By DAN KEGLEY/Staff
A dozen bird species found at least part of the year in Southwest Virginia are among the 178 birds species two conservation groups called the “most imperiled” on the North American continent.
In a joint teleconference Wednesday, officials with the National Audubon Society and the American Bird Conservancy released their cooperatively compiled WatchList 2007 that includes birds in most immediate need of conservation efforts to slow and halt their flight into extinction.
“We call this a ‘WatchList’ but it is really a call to action, because the alternative is to watch these species slip ever closer to oblivion,” said Audubon Bird Conservation Director and co-author of the new list, Greg Butcher, Ph.D. “Agreeing on which species are at the greatest risk is the first step in building the public policies, funding support, innovative conservation initiatives and public commitment needed to save them.”
Dr. George Fenwick, president and founder of the American Bird Conservancy, said the list represents “the best science and the best synthesis of what’s happening” in avian populations and distributions.
What’s happening, said Audubon President John Flicker, is that bird species’ decline is “affected by human activity more than anything else.”
The list is divided into three sections, one red, indicating the most endangered species, and two yellows, rare and declining.
Butcher is Audubon’s listed expert on birds in Virginia among other states. According to him, Southwest Virginia is home for at least some of the year to a dozen birds on the WatchList.
The Red WatchList, naming those most in danger, includes the Golden-winged Warbler of low shrub habitat and Henslow’s Sparrow, a grasslands species.
On the Yellow WatchList of rare species are the Blue-winged Warbler that shares the low shrubs with the Golden-Winged Warbler, and the Swainson’s Warbler, found in the region’s forests.
Yellow WatchList of declining species includes five woodland and forest species: Red-headed Woodpecker, Cerulean Warbler, Kentucky Warbler, Canada Warbler, and Wood Thrush. It also names shrub habitats’ Willow Flycatcher and Prairie Warbler, and the Rusty Blackbird that’s found in forests, agricultural fields and edges.
In Southwest Virginia, Butcher said, “We have forest birds, shrub birds, grassland birds on the list, so preservation of these species will require conservation of all three types of habitat.”
For all levels of peril indicated in the list, “the sooner we act the better their chances,” Butcher said. “If we take action to address local and global threats, the WatchList can be success stories.”
“Adoption of this list as the ‘industry standard’ will help to ensure that conservation resources are allocated to the most important conservation needs,” said David Pashley, American Bird Conservancy’s Director of Conservation Programs and co-author of the new list. “How quickly and effectively we act to protect and support the species on this list will determine their future; where we’ve taken aggressive action, we’ve seen improvement.”
Pashley and others point to such successes with the bald eagle, removed this summer from the endangered species list, and ospreys, both once on the decline as a result of eggshell-softening pesticide DDT, banned since 1972 in North America.
“The WatchList sounds a real warning, but fortunately, when we put our minds and laws to it, as we did with the Bald Eagle, Whooping Crane and California Condor, we can make a difference,” said Pashley.
Under the Bush administration, Endangered Species Act protection has been much harder to secure for species such as those on the red WatchList, the conservationists said. One species, Gunnison’s Sage Grouse, has been “erroneously denied,” said Butcher, who blames underfunding for the failed extension of ESA protections.
Pashley blamed “corruption in the Department of the Interior” that may have caused the omission of endangered birds from the federal list of protected species. But Pashley also said the ESA “is not a magic bullet. It may be that private groups can do a better job without the ESA hovering over.”
“It’s astounding that many Red List species are not protected by the Endangered Species Act,” Butcher said. But, “ESA listing is not a panacea. It requires commitment” to species restoration after a listing is achieved, he said.
Among the human activities blamed for birds’ slow disappearance is habitat loss to residential and commercial development as well as mineral and energy exploration and extraction, especially in the Midwest and the Plains. According to Pashley, sensitive species tend to live in areas that are also prime for oil and gas exploration.
“Oil seems to be right where the habitat it,” he said. “There’s a high correlation.”
Those activities, he said, are not only affecting birds but mammalian species as well, including mule deer and pronghorns, whose migrations and breeding success are impacted by oil and gas fields. The birds and mammals affected inhabit wide open spaces little visited by people, leading to the “out of sight, out of mind” condition that kept species’ decline unknown.
That’s the situation in Hawaii, home to 30 WatchList species that live in hard-to-see places nonetheless affected by development encroachment and global warming. Florida is similar to Hawaii in climate, in its number of imperiled bird species, and in the cause of the species’ decline, the conservationists said. Development, chiefly residential, is a major issue.
“Habitat loss due to development, energy exploration and extraction, and the impact of global warming remain serious threats for the most imperiled species, along with others on both the red and yellow lists,” said Pashley. “Concerted action will be needed to address these threats.”
The WatchList is the second call to action issued this year in the name of bird conservation. In June, Audubon sounding the alarm that populations of common bird species are in decline, including a half dozen in Virginia. Unlike the WatchList that includes lesser known birds and many coastal species, “These are not rare or exotic birds we’re talking about. These are the birds that visit our feeders and congregate at nearby lakes and seashores and yet they are disappearing day by day,” said Audubon Chairperson and former EPA Administrator Carol Browner. “Their decline tells us we have serious work to do, from protecting local habitats to addressing the huge threats from global warming.”
Audubon said among the most effective measures for stopping the decline of bird species are grassroots efforts to protect local habitat, promote sound agricultural policy and sustainable forests, protect wetlands, fight global warming, and combat invasive species.
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dkegley@wythenews.comSource : http://www.swvatoday.com/comments/conservation_groups_release_bird_watchlist/news/1243/
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