A recent post on Tetrapod Zoology in which blogmaster Darren Naish rails against the well-meaning tradition of feeding bread to ducks got me thinking of another bird-feeding issue: chumming for pelagics.

Westland Petrel by Pablo Caceres Contreras (licensed under Creative Commons)

My pelagic experience is limited, but on a couple of the trips I’ve been on the chum of choice was stale popcorn. This strikes me as insane. Gulls can probably digest almost anything, but the procellariiform birds that are the most sought-after prizes of pelagic excursions (shearwaters, petrels, albatrosses, etc.) have digestive systems adapted to digest protein. Why, other than economy, would we feed them almost pure carbs? The soft parts of popcorn probably disintegrate readily, but what do the hard bits do to the birds’ digestive systems? Given that these are pelagic birds, would we even know if they were dying like flies from popcorn impactions? Has anyone studied this? Talk me down, somebody…

Addendum: Procellariids do ingest some pretty formidable items. Bones, even fish otoliths, are rapidly dissolved by the birds’ digestive acids, but squid beaks (one of the hardest materials in nature) take weeks to break down. Gulls, terns, and many other seabirds can simply barf up indigestible materials, but procellariids have difficulty regurgitating solids (Furness et al. 1984). Combined with relatively small gizzard capacity, this makes them “especially susceptible” to deleterious effects from ingestion of indigestible materials (Azzarello & Van Vleet 1987).

More complex organic molecules require particular enzymes for processing. Just as many adult humans don’t produce the enzyme lactase and must avoid milk products, some birds such as thrushes (Witmer and Martínez del Rio 2001) don’t produce sucrase and must avoid sucrose-rich foods. Given their naturally low-carb diet, would we expect procellariids to produce starch-digesting amylase? If they don’t, does popcorn cause them intestinal distress similar to that suffered by lactose-intolerant humans and sucrose-intolerant thrushes?

But even if procellariids that eat the popcorn we chum with eventually end up barfing it up or breaking it down, is it their best interests or ours to trick them into wasting time and crop space on something that is at best of low nutritional value when more appropriate alternatives are available?

Australian artist Jane Gillings makes colorful, cartoonish, yet faithfully rendered birds from discarded plastic. Some samples are included with her artist profile for her exhibition at the NG Gallery (someone got a bit too creative with the page layout – you’ll have to scroll  way over to the right to see the photos).

Thanks to Susan Lomuto at Daily Art Muse.

From President-elect Obama’s weekly radio address:

From landing on the moon, to sequencing the human genome, to inventing the Internet, America has been the first to cross that new frontier because we had leaders who paved the way: leaders like President Kennedy, who inspired us to push the boundaries of the known world and achieve the impossible; leaders who not only invested in our scientists, but who respected the integrity of the scientific process.

Because the truth is that promoting science isn’t just about providing resources—it’s about protecting free and open inquiry. It’s about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology. It’s about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it’s inconvenient—especially when it’s inconvenient. Because the highest purpose of science is the search for knowledge, truth and a greater understanding of the world around us.

Amen to that.

Warblers. You love ‘em, right? I love ‘em myself. That’s why I want to tip you off to a fantastic offer:

The Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program publishes an annual bird calendar that’s available free for the asking, and the 2009 edition features North America’s wonderful, winsome wood warblers:

Breeding Wood Warblers - 2009 Louisiana Bird Calendar

From the press release:

Louisiana’s geographic position along major migratory pathways makes it an important stopover for transient warblers; that Louisiana’s vast expanse of marsh, swamp, and bottomland hardwoods makes this area important to a number of nesting species of warblers; that thousands upon thousands of warblers considered temperate migrants spend their winter months here in Louisiana. They all depend on the productive habitats of Louisiana where they feed, rest, and in some cases nest.

However, these wetlands that sustain our unique culture and this tremendous productivity are in trouble. Since the early 1900’s, too much of Louisiana’s coast has been lost to a variety of factors.

