Conservation-by Tim Manns

Protecting Migratory Wintering Birds

Among the birds spotted during Skagit Audubon’s October 11th Big Sit fundraising event were several Red-throated Loons, the advance guard of many hundreds that Christmas Bird Count participants will note there near Deception Pass this December 27th. At this mid-October writing, Snow Goose flocks calling high overhead and the loons’ arrival remind us all that the Skagit region connects to faraway places whose birds depend on habitat both there and here. The same day as the Big Sit, coincidentally World Migratory Bird Day, Lynda Mapes’ article A push for ‘global energy dominance’ puts Alaskan wildlands at risk appeared in Seattle Times’ Pacific NW Magazine (A push for ‘global energy dominance’ puts Alaskan wildlands at risk | The Seattle Times and Home - World Migratory Bird Day). Mapes vividly describes a Red-throated Loon pair bringing fish to feed their fledglings on a pond in the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area, an ecologically valuable place nominally protected within the National Petroleum Reserve – Alaska just off the Beaufort Sea. The reserve is the largest block of public land in the U.S. with much of its 23 million acres designated for supposed protection due to conservation values.

Red-throated Loons and other far north breeding species wintering in the Skagit for millennia are at risk from the Administration’s attempted acceleration of oil leasing in Alaska’s huge conservation areas. In 2006 National Audubon began a campaign to save Teshekpuk Lake and vicinity from oil leasing, and the area did receive some protection. Nonetheless, not many miles from the loons Mapes described, Conoco Phillips is preparing to drill for oil. The federal administration’s push for more fossil fuel extraction ramps up the threat to vital wildlife habitat in the far north. In the Arctic, global warming is proceeding much faster than at lower latitudes, changing the environment on which northern breeding species depend, affecting Red-Throated Loons in Alaska, affecting Skagit’s Snow Geese, all of which nest on Russia’s Wrangel Island.

Sign up for National Audubon’s Action Alerts so that you can add your voice to protecting vital Arctic breeding grounds: https://www.audubon.org/takeaction

Washington State Wildlife Action Plan - - Please comment

To be eligible for federal funding to conserve species at risk of decline, each state must have a State Wildlife Action Plan (SWAP) and update it every 10 years. Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife has released the draft of Washington’s updated plan for public review and comment. You can find the draft at https://wdfw.wa.gov/publications/02665  and fill out a comment survey at https://publicinput.com/j35032 (deadline: November 17, 2025.)

Wildlife Action Plans have existed since 2005, but funding to implement them has never been adequate. The Recovering America’s Wildlife Act would remedy this by greatly increasing federal funding. This Act passed the House in 2022 on a bipartisan vote but has since failed to pass the full Senate. There does not appear to be movement on this legislation right now, but the bipartisan effort is still underway to remind Congress of the need. Skagit Audubon has supported passing this bill. The premise of the legislation is that spending money to stop the decline of species now will save money by preventing them from becoming endangered later and requiring much more expensive recovery efforts. For more information about this bill and the thinking behind it, see https://nwf.org/RAWA.

There is much that we can do: act locally, even while lending your voice to state and national campaigns to uphold environmental protections. Please see the conservation report in the September Skagit Flyer for suggestions on how you can help.  

Photo credit: Red-throated Loon nesting on Arctic tundra by Kai Frueh/Macaulay Library; www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-throated_Loon

Conservation-by Tim Manns

Shortly after taking office in January 2021 President Biden issued the “America the Beautiful for All” initiative with its commitment to conserve and restore at least 30 percent of federal public lands and waters by 2030. While this seemed an impossible goal, its ambition was inspiring, and the Administration made a concerted and somewhat successful effort to advance it, establishing new national monuments, wildlife refuges, and national marine sanctuaries and closing expanses of ocean to offshore drilling. While imperfect in its vision and implementation, the initiative did reflect the American public’s broad support for conserving lands, waters, and wildlife. In total, the Biden Administration put more acres into protected conservation status than any previous.

Unfortunately, initiatives born out of executive orders are often easily undone. Within its first month in office, the Trump administration cancelled the America the Beautiful Initiative and in the name of an imagined national energy emergency restricted federal agencies’ ability to protect wildlife on public lands. In September, the Administration allowed just 3 weeks for comments on the environmental impact statement the Forest Service will prepare as a required step towards undoing the 2001 Roadless Rule. The September Skagit Audubon Conservation Notes explains how this rule has for a generation protected over 50 million acres of public land the U.S. Forest Service manages for us (Page 1, No. 3: Sept25ConservationNotesUpdated083025.pdf).

