Conservation - by Tim Manns

National Audubon’s Washington, D.C. government affairs office recently issued the First 100 Days Campaign, an action plan for the federal administration’s initial months. The plan seeks to educate members of Congress about Audubon’s purpose and goals, particularly focusing on:

• Investing in Conservation: Supporting watershed restoration and nature-based solutions to strengthen community resilience, reduce flood risks, and protect coasts and wetlands.

• Keeping Working Lands Working: Ensuring conservation funding in the Farm Bill to support farmers, ranchers, and birds through responsible land management.

• Protecting America's Wildlife and Public Lands: Fully fund the National Wildlife Refuge System and other federal land agencies and uphold protections for migratory birds and critical habitats.

• Advancing Clean Energy and Transmission: Supporting responsible clean energy growth while ensuring that development is done in a way that protects wildlife and benefits local communities.

In light of national political conditions, these are strikingly optimistic goals, but pessimism doesn’t breed success, and Audubon’s goals do have champions in Congress. Rick Larsen, who represents many Skagit Audubon members, is an example as are other members of the Washington State delegation.

World Migratory Bird Day on May 10 comes at the end of the First 100 Days, and on that day we want to draw special attention to celebrating the amazing phenomenon of bird migration and stress the importance of protecting the habitat birds need everywhere along their migratory paths. This year’s theme emphasizes the importance of co-existence between humans and birds:

Shared Spaces: Creating Bird-Friendly Cities and Communities. (Home - World Migratory Bird Day)

Here are seven simple actions we can take to help both migratory and resident birds right where we live:

 1.    Plant native: Native plants provide birds with the food and shelter they need. Remove invasive plants that can take over. For advice, read Douglas Tallamy’s books. Check out the National Audubon website (Native Plants | Audubon) and that of Washington Native Plant Society (Birds, Bees, and Wildlife). Read John Marzluff’s Subirdia.

2.    Dim the lights at night: Our lights may disrupt birds’ needed rest cycle, affect their migration, and impact breeding.

3.    Make windows visible: Birds don’t recognize pane glass and readily collide with it.

4.    Protect insects: 95% of birds depend on insects during at least part of their life cycle, especially for feeding nestlings. Avoid using pesticides and other chemicals that kill caterpillars, butterflies, dragonflies, and other insects birds eat.

5.    Restrain your pets: Free-roaming cats and dogs can disturb and sometimes kill birds. Get a catio, leash your pets, and provide them with entertainment indoors.

6.    Reduce use of plastics: Reuse shopping bags, avoid single-use plastic bottles and utensils; buy non-plastic toys, …

7.    Buy sustainable foods: Shade-grown coffee and chocolate protect tropical agroforests that preserve native tree diversity and tree canopy and reduce pollution where migratory birds winter.

 The Conservation Report in April’s Skagit Flyer describes other things you can do locally to protect birds and the habitat they need. To celebrate the return of the migratory birds that have been away all winter, attend one of Skagit Audubon’s two birding trips scheduled for May 10th. See the Field Trips section on Page 5 of this newsletter and sign up today.

Conservation - by Tim Manns

National Audubon, Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, American Ornithological Association, American  Bird Conservancy, and fifteen other avian scientific and conservation organizations collaborate in the North American Bird Conservation Initiative. Every few years the group produces a “State of the Birds” report. For anyone interested in North American avian wildlife, time spent reading the twenty pages of the recently released State of the Birds 2025 is time well-spent.

“This 2025 edition of the State of the Birds report is a status assessment of the health of the nation’s bird populations, delivered to the American people by scientists from U.S. bird conservation groups.” 

Scan the graph in the Executive Summary – State of the Birds 2025 to see at a glance that the status assessment does not present a happy picture. The time span depicted begins in 1970 and shows declines in most categories of birds. That the numbers of dabbling and diving ducks increased 24% in that period is a testimony to the success of long-term conservation initiatives, particularly protecting their breeding habitat. (Sea ducks, such as scoters and eiders, in contrast, have declined.) Other groups of birds have not had such long-term focused conservation attention.

