tagged w/ migratory birds
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Comparing the brain sizes of migratory birds and U.S. presidents may not help explain this one. Birds have been avoiding Afghanistan for some years now. Afghans with higher educations have been leaving for decades. War profiteers, and occupation profiteers, and “reconstruction” profiteers seem to know their way out. But imperial rulers,Comparing the brain sizes of migratory birds and U.S. presidents may not help explain... more
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'Lights Out' policies save thousands of migratory birds from fatal attraction
by Leslie Trew Magraw
March 17, 2011
MEDILL
The Chicago skyline has become less deadly since many of its most prominent members have adopted "lights out" policies during peak migration times.
As the Loop prepares to dim its lights to save thousands of avian lives, volunteers with the Chicago Bird Collision Monitors ready themselves to pound the city streets in the early morning hours to pick up migratory birds that have collided with buildings.
Mid-March marks the beginning of the spring migration season in the area, and most prominent members of Chicago’s skyline are instituting a “lights out” policy to prevent migratory birds from being drawn to the city’s glow.
“We know that the Lights Out program is inevitably saving thousands of lives,” said Annette Prince, director of the Chicago Bird Collision Monitors. “When cities are lit up at night, they attract birds to buildings that they would have avoided otherwise. They’ll circle [the buildings] and get confused. It’s a fatal attraction for them.”
Participating buildings turn down their lights from 11 p.m. to sunrise during the peak months of bird migration -- from mid-March to early June in the spring and from late August to mid-November in the fall.
Most song birds migrate at night using stars to navigate, the twinkling lights of the Chicago skyline disorient and distract, leading birds away from the open sky and into harm’s way.
The American Bird Conservancy estimates that up to a billion birds collide with buildings each year, making it a leading cause of death for thousands of species.
Joan Bruchman, a volunteer who canvassed the Loop looking for injured and dead birds with CBCM before buildings started dimming their lights, said: “When we first started, there were birds all the time. Now I find very few birds during the dark part of the [monitoring trip].”
A building doesn’t have to be tall to be dangerous to birds; it just has to have glass. Any building that has a window -- whether reflective or transparent -- can be a lure, according to David Willard, an ornithologist at the Field Museum.
Willard, who also acts as a bird monitor, said that the more glass a building has, the bigger risk it poses to birds.
“McCormick Place [which has one of the highest bird mortality rates in the city] is a kind of squat building – it’s only a couple of stories high – but it has an extensive expanse of glass,” he said.
For the past 34 years, Willard has circled the building each morning looking for the previous night’s casualties. “The total number being killed at McCormick Place because of lights being out is now a quarter of what it used to be,” he said.
CONTINUED...'Lights Out' policies save thousands of migratory birds from fatal... more
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Endangered whooping cranes shot dead
Only about 400 whooping cranes exist in the wild, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says.
January 12th, 2011
03:17 PM ET
Three endangered whooping cranes were shot to death in southern Georgia, wildlife officials say.
The three dead birds were found and reported by hunters near Albany, Georgia, on December 30, according to a release from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The cranes, which were banded and fitted with radio transmitters, were part of a group of five that were migrating to Florida together, the service said. They had last been tracked 20 days earlier in Hamilton County, Tennessee.
The cranes are part of the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership effort to reintroduce whooping cranes into the eastern United States. There are about 570 whooping cranes left in the world, 400 of which are in the wild, according to the wildlife service. About 100 cranes are in the eastern migratory population.
The cranes that were killed were not among those famously led south by ultralight aircraft, but instead were part of the Direct Autumn Release program, in which cranes are encouraged to follow other migrating birds, such as sandhill cranes.
In addition to the Endangered Species Act, whooping cranes are protected by state laws and the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
The wildlife service and Georgia Department of Natural Resources are investigating. Several organizations have contributed toward a $12,500 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction.Endangered whooping cranes shot dead
Only about 400 whooping cranes exist in the... more
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Nearly five million Migratory birds from Canada are now winging their way south across North America, and many of them could be in for a nasty shock when they reach the oily marshes and beaches along the Gulf Coast.
link: http://news.discovery.com/animals/migrating-birds-canada-gulf-coast.htmlNearly five million Migratory birds from Canada are now winging their way south across... more
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eva2
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added this
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1 year ago
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This video discusses how the Gulf of Mexico oil spill continues to claim the lives of unknown numbers of birds. Birds are being coated with oil, which makes it difficult or impossible for them to fly or to maintain their body temperature. Birds are also poisoned by ingesting oil, the dispersants or both, when they forage or groom their plumage. Oil and the dispersant chemicals damage to their kidneys and liver as well as other internal organs, sickening and killing the birds.This video discusses how the Gulf of Mexico oil spill continues to claim the lives of... more
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Gulf Oil Spill: Farmers Paid To Flood Land For Bird Protection
Posted: 06-30-10 03:54 PM
Los Angeles Times:
A federal conservation agency said Monday that it would begin paying some gulf region farmers and ranchers to flood their fields so that migratory birds can find alternative rest and nesting grounds to oil-fouled habitats.Gulf Oil Spill: Farmers Paid To Flood Land For Bird Protection
Posted: 06-30-10... more
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Within minutes of being found guilty of failing to protect 1,600 migrating ducks from being smothered in Syncrude's toxic black tailing lake in 2008, the company's lawyer told reporters he would recommend an appeal. But the judge still has to decide what the sentence will be and the company could be facing fines of up to $300,000 per dead bird.
http://looncanada.wordpress.com/2010/06/26/syncrude-set-to-appeal-dead-duck-verdict-before-trial-is-over/Within minutes of being found guilty of failing to protect 1,600 migrating ducks from... more
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April is the peak month of spring migration for millions of birds, so the ongoing eruption of the Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallajökull, presents hundreds of millions of birds with an unusually challenging set of circumstances as they fly to their northerly breeding grounds. But when a reader asked me how volcanic ash affects birds, I had no ready answer. The best I can do is to say that the ash is affecting birds, but I cannot say precisely how -- so I decided to investigate this issue in more depth and share the studies I found.April is the peak month of spring migration for millions of birds, so the ongoing... more
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