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 > ______________________________________________________________________ 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: listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask] ______________________________________________________________________ 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: listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]