To increase awareness and appreciation for Louisiana’s natural habitats, we are developing again this year a calendar to be distributed to interested birders for free. This calendar is designed to promote awareness of Louisiana’s land loss crisis – to educate people about the connection between that landscape and the migratory birds that use them.

Folks, this is one fantastic calendar, full of gorgeous photos to make your heart sing throughout the year plus loads of information on who warblers are, how they live, and when and where to see them in Louisiana.

Each month features not only a full-page portrait and profile of one of the featured warblers but milestones in conservation history, nature almanac entries, and dates of 2009 birding festivals and other upcoming events. And for lagniappe, there’s even a guide to the America’s Wetland Birding Trail. This is one calendar you’ll have trouble parting with come New Year’s Day 2010!

To obtain a complimentary copy of the 2009 Louisiana Bird Calendar for free, at no charge, gratis, better than lagniappe, email richard@btnep.org and provide your name and mailing address. Don’t put it off! Order now to ensure that you receive a copy of this fabulous, fact-filled calendar.

The 5th Annual Adams County Amish Bird Symposium is where I’ll be on March 1, 2008, thanks to an invitation from Chris Bedel, Preserve Director for the Edge of Appalachia Preserve. Naturally, I’ve been asked to talk about hummingbirds.

This will be the first intercultural birding event to which I’ve been invited as a speaker, and I’m very much looking forward to that aspect of it. The Amish birding phenomenon has fascinated me since I first read about it. My closest encounters so far with the culture of the “Plain Folk” have been infrequent visits to Mennonite communities in northwestern Mexico and Belize. Mennonites are less conservative than the Amish and have adopted modern technology and culture to varying degrees. In Belize, many communities have abandoned horse and ox power for technological horsepower (pickups, John Deeres, ATVs, and even Jet Skis), earning them the nickname “Mechanites” from their non-Mennonite neighbors. With their blond hair, ruddy cheeks, gimme caps, and overalls, the men would look right at home among their non-Mennonite counterparts in the Corn Belt.

On my last visit to Belize, the birding group I was leading was approached in a restaurant by a grandmotherly woman in a traditional-looking long dress and bonnet. In perfect American-accented English, she invited us to come by her home for a look at her quilts and traditional handcrafts. When I politely declined with “maybe another time,” she handed me a business card with her e-mail and Web site addresses!

Of course, mechanization makes it possible to convert tropical forest to farmland at a far more rapid pace. This and their self-imposed isolation from mainstream society grate on many mainstream Belizeans, but the industriousness of Mennonite farmers contributes greatly to the country’s economy and quality of life.

So, how does birding fit into the more conservative Amish culture of Pennsylvania? And does it foster preservation and stewardship of natural landscapes untouched by ax or plow? I hope to see that first hand in March.

A week after what I hoped was a promising conversation with Chicago Zoological Society President Stuart Strahl, in which he said that he would meet with key staff members at the Brookfield Zoo to reevaluate the decision to keep the bird, there’s still no word. I don’t like to think this way, but giving lip service to revisiting the zoo’s decision with no intention of responding would be one way to keep mango advocates from generating additional bad publicity until the controversy had cooled off.

I hope that some of you who have been following this issue and haven’t already written letters on the mango’s behalf will go ahead and do so to:

• CZS President Dr. Stuart Strahl
• Anthony J. Peraica, chair of the zoological committee of the Cook County Forest Preserve District, which owns the zoo
  
• Chicago Tribune
• Milwaukee Journal Sentinal
• Rockford Register Star (article here)
• Beloit Daily News (article here)
• NPR (be sure to select All Things Considered)
• Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
  (the capture may have violated state, if not federal, law)
• Wisconsin Humane Society
  (be prepared for a hostile response if they bother to respond at all).

We may not be able to free the mango, but maybe we can prevent other healthy vagrant birds from being sentenced to permanent captivity by well meaning but misinformed people.

