangered' and 'threatened' and the existence of a 'warranted but precluded' category on the ESA list are also contributing to the gap in species classification," he says.

Delaware Bayshore Is an Important Bird Area

New Jersey's Delaware Bayshore has now been designated as a Globally Significant Important Bird Area.

To achieve the “Globally Significant” label, [New Jersey Audubon] and National Audubon submitted years of annual shorebird and waterfowl survey data to a panel of nationally and internationally recognized experts. The panel found that four species were present in numbers that met or exceeded the quota required to trigger the “Globally Significant” designation: The Bayshore is a crucial stopover site for migrating Red Knots and Ruddy Turnstones, and provides critical winter habitat for large concentrations of Snow Geese and American Black Ducks. The survey data was collected in annual surveys by wildlife biologists from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP).

Stretching along approximately 50 miles of coastline, from Fairfield Township in Cumberland County to Cape May Point in Cape May County, the Delaware Bayshore IBA includes about 50,000 acres, much of which is protected conservation land, including 13 state Wildlife Management Areas and the Cape May National Wildlife Refuge....

Awareness of the Delaware Bayshore’s importance began to grow in 1982, when staff at the New Jersey Audubon Society began the first aerial shorebird surveys to quantify the number and species of shorebirds using the Bayshore. These aerial surveys were later assumed by the state Division of Fish and Wildlife, which has performed them annually since 1986. The state also performs the annual winter waterfowl surveys that led to the inclusion of American Black Ducks and Snow Geese in the “Globally Significant” designation....

Of the four species named in the Globally Significant announcement, the plight of the Red Knot and Ruddy Turnstone is the best known and lends a bittersweet note to the designation. While recent surveys show significant numbers of birds refueling at the Bayshore during spring migration (12,000 to 16,000 Red Knots and 17,000 to 37,000 Ruddy Turnstones), they are lower than numbers of 95,000 Red Knots and 80,000 Turnstones recorded in the early aerial surveys. A precipitous decline in these populations began in the mid-1980s, when horseshoe crab harvesting rose dramatically for use as bait. The horseshoe crabs’ eggs are essential food that allows these long-distance migrants to make it to their summer arctic nesting grounds to breed.

I am actually surprised that this area was not designated as an Important Bird Area sooner since the importance of the area for migratory shorebirds (especially Red Knots) has been known for some time. Much of the area is already protected, so I am not sure whether this designation will lead to further conservation measures.

Whimbrel Navigates a Storm but Gets Killed Anyway

Machi being fitted with satellite transmitter in August, 2009. Image credit: Barton Paxton

A few weeks ago, I mentioned a migrating Whimbrel that had successfully flown through the most severe portion of Hurricane Irene. There are other Whimbrels tagged by the same monitoring program at the Center for Conservation Biology, which follows the migratory paths of these distinctive shorebirds. Another Whimbrel, named Machi, recently navigated another tropical cyclone, this time Tropical Storm Maria. This story, though, does not have a happy ending for the bird, as it was shot and killed by hunters on Guadaloupe.

Scientists at the Center for Conservation Biology learned today that a whimbrel that they had been tracking via satellite for 2 years as part of a migration study had been shot by a hunting party this morning on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe (French West Indies).  The bird named “Machi” had just flown through Tropical Storm Maria and made landfall on Montserrat before flying to Guadeloupe.  Machi had been tracked for over 27,000 miles (44,000 km) back and forth between breeding grounds in the Hudson Bay Lowlands of Canada to wintering grounds on the coast of Brazil.  The bird was tracked on 7 nonstop flights of more than 2,000 miles.  During the spring of 2010, Machi flew more than 3,400 miles directly from Brazil to South Carolina.  Machi serves as an example of birds that interact with many landscapes and cultures throughout the year and a reminder of how international cooperation is required for their continued existence.

The center argues that this is a persistent conservation problem on Caribbean islands since many are not subject to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which governs the treatment of birds crossing international boundaries in North America.