The report points out that we know conservation measures work to reverse avian population declines. The increase in many duck populations shows that, though wetland losses to development and agriculture in more recent years threaten to reverse the positive trend. For many species we know what to do, but we need to step up the pace and scale of conservation action. The suddenly changed national political situation makes the challenge all the greater. Potential undoing of regulations protecting wetlands and halting of grant programs to buy and restore waterfowl habitat are among the threats that would set back progress at a time when we need to be doing the opposite. Skagit Land Trust’s Barney Lake Conservation Area at Mount Vernon’s eastern edge illustrates what has been possible. The area protects almost 400 acres, much of it wetland harboring hundreds and hundreds of wintering ducks, geese, and swans. The piece-by-piece acquisition and restoration of that property is the result of combined private generosity, public grants, partnerships among non-profit groups and local governments, and volunteer sweat equity. It can be done.

The successive State of the Birds reports followed a 2019 study published in the journal Science sounding the alarm. It showed a net loss of 3 billion birds in North America in the past 50 years, 29% of the 1970 bird population. What can we as individuals who care about birds and other wildlife do in the face of such an alarming prospect? First and foremost, and it goes without saying, be an active citizen. Along with that, support local and regional conservation organizations protecting and restoring bird habitat. I’ve already mentioned Skagit Land Trust, on whose board I serve. Three Skagit Audubon members founded the Trust over 30 years ago, and it now has protected over 12,000 acres of habitat in Skagit County and many miles of river and marine shoreline. Skagit Land Trust is a member organization and continually needs donors and volunteers for the restoration, education, and other work it does  (https://www.skagitlandtrust.org/). Skagit Fisheries Enhancement Group (SFEG) is another local organization focused on restoring habitat which benefits birds and as well as their primary focus on fish (Skagit Fisheries Enhancement Group - Skagit Fisheries Enhancement Group). SFEG continually needs volunteers to help with restoration planting. Another action to take is urging your state legislators to fund the implementation of Washington’s State Wildlife Action Plan, which is currently being updated (State Wildlife Action Plan (SWAP) | Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife). The plan focuses on species in decline in our state. When counties, cities, and towns update their Comprehensive Plans, as is also happening currently, read the goals and policies that could affect wildlife habitat and urge the relevant local government to preserve and restore the habitat birds and other creatures require.

And you can help by simply birding with a purpose; i.e., by using your bird finding and identification skills to contribute data scientists need to discern trends in bird populations. Input your sightings into eBird. Participate in Christmas Bird Counts, National Audubon’s Climate Watch, the Breeding Bird Survey, Puget Sound Bird Observatory’s Wetland Secretive Bird Monitoring Project and Puget Sound Seabird Survey. That’s an incomplete list! And, even if you’re not a waterfowl hunter required to buy a Duck Stamp, go to your Post Office and buy one every year anyway:  Federal Duck Stamp | U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. “Since 1934, over $1.1 billion dollars have been raised from sales of Federal Duck Stamps conserving over 6 million acres of land within the National Wildlife Refuge System.” That fund-raising program is one of the reasons dabbling and diving duck populations have done so much better than other groups of birds. Let’s hope this successful and efficient program survives. You see, there is a lot we as individuals and as citizens can do.

Other Issues

For information on other conservation issues Skagit Audubon is following, please go to the Conservation Notes on the chapter website at https://www.skagitaudubon.org/conservation-notes-letters.

Yellow-rumped Warbler by Rosi Jansen

Conservation, by Tim Manns

Washington State Legislative Session

The last few conservation reports in the Skagit Flyer newsletter (SAS Blog — Skagit Audubon Society) and conservation notes on the website (Conservation notes & letters — Skagit Audubon Society) describe Audubon’s goals during the current legislative session. The session is scheduled to finish April 27th. Of the several thousand bills introduced, a fraction will be passed. Audubon is also focused on how the biennial budget to be written during this session will affect its conservation goals.

