Pow and all,

It's heart-wrenching to see helpless suffering wildlife. We want to relieve
our angst by relieving the suffering. Intervention is problematic due to
restrictions under law, particularly when protected bird species are the
victims. The best we can do is to report the conditions we find to the most
immediate responsible person, such as a park ranger or manager, a wildlife
officer, etc. Will they intercede? Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, no. Outcomes
can be frustrating for persons aching to relieve suffering. Most of us are
little relieved by the certain knowledge that wildlife has always suffered
"natural" losses during weather extremes, cold, wind, drought, and so on.
During millennia past, and even today, in a more limited way, healthy
wildlife populations occupying vast healthy habitats recovered from small
and large losses, quickly. If emotional comfort is not to be had, at least
the intellectual comfort in knowing that species can recover offers some
relief.

Unfortunately, we continue to whittle-away at our vast habitats and healthy
populations. We cannot always be assured of species recovery, quickly, or at
all... Wildlife management is not the answer, not entirely. We cannot garden
wildlife, we can only recover and preserve native habitats, wildlife
management through habitat management. This is an important distinction.
Habitat is key. Large scale habitats, transcending geographical and
political boundaries of all types.

One hundred years ago, the last, or one of the last few individual Passenger
Pigeons, died. That bird was stuffed, buttons for eyes, and is on display at
The Ohio Historical Society, just ask for "Buttons". Just 100 years earlier,
the Passenger Pigeon was the most abundant bird in North America, its
biomass estimated by some at, more or less, half the total bird biomass in
North America at the time. When young Press Clay Southworth shot buttons out
of a tree near Sargents, Pike County, Ohio, March 24, 1914, the Passenger
Pigeon was little more than a curiosity, an anachronism already. In life,
Buttons' crop was full of corn, not native acorns, mostly red oak acorns,
that had sustained billions of Passenger Pigeons for millennia. Buttons, a
mate-less female, was lost in time. Instinctively, she had scanned empty
skies for lost flocks of pigeons and she had scanned naked eroding hills for
large timber and huge mast crops, then reduced to small scattered remnants.
All was lost already. The only way we might have saved Button's kind was to
save vast habitat, vast forests. The oft told story of pigeon slaughter is
interesting reading, but the real tragedy, buried under the corn crib ever
since, was the burning of standing trees and the cut-and-run forestry that
nearly eliminated original Midwestern, Southeastern, and Eastern forests,
the pigeon's vast habitat, in just a half-century. Within a half-century, we
successfully redirected enormous solar energy from the production of mast
(acorns, buds, etc.) to the production of corn and wheat, then soybeans. We
feed much of the world through this biodiversity reduction--using the
sunshine of vast regions to feed a handful of gardened farm crops instead of
an ecosystem of biologically diverse organisms.

Why a pigeon story? Today, we are doing it again, this time to ducks. We are
blessed with large duck populations, even today, but recent episodic
populations' fluctuations against a backdrop of significant overall declines
in duck populations (excepting a few examples) is a result of another
episode of habitat destruction, the destruction of the remnant prairie
pothole region in order to feed vehicles through the corn-ethanol machine
put in place by the last federal administration (just renewed in the new
Farm Bill). We are gardening vast corn fields to feed vehicles, today.
"Teaming masses yearning to be free" (my ancestors among them) needed a
half-century to destroy the vast forest. Today, we can do the same in just a
decade of mismanagement. We need vast habitats, wild and free. Every garden,
no matter how large, remains a biodiversity prison. We cannot garden nature,
we can only set it free. We must set aside vast places where we are
guardians, not gardeners. We rely on ecosystem services far more than we are
aware.

You can help.

A quick easy decision: write your congressmen, tell them you support
doubling the price of a duck stamp in order to make up for inflation.

Another easy decision: regardless of your view of duck hunting, buy a couple
duck stamps! Almost all of the money, by law, goes to protect habitat,
mostly in the prairie pothole region currently under siege by profitable
corn ethanol.

Want more, or local control of the direction of your dollars' impacts?
Contribute to the Ohio Ornithological Society Conservation Fund (OOS). We
will be announcing a renewed TNC (Nature Conservancy) partnership for direct
habitat protections in the Shawnee State Forest--Edge of Appalachia Region
corridor at our Tenth Anniversary Conference at Shawnee a month from today
(registration is open). Support continued recovery of contiguous mature
forest lands to support neotropical migrants. Support wetlands recovery in
the Western Basin of Lake Erie. There is an organization acting in Ohio that
you can support, if you look.

Tom Bain
OOS Conservation



-----Original Message-----
From: Ohio birds [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Pow
Joshi
Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2014 9:53 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [Ohio-birds] bad-weather bird troubles

Dear All,

I find it very distressing and heart-rending to see the birds perish in the
unusually nasty winter weather. Shaker Green lake/Duck pond has 2 pairs of
hooded mergansers, and a male with 2 females of ring-necked ducks, in
addition to several ( at least 5-6) wood ducks and several mallards.
I know that the woodducks and the mallards generally are good at taking care
of themselves, and the  former can roost in the trees. However, I am
concerned for the mergansers and the ring necked ducks. I was wondering if
you would have any information on their behavior or if there's anything we
can do to give these poor birds a slightly better chance at life.

I know that we are not supposed to intervene with the natural causes,
however, I also found the Wendy park area being frozen with lots of dead
birds, after a nice weather day earlier a couple of weeks ago. I am
wondering if one should create some methods that will allow the water remain
open in such areas with higher migrant bird populations. For example,
creating a windmill  at the corner pier that will generate some heat to keep
the water open on such days. The power may be used for other purposes on
regular days. I am not sure if there would be some other idea around this
forum to protect these birds.

I appreciate your response, and thank you for reading my post.
sincerely,
Pow

(Pow Joshi, Shaker Heights/Cleveland area)


On 25 March 2014 21:48, Pow Joshi <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Dear All,
>
> I find it very distressing and heart-rending to see the birds perish
> in the unusually nasty winter weather. Shaker Green lake/Duck pond has
> 2 pairs of hooded mergansers, and a male with 2 females of ring-necked
> ducks, in addition to several ( at least 5-6) wood ducks and several
mallards.
> I know that the woodducks and the mallards generally are good at
> taking care of themselves, and the  former can roost in the trees.
> However, I am concerned for the mergansers and the ring necked ducks.
> I was wondering if you would have any information on their behavior or
> if there's anything we can do to give these poor birds a slightly better
chance at life.
>
> I know that we are not supposed to intervene with the natural causes,
> however, I also found the Wendy park area being frozen with lots of
> dead birds, after a nice weather day earlier a couple of weeks ago. I
> am wondering if one should create some methods that will allow the
> water remain open in such areas with higher migrant bird populations.
> For example, creating a windmill  at the corner pier that will
> generate some heat to keep the water open on such days. The power may
> be used for other purposes on regular days. I am not sure if there
> would be some other idea around this forum to protect these birds.
>
> I appreciate your response, and thank you for reading my post.
> sincerely,
> Pow
>

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______________________________________________________________________

Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society.
Please consider joining our Society, at www.ohiobirds.org/site/membership.php.
Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list.


You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at:
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