Guadeloupe, Martinique and Barbados continue to operate “shooting swamps” some of which are artificial wetlands created to attract migrant shorebirds for sport shooting during fall migration.  It is estimated that tens of thousands of shorebirds continue to be taken annually by hunting clubs on just these three islands.  This practice is a throwback to more than a century ago when gunners hunted shorebirds throughout the Americas.  The Migratory Bird Treaty Act was passed, in part, to protect dwindling numbers of birds that migrate across country borders.  Operated as a French overseas department, both Guadeloupe and Martinique are part of the European Union and are not party to the Treaty.  Barbados, once a British colony is now an independent state and also not party to the Treaty.  The last Eskimo Curlew known to science was shot on Barbados in 1963.  Shorebird hunting within these areas continues to be unregulated to the present time. Conservation organizations continue to work toward some compromise that will reduce pressures on declining species. 

Worldwide, many shorebird populations are experiencing dramatic declines.  Most of the migratory shorebird species breeding in eastern North America and the Arctic pass over the Caribbean region during the late summer and early fall on their way to wintering grounds.  When they encounter severe storms the birds use the islands as refuges before moving on to their final destinations.  Hunting clubs take advantage of these events and shoot large numbers of downed birds following the passage of these storms.  During the 2009 and 2010 fall migrations, Machi did not stop on any of the islands but flew directly from Virginia to Paramaribo, Suriname before moving on to winter near Sao Luis, Brazil.  It appears that the encounter with Tropical Storm Maria caused the bird to stop on Guadeloupe.

This comes from the press release about the incident, which may be downloaded here.

Tracking map of Machi (2009-2011).  Image credit: The Center for Conservation Biology.

Update: It turns out that a second tracked Whimbrel was also shot there on the same day (pdf). BirdLife and other conservation organizations, including the Society for the Conservation and Study of Caribbean Birds, are calling for better regulation of hunting in the Caribbean to avoid killing species of conservation concern.

State of the Birds on Public Lands

Yesterday the Department of Interior released its third annual State of the Birds report. The government picked up this yearly tradition from Audubon and other organizations that release their own annual reports on bird conservation. These reports typically make use of citizen science data, such as the Christmas Bird Count, Great Backyard Bird Count, and eBird's database. This year's report, on bird distribution on public lands and waters, combines distribution data from the eBird database with a comprehensive database of publicly-owned protected areas.

The report focuses on how public lands and the agencies that manage them can assist bird conservation. It includes both federal and state-owned land. This is especially important for those 300 some bird species that have a majority of their distribution on public lands. It identifies several areas where public agencies should improve their holdings and management, particularly grasslands and eastern forests, both of which have far lower rates of public ownership than other habitat types.

You can read the press release, the key findings, or the full report. The latter two links are pdfs.

State of the World's Waterbirds

A new report from Wetlands International describes the current conservation status of waterbird species. The State of the World’s Waterbirds 2010 found that 47% of waterbird populations are decreasing, while 16% are increasing. One of the interesting (but unsurprising) findings is that the rates of change differ geographically.

The report shows how the status of waterbird populations is improving in regions where strong conservation legislation is implemented, such as North America and Europe.

However, the rate of decline of waterbird populations is increasing in all other regions without such instruments. The situation is especially alarming in Asia where 62% of waterbird populations are decreasing or even extinct.

“The combination of rapid economic growth and weak conservation efforts appears to be lethal”, said Ali Stattersfield – BirdLife’s Head of Science. “Waterbird populations are exposed to a wide range of threats, such as agricultural intensification, leading to the loss and degradation of marshes and lakes, as well as unsustainable hunting and the impacts of climate change”.

The status of long-distance migrant waterbirds is generally worse than of those remaining in regions with strong conservation measures. This highlights the importance of coordinated conservation measures across entire flyways from the breeding to the non-breeding grounds.

Among long-distance migrants like shorebirds, 70% of the populations are decreasing. Cranes are an exception, with stable or recovering populations thanks to active conservation efforts. You can read the full report (pdf) online.

Alaskan Birds with Beak Deformities

An unusually high number of birds with beak deformities have turned up around Alaska, according to the USGS. According to a statement issued by the agency, the birds most affected have been Black-capped Chickadees and Northwestern Crows.