No word today from the Brookfield Zoo today, mango advocates. It’s hard to say what this delay might mean, but let’s hope that serious consideration of the evidence and the logistics of transfer are taking more time than anticipated. Since administrative personnel are often off duty on weekends, it may be Monday before a decision is announced.

My blogger buddy Birdchick has been reporting on an Inca Dove that somehow made its way to Minnesota, and as you might expect some of her faithful readers have rhetorically asked whether this newest bird with “navigational issues” might likewise end up in a zoo “for its own good.” It so happens that I asked both of the Brookfield Zoo officials I spoke with yesterday whether the zoo was prepared to follow the mango precedent by providing a permanent home for every “navigationally challenged” bird that members of the public brought to them, and both replied that the zoo’s policy was to refer such cases to wildlife rehabilitators.

Of course, hummingbirds are not your average rehab subject, and the mango’s life was at much greater risk under the care of the Wisconsin Humane Society than at the Brookfield Zoo. (What a PR disaster THAT would have been.) So Brookfield was at least a reasonably safe halfway house for the mango, with adequate facilities, knowledge, and skill to provide competent care, but there’s still the issue of why permanent captivity was considered the best option. More on that later. In the meantime, I’m still waiting to hear from Dr. Strahl.

Today (Wednesday – the date stamp on these late-night posts is misleading) I talked at length with Brookfield Zoo’s Associate Curator of Birds Anne Oiler, recently interviewed for All Things Considered, and Chicago Zoological Society President and fellow ornithologist Dr. Stuart Strahl. I was gratified and encouraged that Dr. Strahl reached out to me in response to an e-mail similar to the one I sent to Wisconsin Humane Society Director Victoria Wellens (who did not bother to respond, which is just as well since others who have have written WHS on this issue received rude and dismissive responses from other staff members).

Dr. Strahl and I share a lifelong love of birds and Arizona connections (he worked on long-running Mexican Jay field studies at the American Museum of Natural History’s Southwestern Research Station). I’m frankly envious of his extensive work on Hoatzins, which he says are far more fascinating birds than even ardent bird lovers imagine. He’s a compassionate scientist who expressed disgust at the thought of leaving the mango to die. Most importantly, he was open to hearing the multiple lines of reasoning behind the campaign to send the mango to Texas for release.

Though I’m cautiously optimistic about these conversations and expect to hear from Dr. Strahl tomorrow (Thursday), I may not get any news until late in the day. Thanks for your patience and continuing support for a second chance for the mango, and please tune in tomorrow evening for the latest news.

I learned rather late that it’s NaBloPoMo, and that I should be posting daily. Problem is there’s just too much to blog about: my trip to Cape May (spending time with friends, meeting fellow bloggers, drinking $9 ice cream cocktails, singing birding filk songs), an update on the Extreme Hummingbird Makeover (we caught the Rufous again on Halloween and saw him briefly yesterday), recent visitors to our yard (Violet-crowned Hummingbird and Green-tailed Towhee!), our environmental barbarian neighbors (who appear to be moving a %*&#$@ trailer onto their oversized city lot under cover of darkness even as I write this), broader political and environmental issues (SoCal fires, the San Francisco Bay oil spill, landslides in storm-soaked Chiapas, the damned border fence).

What finally broke me out of blogger’s paralysis is something I should have blogged on before now: The Green-breasted Mango (GBMA) in Beloit Wisconsin. Well, it was in Beloit. Now it’s at the Wisconsin Humane Society’s Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Milwaukee. Yes, it’s been “rescued” from an almost certain death by hypothermia while still hale and hearty, unlike Wisconsin’s first Green Violet-ear. Unfortunately, WHS has decided against sending the bird to the lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas for release into the wild. Instead, against the virtually unanimous advice of hummingbird experts, it plans to send it to the Brookfield Zoo on the flawed assumption that its “navigational capabilities are obviously quite deficient.”