Consistent with this deemphasis on conserving land, in September Secretary of Interior Douglas Burgum issued an order making it difficult to use the Land and Water Conservation Fund to acquire private in-holdings in national parks, a key purpose for establishing the Fund in 1965 (Secretary Burgum’s Order Weakens Land and Water Conservation Fund – The Coalition To Protect America's National Parks). Burgum’s order would also enable states to use the Land and Water Conservation Fund to buy federal lands, a far stretch from the Fund’s purpose up to now and a step down the slippery slope towards privatizing our collective public heritage.

I mention these three developments because they each represent a withdrawal from protecting the habitat our fellow creatures need to survive, part of Audubon’s core mission. It would be easy to continue listing the rollbacks of environmental laws and policies and the weakening of the federal land-managing agencies through reductions in staff and funding, but you all know this story. Last month’s Skagit Audubon Conservation Report urged that we all stay engaged and communicate to our elected representatives that we want our common lands and wildlife protected. This is not the time to throw up our hands and stand by while hard-fought conservation victories slide away.

The daily big news on environmental matters can distract us from the on-going need for local conservation supporters and volunteers. We’ll soon be getting a call from Conservation Northwest and the American Bird Conservancy to help with educational efforts concerning nesting Marbled Murrelets on the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. With the help of many local volunteers and supporters, local organizations such as Skagit Land Trust, Skagit Fisheries Enhancement Group, and others continue their work of protecting and restoring habitat in Skagit County. The Land Trust’s recent acquisition of wetlands along the Samish River to protect Oregon Spotted Frog habitat (a federally listed species) is just the latest Trust success at acquiring wildlife habitat. There is much that we can do: act locally, even while lending your voice to state and national campaigns to uphold environmental protections. Please see the conservation report in the September Skagit Flyer for suggestions on how you can stay involved.

Photo credit: Bewick’s Wren by Joe Halton

Bewick’s Wren by Joe Halton

Conservation-by Tim Manns

Eleven years ago, National Audubon research pinpointed human-caused climate change as the greatest threat to two-thirds of North American bird species. This summer, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its intention to rescind the 2009 “endangerment finding” in which the agency found that greenhouse gases threaten human health. This finding has been the legal grounding for federal bills and policies addressing the existential threat of climate change, now to be ignored because of the change in Administrations. Climate change will persist regardless.

The past eight months have been replete with reminders that conservation and environmental victories must be won over and over again. Policies and practices we take for granted are being wiped out from one day to the next, condemned as unnecessary or harmful, even, somehow, corrupt. The onslaught is so aggressive and demoralizing that the temptation is to feel helpless to protect what we value and to look away, to drop out. As people who care about the environment and about non-human life along with our own species, we rise to the occasion. This is the opportunity of a lifetime to stand up for what we value when it really counts, maybe an opportunity we’d rather not have, but here we are.

As we all know, there are many, many national issues of concern related to conservation and Audubon’s mission of preserving and restoring birds and other wildlife along with their habitat. Read the May 2025 Skagit Audubon Conservation Notes for a summary of several of those national issues, including the watering down of the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act and of the 1973 Endangered Species Act. I’ll provide updates on these issues when there’s new information. (May25ConservationNotes.pdf, items numbered 2 and 5)

Federally funded research and long-term data collection on climate change along with measures to combat greenhouse gas emissions are being rolled back en masse. Agencies are no longer allowed to so much as mention climate change. We’re fortunate to live in a state where reality and science remain the basis for legislative action and where 62% of last November’s voters chose to uphold the Climate Commitment Act, major legislation addressing this truly existential threat to people and wildlife. We can still act at the state and local levels and must step up our efforts.

Undoing the Roadless Rule

In June of this year the Secretary of Agriculture, overseeing the U.S. Forest Service, announced plans to rescind the 2001 Roadless Rule. For a generation this rule has  protected 58 million acres of our public forest lands (including over 2 million acres in Washington State), from clearcutting and unnecessary road building while the rule protects habitat for many species, safeguards drinking water, and provides opportunities for recreation in nature. Our national forests already have many more miles of road than can be maintained. This huge reversal of conservation policy accompanies the administration’s determination to vastly scale up logging on our national forests while waiving environmental review and public comment. We’ll join other conservation groups in speaking out against this raid on public lands that so threatens the habitat birds and other wildlife require.