Audubon Washington’s Bill Tracker website lays out a well-organized path to supporting Audubon’s efforts in the state legislature. Follow the steps outlined on this website: Bill Tracker: 2025 Legislative Session | Audubon Washington

To help follow through on the Bill Tracker information, here is information on how to use the legislature’s website (Welcome to the Washington State Legislature) to comment on bills prior to a committee hearing or directly to your legislators:

1.       You can go to the website for each legislator and phone or email them or send a letter. Legislators are most attentive to communications from their own constituents. Go to: How to send a message to a legislator. To find your legislative district, go to Washington State Legislature.

2.       You can go to the page for the particular bill (Click on Bills, meetings, and session and enter the bill number). On the particular bill’s page, find “Send a comment on this bill to your legislators” in a dark green rectangle. Communicating your opinion is particularly important when your elected official is on the committee considering the particular bill. When you find your district (Washington State Legislature), your legislators’ names will appear. Click on each name to get information about them including the names of committees on which they serve.

3.       Until shortly before a committee hearing, you can register “Pro” or “Con” on a bill without testifying or you can send written comments or register to testify remotely. (Note: You cannot indicate your position preceding an executive session of the committee.) At the webpage for the particular bill, if there is a committee hearing scheduled, you will see a dark green box with the words “Sign up to Testify/Submit Written Testimony.”  Click there to go to a page titled “Senate (or House) Committee Sign In.” Indicate the bill on which you wish to comment. Then “Select Type of Testimony.”  Clicking on “I would like my position noted for the legislative record” will take you to a page where you can indicate you are “Pro” or “Con” on the bill but do not wish to testify. You can also choose to submit written or live testimony.

Our legislators want to hear from us, and it’s easy to contact them.

All of this is not to neglect national legislative matters during this tumultuous time in Washington, D.C. Sign up for National Audubon Take Action notices on this website: https://www.audubon.org/takeaction.

Skagit County Comprehensive Plan Update

Washington’s Growth Management Act of 1990 (GMA) requires the fastest-growing cities and counties to complete Comprehensive Plans and development regulations to guide future growth. These Comp Plans look ahead twenty years. The required ten-year update for Skagit County and, separately, for Skagit’s incorporated towns is happening now with a deadline late this year. These Comprehensive Plans address a list of required elements (e.g. land use, housing, capital facilities.). By new state law, this update must address the causes and effects of climate change and ways to make communities resilient in the face of climate change. Several Comp Plan elements are relevant to Skagit Audubon’s mission of preserving and restoring wildlife and its habitat. Our chapter commented during the public input opportunities provided so far. More are scheduled. The entire draft is now out for public review through March 13th. To review the draft and contribute comments, go to www.skagitcounty.net/2025CPA. Skagit Audubon’s focus is on the Comp Plan of its namesake county, but it should be noted that the adjacent counties plus Skagit’s towns and cities are on the same timeline to complete 10-year updates of their own Comp Plans with each having public comment opportunities.

Other Issues

For information on other conservation issues Skagit Audubon is following, please go to the Conservation Notes on the chapter website at https://www.skagitaudubon.org/conservation-notes-letters.

Brant; photo courtesy Audubon Alaska

Conservation, by Tim Manns

At this writing two days before the change in national leadership, it seems clear that positive action on conservation issues from addressing climate change to protecting biodiversity will have to focus on the state and local levels. Contacting our federal elected officials will continue to be important, urging them to hold the line wherever possible, but we will need to focus more attention than ever on what can be accomplished in in our state, counties, and towns. Please note the article elsewhere in this newsletter about protecting Alaska’s Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, an essential breeding ground for many of Skagit’s wintering seabirds and waterfowl. One factor making Izembek Lagoon so important is its huge expanse of eelgrass, the largest eelgrass meadow on the U.S. west coast with Padilla Bay here in Skagit County ranking second.

Consistent with focusing on state-level protection for birds and other wildlife, the Skagit Audubon board voted in January to sign a letter by Conservation Northwest urging Governor Ferguson to increase the scant budget which Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has to address biodiversity. The State Wildlife Action Plan, now in revision, describes the state's species in decline, but implementation funds fall far short of the need. Now is the time to take measures to prevent those species from having to be listed as threatened or endangered and either losing them or incurring much greater expense for recovery.