Oddly enough, the bird’s capture while still healthy ignited more violent emotions in certain corners of the hummingbird community than the decision to incarcerate it permanently. In the pre-capture debates over intervention in the bird’s fate, those who maintained that it should be allowed to live or die on its own warned against interfering with natural events about which we are fundamentally ignorant, squandering an opportunity for scientific study, muddying the gene pool by promoting the survival of an unfit individual, pandering to the “Bambi syndrome,” and setting a dangerous precedent for vagrant birds in general. In the wake of the capture there was much passionate rhetoric about prosecuting its rescuers for violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, despite the species being in regulatory limbo, proposed but not yet approved for protection.

As a conservation professional, I’m well aware of the risks of meddling in processes we don’t completely understand, but if substantial knowledge and understanding were prerequisites for action most of us would be crawling around on our bellies because we haven’t a clue how gravity works. We’re not alone in our ignorance, and sometimes what you don’t know can kill you. The brutality of a Wisconsin winter is a concept beyond anything encoded in the mango’s DNA or stored away in its brain from prior experience. Unlike a true long-distance migrant, he didn’t “know” that the weather was going to get lethally cold, and that the time for hummingbirds to leave Wisconsin was about the time that he arrived.

Ignorance, legalities, and scientific objectivity notwithstanding, we interfere in the lives of wild birds in countless ways every single day. We feed them. We band and color-mark them. We flock by the dozens, hundreds, and even thousands to see ones we deem special. We hurt and kill them with cars, windows, power lines, transmission towers, and free-roaming cats. We breed them in captivity and release their progeny into the wild. We shoot, trap, and poison them. We introduce exotic species into their ecosystems. We flood their environment with pesticides, sewage, endocrine-disrupting chemical waste, heavy metals, and other contaminants. We destroy and degrade their habitats. And sometimes, for a vanishingly small minority of those that are hurt, sick, or in harm’s way, we try to help them survive and carry on. Of all the interfering we do, I’m not sure why that last one should incite such passionate denunciation, especially when its impact is infinitesimal compared to any of the others.

I generally come down on the side of letting nature take its course, but this isn’t a Fork-tailed Flycatcher in New England or a Crescent-chested Warbler in Arizona. The mango has been depending on the kindness of humans who have obviously grown fond of him. That personal connection with individual birds is one reason hummingbirds make such a great “gateway drug” to get people hooked on nature. He’s also captured the imagination of millions of people via the media, thrusting birds and birding into the international spotlight. Saving the life of one non-endangered bird will make very little difference to the future of his species, but it will make a very big difference to that bird and the people who care about him.

This is the former wildlife rehabilitator in me talking, but how can we expect to convince the general public of the importance of protecting birds as species if we appear indifferent to the suffering and death of birds as individuals? If such an avian ambassador was in harm’s way, and you could prevent its death and give it a second chance at life with relatively minor risks to its safety, wouldn’t you have to do that? Or could you just stand by and let nature take its course, knowing that your scientific detachment may be interpreted by a lay person as callous disregard for an animal in danger or distress?

I just sent the letter below via e-mail to WHS Director Victoria Wellens. The Brookfield Zoo withholds most e-mail contacts from its Web site, preventing me from cc’ing this message to its President and CEO Dr. Stuart Strahl, and a call to the zoo’s toll-free number (800-201-0784) was directed to the library’s voice mail by an operator who refused to connect me with anyone in a position of authority. If I don’t receive a favorable response from WHS tomorrow, I’ll follow up with another call to the zoo, this time asking for Dr. Strahl by name.

Dear Director Wellens:

As a hummingbird researcher, environmental educator, and former zookeeper, I am writing to ask that you give serious reconsideration to whether permanent captivity is the most humane and ethical alternative for the Green-breasted Mango compared to sending it to Texas for release in an area its species is known to inhabit. This decision was based on misperceptions about the species’ behavior and can only damage our hard-won gains in promoting respect for nature and the autonomy of wild animals.

