October 21, 2004
The News-Ress
By Betsy Clayton
Nearly a third of North America's birds are in significant decline, signaling degrading environmental conditions and leaving some Florida species hard-hit, according to a report released this week.
The first national "The State of the Birds" report points to construction on wetlands, poor forest management, invasive species and loss of native grasslands as some of the causes for population downturns.
"I'm depressed half the time," said avid bird watcher Vince McGrath of south Fort Myers. "The man-made factors are decimating the populations from pesticides, pollution, habitat loss, radio towers, automobiles and even cats."
The National Audubon Society's new document on the health and abundance of birds shows at-risk species in Florida include the loggerhead shrike, Florida scrub jay, Southeastern American kestrel, burrowing owl and Eastern meadowlark.
People need to know that if the landscape is healthy, the birds do well, said Greg Butcher, the report's author who spent a year synthesizing data from 1966 through 2003. The report summarized the status of 654 species.
"Florida does not seem to be doing as well as the rest of the country because, I'd guess, so many people are moving into it," he said.
The population in Lee County, for example, has doubled in less than 20 years to nearly a half million people.
The populations of Lee's birds weren't singled out in the study, but Florida birds were. The cheery, chirping Eastern meadowlark, for example, declined 4.8 percent a year from 1966 through 2003.
Even Southwest Florida residents who don't have any idea what some of these species look like should care about this report, Audubon officials said Wednesday.
"Like the canary in the coal mine warning the miner of danger ahead, birds are an indicator of environmental and human health," Audubon President John Flicker said. "Birds signal that we are at risk next."
Another reason to pay attention now is because "people enjoy life more when birds are around," Butcher said.
One-third of all adults in the United States — 69 million people — call themselves bird watchers, according to a federal recreation report.
Still don't care? Conservationists say to think about pocketbook issues.
Bird watchers contribute $32 billion in retail sales and $13 billion in state and federal taxes, creating 863,406 jobs, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service reports. In Florida alone, birders spent $1.6 billion statewide in 2001.
Bottom line: Even people who don't call themselves bird watchers care about feathered friends, said Michael Simonik, a bird watcher, 17 year Southwest Florida resident and director of Fort Myers' Calusa Nature Center and Planetarium.
Newcomers move here, buy homes in gated communities and watch wading birds along ponds and songbirds in trees. They see hawks and owls in open fields, Simonik said. Then the community reaches build-out and the wildlife diminishes.
"I have ladies come in and say, 'I don't see them anymore.' I had one lady in tears recently," he said, noting the decline of sightings in his own neighborhood of Golden Gate. "They think they live in an environmental, green place and slowly the birds disappear."
He tells them that when the birds' habitat is built on, there's nowhere to nest, nothing to eat and no reason to stay.
If there are birds to notice after that, they often are urban birds.
Instead of scarlet tanagers, people see drab grackles. Instead of bluebirds, they see sparrows. Instead of cooing mourning doves, they see brash ringed turtle-doves.
Such transitions are alarming, Butcher said.
He not only found that nearly 30 percent of North American's bird species are in "significant decline" but that the overall state of birds shows 70 percent of grassland species are in trouble and a quarter of forest birds and urban-area bird species are dropping at abnormal rates.
One concern in Florida is a lack of funds to properly manage lands that already have been acquired for conservation purposes, said Mark Kraus, Audubon Florida's deputy director.
The Florida scrub jay's plight illustrates the problem. The jay must have woods that go through natural forest fire cycles. But agricultural interests and suburban sprawl are encroaching into the jay's home range, and officials suppress natural fires to keep people safe. When the fires don't happen, the woods convert to habitat unsuitable for these types of jays.
Couple that with the chronic shortage of land-management funds, and the birds do even worse because land set aside for the jays is not being properly managed to support the threatened species, Kraus explained.
Flicker, the Audubon president, said Floridians shouldn't give up hope.
Such situations can be changed through conservation partnerships between groups such as Audubon and the government. Public comments during development proposals and land-acquisition talks can help.
"People created these problems, and people can solve them if we act now," he said.
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