In birds affected by what scientists have termed “avian keratin disorder,” the keratin layer of the beak becomes overgrown, resulting in noticeably elongated and often crossed beaks, sometimes accompanied by abnormal skin, legs, feet, claws and feathers. Biologists with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Alaska Science Center published their findings in this month’s issue of The Auk, a Quarterly Journal of Ornithology.

“The prevalence of these strange deformities is more than ten times what is normally expected in a wild bird population,” said research biologist Colleen Handel with the USGS, “We have seen effects not only on the birds’ survival rates, but also on their ability to reproduce and raise young. We are particularly concerned because we have not yet been able to determine the cause, despite testing for the most likely culprits.”

The disorder, which has increased dramatically over the past decade, affects 6.5 percent of adult Black-capped Chickadees in Alaska annually. Beak deformities in this species were first observed in the late 1990s and biologists have since documented more than 2,100 affected individuals. Increasing numbers of other species have also been observed with beak deformities throughout Alaska, British Columbia, and Washington. An estimated 17 percent of adult Northwestern Crows are affected by avian keratin disorder in coastal Alaska.

A variety of other Alaskan species have also been found with beak deformities, though not to the same extent as Black-capped Chickadees (pictured above) and Northwestern Crows (pictured right). An online gallery shows images of those two species, plus American Kestrel, Common Raven, White Pelican, Downy Woodpecker, Red-breasted Nuthatch, European Starling, Northern Flicker, Steller's Jay, Rough-legged Hawk, Red-shouldered Hawk, Red-tailed Hawk, Red-winged Blackbird, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Black-billed Magpie, Black-crowned Night Heron, Orange-crowned Warbler, and Clark's Nutcracker.

According to the USGS, beak deformities can have a variety of causes, so more research is needed. Possible candidates include pollution, poor nutrition, and diseases. Deformities have sometimes been traced to specific pollutants such as agricultural runoff.

To learn more, you can explore the USGS beak deformity website, which includes a section on how to help (if you live in Alaska or the Pacific Northwest) and links to articles the research team has published about the beak deformity problem. The two recent Auk papers are both downloadable at the last link.

A New Biodiversity Treaty

U.N. members finally agreed on a new treaty for conserving biodiversity.

The agreement, known as the Nagoya Protocol, sets a goal of cutting the current extinction rate by half or more by 2020. The earth is losing species at 100 to 1,000 times the historical average, according to scientists who call the current period the worst since the dinosaurs were lost 65 million years ago.

The new targets include increasing the amount of protected land to 17 percent, from the current figure of about 12.5 percent, and protected oceans to 10 percent, from less than 1 percent. The protocol also includes commitments of financing, still somewhat murky, from richer countries to help poorer nations reach these goals.

“We would have liked to see more ambitious targets in protected area goals and the financing,” said Glenn Prickett, the chief external affairs officer for The Nature Conservancy. “But the fact that they were able to reach an agreement is a big deal.”

The goals, 20 in total, are specific enough to be able to gauge whether progress is being made, he said. A previous and vague agreement in 2002 to substantially reverse the loss of species by 2010 failed to achieve that target.

The most significant change was breaking a nearly 20-year impasse over the issue of sharing the benefits of medicines or other products developed from plants or animals. Developing nations have long complained of exploitation by richer nations, and have been imposing stringent export controls on such material.

Whether this will be more successful than the previous protocol remains to be seen. Since the U.S. still has not ratified the Convention on Biological Diversity, it seems unlikely to ratify this protocol either, especially with the likely changes in Senate composition. Without U.S. support, it is hard to see this protocol meeting its goals, however well structured it may be. Still, even without meeting its concrete goals, it may serve a useful aspirational purpose.

This BBC article has a nice slideshow on biodiversity issues.

20% of Vertebrates Endangered with Extinction

According to a recent report by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), one-fifth of vertebrate species worldwide are threatened with extinction. The situation continues to worsen, as over 50 animals move closer to extinction each year, as measured by the IUCN's Red List. The hardest-hit areas are in the tropics, especially Southeast Asia. (Dark areas on the map at left show the highest numbers of endangered animals.) A high concentration of unique species combines with rapid environmental change to create a difficult biodiversity situation in Southeast Asia, eastern Africa, and the Andes in South America.