Confusion over its status under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act notwithstanding, the Green-breasted Mango has occurred naturally in the United States since at least 1988 and has established a tentative foothold in the lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Careful examination of the specifics of this species’ occurrences in the U.S. clearly indicate that the likelihood of the Wisconsin bird repeating this movement and finding itself in trouble again is far less than the staff of WHS believes.

The demography of Green-breasted Mangoes in the U.S. is significantly age- and gender-skewed. Most of the well-documented Texas visitors as well as the Wisconsin, Georgia, and North Carolina birds have been young males. At least one male was seen in the same Texas neighborhood over a period of several years. This pattern is inconsistent with disoriented migrants but an excellent fit for dispersal (emigration). This one-way and often gender-biased movement of young birds helps their species maintain genetic diversity within widely separated populations and expand their ranges with changes in habitat and climate (a particularly important adaptation in these days of global warming). The birding and conservation communities would have been justifiably outraged had well-meaning people decided that the original pioneering mangoes in Texas should be relegated to permanent captivity on the basis that their navigational sense was “deficient.”

The Wisconsin’s mango’s “mistake” was not in traveling north from Mexico but in overshooting the hospitable gardens and feeders in subtropical Texas. Similar dispersal urges often lead young Brown Pelicans to ride the winds inland from the Pacific Coast to the Sonoran Desert of Arizona. Are these stranded pelicans permanently incarcerated to “save” them from repeating their youthful mistakes? No, the humane and wildlife rehabilitation organizations that rescue these birds transport them to sister institutions in California for release and a second chance at life in the wild. As far as I know, the recidivism rate is zero.

I have been following the mango’s saga since its presence was first announced. When the bird’s failure to depart in the face of increasingly cold weather sparked the usual debates on what, if anything, should be done for it, I reluctantly broke ranks with a majority of my colleagues by endorsing the bird’s capture before it became too debilitated, emphasizing that this was a humane and public relations decision with little or no conservation value beyond sending the message that people should care about wildlife, whether as species or as individuals. However, I never endorsed captivity as a post-rescue option.

Sending the mango to a zoo, while arguably less cruel than leaving it to die in the cold (as it almost certainly would have) will deny the bird any further opportunity to contribute to its species or to any ecosystem. The anachronistic paternalism inherent in the decision will undermine whatever positive lessons about our relationship with nature might have been gained from this incident. I understand that humane societies are accustomed to making such decisions for domestic animals and unreleasable wildlife, but the mango is a healthy wild bird. Is setting the precedent of permanent captivity for wayward wild birds really a desirable “legacy” for the mango and for the people and organizations involved in deciding its fate?

This is not a slam against zoos in general or the Brookfield Zoo in particular, which I’m sure has preserved and enhanced the sterling reputation it had 30 years ago when I was a bird keeper at the Fort Worth Zoo. My objections are based on the anachronism of taking a healthy wild bird into captivity for exhibit purposes. Zoos have spent decades trying to become conservers rather than consumers of wildlife. To that end, the American Zoo and Aquarium Association developed its Acquisition/Disposition Policy, which states that animal acquisitions “must be consistent with the mission of the institution, as reflected in its Institutional Collection Plan, by addressing its exhibition/education, conservation, and/or scientific goals.” Removal of animals from the wild is strongly discouraged. The acquisition of this bird by the Brookfield Zoo is obviously inconsistent with this policy.

The only alternative that makes sense from humane, ethical, and public relations standpoints is to send the bird to Texas for release in an area where members of its species have been observed before. A reversal of the decision to make this bird a permanent captive would do much to repair the reputation of WHS and the Brookfield Zoo in the eyes of bird lovers everywhere. I encourage you in the the strongest possible terms to embrace this option while it is still a viable one.

Sincerely,

Sheri L. Williamson
Author, A Field Guide to Hummingbirds (Peterson Field Guide Series)