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