Skagit County’s Critical Areas Ordinance update

On a happier note, Skagit County’s draft update of the Critical Areas Ordinance (CAO) mentioned in the June Conservation Notes continues to show improvements over the earlier version. You can read the comments Skagit Audubon submitted in May at https://static1.squarespace.com/static/6474fc5db738031c56c2f6c4/t/682156d0debe032074423fef/1747015378744/Skagit+Audubon+coms+on+draft+updated+Critical+Areas+Ordinance+May+2025.pdf. For the second round of commenting I collaborated with Skagit Land Trust on its comments urging further improvements in the ordinance. Increased buffers, as in the plan, would be beneficial, and there is now some attention given to protecting wildlife corridors, but smaller wetlands are not yet sufficiently protected, and there is still a provision allowing some logging in riparian buffers. The Board of County Commissioners will decide on the final version of the CAO in a few months.

Join the Audubon Action National and Washington State networks

The May Conservation Report ended with a list of things we each can do to help support birds. Now that a few months have passed and environmental policies and programs have taken many more blows, it’s important to remember that being an active citizen is ultimately the most important thing we each can do to protect places, people, creatures, and conditions important to us. There are many good environmental groups to support, and Skagit Audubon keeps in touch with and works with a number of them on state and local issues. Audubon members can also advocate for regional and national protection of birds and other wildlife and their habitat by responding to action alerts from Audubon Washington and National Audubon. Enroll in Audubon Washington’s Action Network at Join Our Action Network | Audubon Washington particularly for Washington State issues. The National Audubon website (Advocacy & Action | Audubon) has abundant information on Audubon’s numerous current conservation campaigns. Sign up there to receive national alerts (Join Our Action Network | Audubon).

Last but not least, check the Conservation Notes posted on the Skagit Audubon website most months September through June for opportunities to comment to agencies and elected officials on the issues mentioned (https://www.skagitaudubon.org/conservation-notes-letters). If you would prefer receiving the Conservation Notes directly via email, let me know at conservation@skagitaudubon.org.

Photo credit: Townsend’s Warbler by Joe Halton

Conservation - by Tim Manns

Since May’s Conservation Report, two issues have arisen with especially dire implications for the continued existence of healthy and diverse bird populations. One would cut the heart out of the Endangered Species Act. The other would severely weaken the effectiveness of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has proposed a “rule” to substantially change how the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is understood, greatly weakening this important wildlife law. Since its passage in 1973, the Endangered Species Act has been understood to protect species listed as threatened or endangered from injury or killing. The ESA has long been understood to also protect the necessary habitat of the listed species. Congress recognized the importance of habitat to the survival of threatened and endangered species by writing in the Act that the “ecosystems” on which the listed species depend are to be conserved (Endangered Species Act of 1973, As Amended through the 108th Congress). The present Administration, via the agencies responsible for implementing the ESA, is claiming that the Act only protects the listed species from direct and deliberate harm and is not meant to protect the habitat they need to survive. Without habitat protection, there really is no effective protection for threatened or endangered species. The Skagit Audubon board approved a comment letter disagreeing with the new interpretation. The public comment period is now closed but watch for further opportunities to express your opinion on this development.

The second threat to birds that has arisen, another repeat of previous efforts, is a revised Department of the Interior Solicitor’s opinion on how the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 (MBTA) is to be understood and applied. This Act has long been understood to mean that all birds not introduced to North America or subject to hunting are to be protected not only from direct and intentional harm but also from unintentional but foreseeable injury. This long-applied interpretation meant, for example, that industrial operations were violating the MBTA if their oily wastewater ponds killed birds. It meant that companies such as Puget Sound Energy were duty-bound to equip power lines near Trumpeter Swan foraging areas with devices to help swans see and  avoid colliding with the lines. Now the Administration has decided that the MBTA only prohibits deliberate harm, and companies can do what they will no matter the avoidable consequences for birds.

People who put profits over wildlife have been trying to gut the ESA and the MBTA ever since they passed many years ago. Conservation groups and individuals have always succeeded before in fighting off these assaults on creatures who have the same right to exist and thrive as we do. We can never assume these two important laws will remain effective. Please support the conservation groups, like National Audubon and others, which wage these battles, but also do what you can at home to help birds survive in the world we’ve so substantially remade. In May we marked World Migratory Bird Day with its theme of making the places we live friendly to birds. Here are a few suggestions repeated from last month’s report for making a difference at home, all the more important now that public lands and environmental protections are at risk:

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.

Photo credit: Western Tanager by Joe Halton

Read the Skagit Audubon public comment letter on the proposed ESA definition of “harm” here: https://www.skagitaudubon.org/conservation-notes-letters

Western Tanager by Joe Halton

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.