Even Southeast Asia's most iconic species—rhinos, orangutans, tigers, and elephants—face extirpation and in some cases total extinction. The Javan rhinoceros is down to some 40-60 individuals, none of which are in captivity.

But as far as type of species goes, nothing is worse than being a frog: according to the study 41% of the world's amphibians are threatened with extinction. In contrast, 33% of cartilaginous fishes, 25% of mammals, 22% of reptiles, 15% of bony fishes, and 13% of birds are threatened.

Highly-sensitive to environmental changes amphibians face a barrage of threats, including habitat loss, pollution, climate change, agricultural chemicals, and overconsumption for food and the pet trade. However, the largest threat to amphibians is known as the 'amphibian plague': chytridiomycosis, a fungal disease, has decimated amphibian populations even in pristine environments. Recent studies have shown that frog species never known to science have already been lost. At least 120 amphibians have vanished entirely in the past three decades, making this group a poster child for the extinction crisis.

But of all the world's species—vertebrates, plants, fungi, insects, etc.—vertebrates make up just 3% of the total. The study also reported on a number of non-vertebrate species types—not included in the overall analysis—finding, for example, that 14% of seagrasses, 32% of freshwater crayfish, and 33% of coral reef species are threatened with extinction. An earlier study, looking at a representative sample of plants, found that 22% of the world's plant species are threatened with extinction.

One of the most threatened groups of species on Earth is the cycads, an ancient group of plants: 63% percent of cycads face extinction.

The one bit of good news that the report offered was that conservation has worked to reduce the threat of extinction. According to the report, the biodiversity crisis would be 18% worse without conservation action over the past several decades, and 7% of the species that changed categories moved from a worse category to a safer one. Unfortunately, relatively few threatened species benefit from concrete actions or even a conservation plan, as most of the attention goes to a handful of iconic species. In some cases, scientists do not even know how secure or threatened a species is. The report's findings underscore the need for continued protection of threatened species and preservation of habitats where unique species occur.

Florida's Everglades Purchase Keeps Shrinking

Florida's Everglades purchase has been scaled back yet again. It turns out that earlier deals of $1.75 billion for 187,000 acres and even $536 million for 72,800 acres were too good to be true. Now the state and U.S. Sugar have agreed on a new deal in which the state will pay $197 million cash for 26,800 acres.

The reductions of the land purchase reflected the changing fortunes of both Florida and U.S. Sugar:

A good solution, a better solution perhaps, according to some current and former state and federal officials with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, would have been smaller, more affordable and more inclusive of other landowners, including competing sugar companies with land better placed for restoration, and maybe even a flow-way.

Some critics of the deal contend that it should have been clear from the start that the original price tag of $1.75 billion, to be paid for with bonds, was simply too high for 2008. The financial crisis had started to unfold, and the recession was already making a mark in Florida.

But even as the collapsing economy began to make its mark on the deal, which shriveled like a dried-out flower — first to 180,000 acres, then to 73,000 and now to 26,790 — the fortunes of United States Sugar began to improve. Judy Sanchez, a company spokeswoman, told me this week that with sugar prices at record highs and a new mill that has worked out its kinks, the company has paid down $200 million of its debt since the first deal was announced.

Basically, the ideal moment when the company was at its weakest passed while Florida tried to figure out what it wanted or could afford. In the end, at Thursday’s meeting where the new $197 million purchase was approved, it was clear that United States Sugar was in the driving seat.

The new land deal consists mostly of citrus groves, which were the least profitable of U.S. Sugar's holdings in the Everglades. The citrus groves also seem the least useful of their assets for environmental projects. They are not large enough or in the right places for the state to restore the Everglades's natural flow of water. The problems with funding were certainly foreseeable in 2008. I wish that the state had used better judgment to forge a more useful purchase.

Why You Should Record All Species and Bird Outside Hotspots

Accurate species distribution data is necessary to address biodiversity challenges. To save endangered species, conservationists need to know which species populations are contracting or expanding. Restoring an ecosystem requires an accurate picture of how the ecosystem existed historically. Unfortunately, existing global data collections such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and IUCN Red List underrepresent some geographic areas, especially in the tropics, and may not show accurate distribution or trends for many species that live there. A further problem with newer datasets is that conservation organizations have focused largely on endangered species and nature reserves and lack the broad baseline data that may be necessary for future conservation problems.

