http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0tz2vyteAY&utm_source=Cornell+Lab+eNews&utm_campaign=7631877f7f-Cornell_Lab_eNews_December_201112_19_2011&utm_medium=email

Ornithologists are now taking older technology and adapting it for new uses in avian studies.  Watch the video on how feeder birds are being tracked and monitored and how ornithologists are gathering data.

  www.abcbirds.orgMEDIA RELEASEContact: Steve Holmer, 202/234-7181 ext. 216, sholmer@abcbirds.org

 Northern Spotted Owl Plan Calls for Additional Habitat Protection

 (Washington, D.C., June 30, 2011) The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) will soon release a final Northern Spotted Owl Recovery Plan that needs to call for additional habitat protection for the threatened species, said American Bird Conservancy. “Additional habitat protection is needed to recover the Spotted Owl. We urge the Obama Administration to take quick action to preserve the remaining at-risk owl habitat,” said Steve Holmer, Senior Policy Advisor at American Bird Conservancy. “Protecting that old-growth forest habitat will also help the community and the nation by preserving both a world-class tourism destination and a sustainable recreation economy. A healthy forest also serves as a critical storehouse for heat-trapping greenhouse gases and a good source of drinking water for millions of people.”The Recovery Plan will guide future management in the region, and could lead to changes in the overall Northwest Forest Plan. Critical Habitat for the owl will be designated under the Endangered Species Act in the coming year based on the modeling in the Recovery Plan.The population of the Northern Spotted Owl is now thought to number fewer than 4,000 pairs, and is declining at a rate of 2.9% per year. The subspecies was listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1990.“It is unfortunate that the Spotted Owl has been pushed this close to the brink due to the loss of 85% of its original habitat, and that logging of its habitat that still continues today on both public and private lands,” said Holmer. “It is clear that such an unsustainable path needs to come to an end and a new direction be taken that focuses on creating jobs by restoring owl habitat.”The draft plan also calls for the experimental removal of Barred Owls to determine if reduced competition will benefit the Spotted Owl. FWS is expected to soon release a draft Environmental Impact Statement regarding the experimental removal. The Barred Owl, a thriving species originally limited to eastern North America, has invaded the Northwest due to land use changes across the Great Plains, and is now competing with the Spotted Owl for suitable habitats and putting further pressure on the threatened owl’s population.“Conserving species threatened with extinction should be the priority. We will closely review the draft Environmental Impact Statement, and if a rigorous scientific protocol is proposed with verifiable benefit to Spotted Owl populations, we will support the experimental removal,” said Holmer.Results of the Barred Owl experiment will be available in 3-5 years. At that time, the agency can then determine what long-term management protocol if any would be appropriate.

  www.abcbirds.org MEDIA RELEASEContact: Robert Johns, 202-234-7181 ext.210, bjohns@abcbirds.org

Conservation Groups, Thousands of Citizens
Call on Feds to Protect Birds from Wind Turbines

 (Washington, D.C., May 19, 2011) A three-month federal public comment period on wind turbine guidelines for wildlife impacts closes today. Fifty-six groups and more than 20,000 individuals have signed on to a campaign by the nation’s leading bird conservation organization, American Bird Conservancy (ABC), that calls for bird-smart principles in the siting and operation of wind farms.“The campaign represents a broad cross-section of respected national and local groups, as well as scientists, bird lovers, conservationists, and other concerned citizens. We expect more organizations and individuals will join us as they hear about the bird-smart wind alternative, which can help the wind power industry become fully green” said Kelly Fuller, ABC’s Wind Campaign Coordinator. 

FWS published proposed voluntary wind energy siting and operation guidelines in the Federal Register on March 2, and sought public comments on the proposal through today. ABC and the other groups and individuals have responded by calling for strong mandatory standards. Bird-smart wind standards should employ careful siting, operation and construction mitigation, bird monitoring, and compensation, to reduce and redress any unavoidable bird mortality and habitat loss. These are issues that the federal government should include in mandatory wind standards.“Although wind power can be an important part of the solution to global climate change, wind farms can have significant impacts on birds—including eagles, songbirds, and endangered species—through collisions with turbines and associated power lines, and through loss of habitat. If bird-smart principles aren’t adopted, we could easily see well over a million birds killed by turbines each year once the wind industry completes its expected build-out by 2030,” said Mike Parr, Vice President of ABC.”Wind power certainly offers hope for a less-polluted future, but we as birders know that location matters and that impacts on birds and other wildlife should be figured into the calculus of costs and benefits of any energy project,” said Jeffrey Gordon, President of the American Birding Association. “Wind power makes sense when it is bird-smart, and birds and wind power can co-exist if the wind industry is held to mandatory standards that protect birds. The Draft Wind Guidelines take good steps toward these measures, but don’t go far enough. The U.S. has had voluntary guidelines since 2003, and if a voluntary approach was going to be successful, it would already have happened. But it hasn’t, and it’s time now to acknowledge that,” added Parr. “Without mandatory standards, many wind developers won’t even be required to notify Fish and Wildlife Service experts about wind projects in advance. How can FWS help mitigate bird impacts for projects they don’t even know about?” he said. “Mandatory standards will help wind developers by providing much greater certainty to them and their investors about what will be required of wind projects. Mandatory standards will also result in a level playing field so that conscientious developers and operators will not be at a competitive disadvantage compared to less responsible developers,” said Parr. 

Today, ABC submitted an official comment letter signed on by a broad range of groups to FWS. The letter says that wind power will have to be developed thoughtfully to prevent violations of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA), the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act (BGEPA), and the Endangered Species Act.In addition to recommending mandatory rather than voluntary standards, the comment letter suggests ways that the Guidelines should be strengthened. These include:Increasing protection for sage-grouse and prairie-chickens through use of buffer zones.Tying pre-construction studies at potential wind farm sites to the anticipated risk to birds, and conducting those studies when bird use of the site is expected to be at its peak.

• Mandating written Avian and Bat Protection Plans at all wind facilities. These plans describe the steps that will be taken to avoid and minimize impacts to birds and bats.
• Ensuring wind farm operators and companies that provide power lines to wind farms follow the Avian Power Line Interaction Committee (APLIC) guidelines. The APLIC guidelines describe how to avoid bird deaths caused by power lines. Some wind farms already follow them.“There is no need for jobs or renewable home-grown energy to be at risk from bird-smart wind principles. If industry is required to protect birds, then ABC is convinced that technical innovation will be accelerated,” said Parr. “The U.S. should be the global leader in developing bird protection technology we can export.”For more information about the 56 groups that support bird-smart wind power, contact Kelly Fuller at kfuller@abcbirds.org or (202) 234-7181.

American Bird Conservancy (www.abcbirds.org) conserves native birds and their habitats throughout the Americas by safeguarding the rarest species, conserving and restoring habitats, and reducing threats while building capacity in the bird conservation movement. ABC is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit membership organization that is consistently awarded a high rating by the independent group, Charity Navigator.

• PROPOSED NEW SOCIETY FOR ORNITHOLOGY--The AOU Council unanimously approved a motion to move forward with planning to form a new society, with ultimate hopes of uniting and strengthening Western Hemisphere ornithology. The plan could involve a merger of AOU and one or more other ornithological societies into a western hemisphere ornithological society tentatively named the Society for Ornithology. Four new journals are in the plans–monthly online journals and quarterly journals in paper format, with the focus varying from cutting edge basic research to descriptive ornithology and including a journal on avian conservation and management.