The Washington State Legislature began its 105-day, budget-writing session on January 13th. As mentioned in immediately previous Skagit Flyer conservation reports and in Conservation Notes on the Skagit Audubon website, Audubon’s work during the session is focusing on the goals of the Environmental Priorities Coalition (EPC) and Audubon’s own short list of additional priorities. Read about Audubon Washington’s list at Audubon Washington’s 2025 Legislative Priorities | Audubon Washington and EPC’s priorities at Environmental Priorities Coalition - Washington Conservation Action. Note that for several EPC priorities the website now has “one-pagers” with more detail.

 Our legislators want to hear from us on these and other issues. There are many ways to be an active citizen spending as much or as little time as you want communicating with the elected people representing us. Here are suggested steps to becoming engaged with the legislative process and supporting Audubon Washington’s conservation priorities:

• Sign up for Audubon Washington’s Action Alerts:  Join Our Action Network | Audubon Washington

• Sign up to receive the weekly Hot List from the Environmental Priorities Coalition which summarizes the progress of bills (Environmental Bills to Watch - Washington Conservation Action)  – or read the weekly Hot Lists on the EPC website. The entries for each bill will direct you to the bill’s text and how to submit comments.

•  Use the recently redesigned Washington Legislative website to understand the legislative process and to learn about and access multiple avenues for communicating with legislators: Welcome to the Washington State Legislature. Note the “Learn and participate” tab near the top of the page. That tab’s drawdown menu has the helpful “How a bill becomes law” and “How to participate in the lawmaking process.”  You’ll see how to comment on a bill on-line and how to indicate your support or opposition to a bill before a committee hearing.

Thank you for engaging in supporting the Audubon mission of protecting wildlife and its essential habitat by being an active citizen.

For information on other conservation issues Skagit Audubon is following, please go to the Conservation Notes on the chapter website at https://www.skagitaudubon.org/conservation-notes-letters.

emperor goose

by Sergius Hannan/Macaulay Library

Conservation, by Tim Manns

As the Washington State Legislature begins its 105-day session on January 13th, Audubon Washington and the 26 other members of the Environmental Priorities Coalition (EPC) will be focusing on four areas:

• Safeguarding vulnerable rules like the Advanced Clean Trucks rule, clean energy policies, and programs supporting energy efficiency in homes and businesses in the face of a federal administration likely to roll back climate policies.

• Ensuring that funds from Washington’s Climate Commitment Act are invested as intended and not diverted to balancing the state budget. In the November election 62% of Washington voters defeated Initiative 2117 and thereby strongly upheld the state’s program to reduce climate pollution and invest in clean air, public health, job creation, and transportation. During this session the Legislature will write the biennial budget.

• Requiring the Department of Ecology to create a website with maps and searchable records of sewage spills. Unlike 10 other states, Washington has no system for informing the public about sewage spills despite the public health hazard they present.

• The fourth priority carrying forward the proposed Recycling Reform Act from previous years. As the Coalition website states, “More than 50% of Washington’s consumer packaging and paper products are landfilled or incinerated, wasting an estimated $104 million in valuable materials… (The proposed act) will require packaging and paper product companies and brands to fund Washington’s recycling system. This will bring consistent and accessible recycling to all state residents. It will reduce packaging and excess waste and create education programs to reduce confusion.”

 In the weeks ahead, the Coalition website will have more details including relevant bill numbers. During the session, the EPC will provide weekly updates on these priorities and other environmental bills. Sign up to receive these on the Coalition website:

Environmental Priorities Coalition - Washington Conservation Action.

As mentioned in the December Skagit Flyer, Audubon Washington also has its own short list of priorities supporting National Audubon goals. You can read about these at Audubon Washington’s 2025 Legislative Priorities | Audubon Washington. Washington’s 25 Audubon chapters give it state-wide reach to address issues in every legislative district. Skagit County alone overlaps three districts: the 10th, 39th, and 40th with a wide range of political perspectives among its elected officials. Sign up for Audubon Washington’s action alerts to add your voice in support of Audubon’s goals: Join Our Action Network | Audubon Washington.

 For information on other conservation issues Skagit Audubon is following, please go to the Conservation Notes on the chapter website at https://www.skagitaudubon.org/conservation-notes-letters.