A new study measures how well existing data compilations cover the Galliformes, an order that is well-studied and contains many threatened species. The datasets surveyed included museum collections, scientific articles, banding records, bird atlases, and birders' trip reports (archived on sites such as travellingbirder.com). Museum collections are the most significant source of historical distribution data, and scientific literature has gained importance over time. Birding reports are a relatively new phenomenon and still account for relatively few records, with most of those coming from birding hotspots.

Geographic coverage of different data sources: A) museums, B) literature, C) banding, D) atlases, and E) website trip reports

The data sources vary in how much geographic area they cover. Museum collections are the most comprehensive as a whole, though individual collections may be more localized. Scientific literature covers western Europe, China, and southern Asia well, but not as many studies are available for other regions. Banding data and atlases were largely confined to western Europe. Birding trip reports provide broader coverage than banding or atlases but are concentrated in well-known hotspots and easily accessible locations. Because active specimen collecting has declined, contemporary data sources are less geographically comprehensive than older ones (see maps below).

Records for all galliform species across the Indian Subcontinent from A) pre-1930 and B) 1990–2006

The authors offer three suggestions for improving the geographic coverage and usability of biodiversity data:

1. Museum collections and sightings data from scientific literature should be catalogued in electronic databases to make historical data more accessible.*
2. Observation records should include a date and location, preferably with geographic coordinates, and be incorporated into a central database to avoid fragmentation.
3. Observers should report all species rather than just rare or threatened ones and should look outside of known biodiversity hotspots.

They see a role for citizen science projects to monitor biodiversity and cite eBird specifically as an example of how a citizen science project should collect data from users. From their perspective, its principal strengths include requiring users to enter a date and geotagged location, flagging unusual records for review by regional editors, and encouraging participants to submit checklists from areas with few observations. Unfortunately eBird has so far been limited to the Americas (though it will expand coverage soon) and only records bird observations. The authors hope, however, that eBird's model can be expanded to other taxa, even less charismatic ones.

* Though the authors do not cite it specifically, the North American Bird Phenology Program still needs volunteers to scan and transcribe thousands of historical observations.

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Boakes, E., McGowan, P., Fuller, R., Chang-qing, D., Clark, N., O'Connor, K., & Mace, G. (2010). Distorted Views of Biodiversity: Spatial and Temporal Bias in Species Occurrence Data PLoS Biology, 8 (6) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1000385

USFWS Revising Management Plan for Arctic NWR

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge / USFWS Photo

The US Fish and Wildlife Service is in the process of revising its management plan for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Issues they plan to address include the impact of drilling for oil in the refuge's coastal plain. and whether to designate more of the refuge as wilderness.

Although much of the focus of the hearing was on whether to allow oil and gas development in the coastal plain, Fish and Wildlife Service officials emphasized Tuesday that their aging refuge management plan needs updating regardless of the wilderness question. The last plan, completed in 1988, doesn't address a number of emerging issues at the refuge, including the effects of climate change.

The agency also said the old plan failed to take into account a state-federal subsistence management program or the opening to the public of the Dalton Highway, the primitive road that runs along the western edge of the refuge through Interior Alaska to the Prudhoe Bay oil fields.

Designating the coastal plain as wilderness would make future development unlikely.

If at the end of the two-year process the agency recommends adding wilderness or wild-and-scenic river designations, it would be up to the interior secretary to decide whether to recommend that Congress proceed with making them.

It's also up to Congress to determine how to handle the refuge's disputed coastal plain and whether to allow development there.

There's little precedent for retracting wilderness designations, so once an area achieves such a status and the president signs it into law by, it's all but permanent.

It seems an odd time to reconsider the development question since political support for expanded drilling is questionable at best. I find it difficult to imagine either expanded drilling or wilderness designation making it through Congress in the current political climate. The other questions are a bit more interesting, particularly the need to create a plan for dealing with climate change. As our northernmost refuge, Arctic could stand to be among the hardest hit.

Mapping Ecosystems and Biodiversity

The Nature Conservancy is creating an atlas to depict worldwide ecosystems and the threats they face.

