IF A BIRD DIES DOES ANYONE CARE?
Rex Burress
Birds die everyday, usually not even noticed, but one bird that died on the Feather River a few days ago in January 2017, has created quite a stir for those who care!
Most of those who care are bird watchers and nature advocates, like Dawn Garcia, Carolyn Short, and Joanna Arroyo, who were hiking along the Diversion Pool-part of the river and saw an unusual bird for the Oroville area. It was a Long-tailed duck— and they saw it get shot by an illegal poacher! The culprit fled and the ladies retrieved the dead bird. Bird watchers had been traveling from afar to see the handsome stray, formerly called the Old Squaw duck, that normally lives near the ocean up into the Arctic.
I have seen Clangula hyemalis along the central Pacific Coast when winter storms drive them south out of their range, but it was a mystery why the lone juvenile male appeared on an inland river. Of such are the wonders of nature watching!
There are some parts of the wild where we can only speculate as to what happened. It happens on every wild animal out of its normal range and habitat. Often we can suspect climatic occurrences or injury that strands a species in some distant location. Whatever the cause in the case of a bird, some bird watchers compile a list of what they see during their lives, and are very anxious to add toward the approximately 10,000 bird species living on Earth. A lot of travel and money is involved...unless a rarity lands nearby. We can wonder why two pintail ducks, banded at Lake Merritt in Oakland, CA, were shot 20 years later in Siberia! In the end, freedom wins, as we cannot control or know the mind of a wild animal.
I haven't started a list, preferring to study the beauty and over-all habitat of an animal, but I was watching in the Everglades once, and a Bahama Pintail landed at my feet! It was only the 13th sighting in America, and listers were flocking in from as far as New York to see it!
When I worked at Lake Merritt Wildlife Refuge in Oakland, a Tropical Kingbird, Tufted Duck, and a Brazilian Cardinal created that kind of stir. There is the possibility that someone releases a pet, but wild is wild so count it! It is less likely wild in the city when it's a Gila Monster, Macaw, a four-foot rattlesnake, or parakeets—all found in Lakeside city park while I was there. The Cassin's Auklet I found in the duck yard had probably been blown in from the ocean, as was a pair of Laysan Albatross we nurtured with many smelt, and I had the honor of escorting them back to the sea via a U.S. Coastguard boat!
Who cares about the reported 70,000 birds killed at the Kennedy Airport since the goose-caused 2009 plane crash in the Hudson River? Gulls, starlings, geese, and other birds have been slaughtered, mostly by shooting and trapping, aimed at preventing plane-and-bird collisions. Included in the kill record was about 6,000 brown-headed cowbirds and 4,500 mourning doves.
Sportsmen hunt waterfowl and game-birds in a harvest of the surplus that is closely controlled by wildlife management. The goal is a balanced population.
Air space for birds often conflicts with civilization progress, especially when involved with windmill turbines that can knock down raptors and migrating songbirds. An estimated 6.8 million have died by collisions with cell and radio towers in the last few years...but 2 billion from house cats!
We are familiar with road kills that involves a large number of birds and other animals. There is a certain number of birds killed by flying into windows. Birds fail to recognize the dangers involved in human habitation, and the reproduction ratios barely keep pace with survival. Already over 157 bird species have become extinct since human affairs have been involved with wildlife in the last 500 years. Does anyone care?
“Birds have wings; they're free; they can fly where they want when they want. They have the kind of mobility many people envy.” --Roger Tory Peterson