The atlas is the work of eight scientists at the Nature Conservancy who three years ago set out to chart everything from the mangroves in Borneo where proboscis monkeys live to the extent of grasslands on Mongolia's steppes, in order to produce 80 detailed maps.

"The atlas is telling us what's where, what state it's in, what people are doing to it now -- the big threats, and what we can do to turn it around," said senior marine scientist Mark Spalding of the Conservancy.

The maps -- all done on the same scale -- depict a dizzying array of ecosystems, plants and animals across the globe in different stages of depletion. One shows how the human demand for water outstrips the natural supply in dry and crowded regions such as the American West and the Mediterranean basin; another shows how large areas of intact forests cover 10 percent of the earth's land surface, while they once spread over nearly half of it.

"The sobering message shouldn't be glossed over," said Boucher. He added that since maps showing where animals are threatened also show that some are surging back to health, "It's a case of sorrow, but also a case of hope."

The project is going to be released as a book on April 22, but you can already view the maps online at the Nature Conservancy's website. A screenshot for one of them, the map of bird diversity, is at the top of this post. Clicking on portions of the map will bring up a box showing more details for that area.

Predicting the State of the Birds

Last week, the Interior Department, Audubon, and a coalition of other conservation-minded organizations announced the 2010 State of the Birds report. (Oddly, the report was released late on a Thursday; usually the end of the week is reserved for news that agencies would prefer people not notice, like bank failures.) This year's report tries to predict how birds might respond to climate change. It suggests conservation actions to mitigate those responses and reduce stress as the climate continues to warm.

Relative vulnerability of U.S. birds by habitat

The report divides birds into groups based on broad habitat types or location. Since this was produced in part by the Interior Department, the report includes all birds found in the United States and its territories, including islands in the Pacific and West Indies. Each bird species was assessed on five traits and rated as high, medium, or low vulnerability based on that assessment. Here, briefly are some of the report's predictions.

• Oceanic birds will face changes in prey distribution, which will affect the viability of breeding colonies. In addition, sea level rise may threaten low-lying colonies.
• Coastal birds, which use beaches and salt marshes, face threats from sea-level rise, both from permanent inundation of some low-lying areas and from increased flooding and erosion.
• Arctic and alpine species are handled together because they face the similar problem of having few options for moving to more suitable areas as their current habitat warms. Arctic birds are often long-distance migrants, so they face climate-related changes all along their migration routes. In the Arctic, melting permafrost could release additional toxins and allow woody plants to encroach on tundra habitat.
• Island birds (both Pacific and Caribbean) are particularly vulnerable if they are endemic to an island, as is true of 42 Hawaiian bird species. A warming climate could create significant changes in precipitation; this would affect the vegetation and insect life that birds depend on.
• Aridlands will become warmer and drier, which will fundamentally change the vegetation structure in many areas. As precipitation decreases, riparian habitats will shrink, along the bird populations that depend on them. Some species may get a boost as arid habitats are expected to expand to the north and east.
• If temperatures increase without a corresponding increase in precipitation, wetlands could shrink considerably from evaporation and loss of input. Mountainous wetlands and the prairie pothole region are particularly vulnerable. 
• Grasslands are expected to become drier, and continuing increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide could encourage woody plants to encroach on grassland habitat. The vulnerable grassland birds are those that are less likely to move in the face of changing habitats, such as grouse. 
• Forest types are likely to shift northward; oak-hickory and oak-pine forests will expand considerably, while other types will contract within the United States. The boreal forest will shrink somewhat as its southern border moves north. Most forest birds are not at high risk because they reproduce quickly, but species that rely on a single forest type will face challenges.

The predictions discussed in this year's report are not for changes far off in the future. In some cases, they are happening already. Bird species are known to be shifting their winter ranges northward, based on Christmas Bird Count data.

For more details, including recommended conservation measures, see the full report.


Mitigation is going to become increasingly important as the climate continues to warm. At this point it seems unlikely that we will see effective action from the U.S. Congress on climate change. Even if the EPA is successful in imposing greenhouse gas restrictions, its restrictions may not reduce emissions quickly enough. So we are likely looking at some pretty dramatic changes over the next few decades, and long-term conservation plans will need to account for that.