endangered birds

NSW Department of Primary Industries
Wyoming needs to address the issue of sprawling residential development to help preserve the sage grouse and its habitat, Gov. Dave Freudenthal said.
The state's Sage Grouse Implementation Team gave Freudenthal its recommendations on Monday. The team suggested increasing the acreage exemption for subdividing land from the current 40 acres to 640 acres. The result would be to subject more subdivision developments to government oversight.
In a press conference Tuesday, Freudenthal said he hasn't yet endorsed any of the team's recommendations. He said he will probably follow the team's suggestion to seek funding to map where the birds - also found in neighboring Utah - exist in the state.
Freudenthal appointed the sage grouse team this year to come up with ways to keep the birds from being listed under the federal Endangered Species Act. Listing the birds would impose costly restrictions on energy development.
Recent studies concluded that sage grouse populations in Wyoming's Powder River Basin dropped by 86 percent from 2000 to 2005 in areas where there was coal-bed methane activity. Grouse populations just outside those areas dropped by 35 percent, the studies found.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has imposed seasonal restrictions on energy development in northeastern Wyoming to protect the
A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service review released today recommends upgrading the status of wood storks from endangered to threatened.


Photo by Michel Fortier / Daily News file photo

A wood stork attempts to swallow a large fish in this file photo taken in February. This was only the eighth year since 1959 that wood storks failed to nest at the National Audubon Society-owned Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. The birds built about 40 nests but laid no eggs. Last year, the sanctuary produced 600 nests and 1,428 fledglings.
Corkscrew Swamp Sanctaury in Collier County is the wood stork's largest nesting site in North America, and the birds figure prominently in an ongoing legal battle over development in the Cocohatchee Slough north of Immokalee Road.

The recommendation, contained in a five-year review of the wood storks' status, is not a formal proposal to reclassify the wood stork; that would take a separate process. The Fish and Wildlife Service has not said when it might formally pursue the reclassification.

Federal scientists concluded in the review that data show the wood stork is expanding its range and adapting to habitat changes, according to today's announcement.

The 2006 breeding season marked the first time since the early 1960s that there have been more than 10,000 nesting pairs, scientists said.

Auudubon of Florida's Big Cypress science coordinator Jason Lauritsen, based at Corkscrew, said today it is too premature to downlist the wood stork. He cited uncertainty about the wood stork's future in Southwest Florida.

He acknowledged successful nesting seasons between 2000 and 2006 that featured optimal amounts and timing of rainfall but pointed out that the 2007 season was a bust. The 2008 season also is at risk because of this year's drought, he said.

"The Service review notes this as a concern but adds that the overall distribution of wood storks also is in transition,'' according to today's announcement.

The five-year review also recommends monitoring wood stork productivity at selected sites, improving population models, studying how man-made wetlands affect wood stork health and conducting genetic studies to better understand diversity of wood stork populations in the United States, Caribbean, Latin America and South America.


birds.
The team this week called for spending $27.3 million on recovery efforts, of which $20 million would go for conservation easements and the rest going to support mapping, monitoring and local projects. The team stated that hunting of sage grouse in the state should be allowed to continue.
On the team's suggestion of requiring subdivision approval for dividing land in parcels smaller than 640 acres, Freudenthal said, "I don't know if their answer is the right one, but I'm delighted that they had the courage to step up and focus again on a problem that everybody knows is out there."
Freudenthal said people tend to think of oil and gas development as being responsible for reducing sage grouse habitat.
However, Freudenthal said, "If you look at the numbers in terms of the acreage that's being removed, from habitat, the primary driver in that, turns out to be rural housing, rural subdivisions."
John Gibbs, president of the Wyoming Association of Realtors, said Tuesday that his group likely would oppose any push to increase the acreage exemption for subdividing land from the current 40 acres to 640 acres.
"That's just a matter of economics; it just makes for less properties to sell," Gibbs said of the proposal. "Not that we're not for the conservation part of things."
Gibbs, a member of the Wyoming Real Estate Commission, said many areas of Wyoming already have problems paying for necessary infrastructure to support development.
"We can't afford the infrastructure we've got now," Gibbs said. "How can we afford the infrastructure on something that big?. I don't think the 640 rule over the 40-acre rule is the solution to that problem."
The implementation team also recommended that the state encourage energy companies to "reduce the footprint of energy development." It recommended incentives such as tax exemptions and streamlined permitting to entice industry to reduce disruption of the land where sage grouse live.
Freudenthal said he's not sure he will end up supporting tax incentives for energy companies to reduce their effect on the land. He said most of the companies are already doing what they can.
Bruce Hinchey, president of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, said Tuesday that companies are already working to reduce their presence on the ground.
If sage grouse are listed under the Endangered Species Act, Hinchey said the effects would go far beyond his industry. "It would affect not only our industry, but ranching, mining and everything that goes on in the state," he said.
Freudenthal said he's hopeful that Wyoming can convince the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to enter into a statewide agreement that could allow the state to continue agricultural activity and energy development even if the sage grouse gains federal protection nationwide.
The Endangered Species Act contains a provision that allows private landowners to enter into "candidate conservation agreements." Such agreements could allow Wyoming landowners who take steps to protect sage grouse and their habitat to continue their normal operations if the birds are listed.
If the state can get a candidate conservation agreement in place, Freudenthal said that regional changes to the sage grouse population that might cause it to be listed as an endangered species won't affect Wyoming. "We will still be able to continue doing business in the way we have done it," he said.
Species of woodland-dependent birds whose numbers have been declining are finding new homes in plantings of eucalypts and shrubs, a new study has shown.

NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI) forest biodiversity researchers have surveyed 120 eucalypt plantations in south-western NSW and northern Victoria and found they are providing useful habitat for at least 10 declining woodland-dependent bird species.

These include the Speckled Warbler, Red-capped Robin (pictured) and Rufous Whistler.

Most of the original forest and woodland cover in these areas has been cleared for agriculture, and what remains is fragmented and often disturbed.

However, over the last 30 years, eucalypts and native shrubs have been planted extensively to provide a range of environmental benefits.

NSW DPI forest biodiversity research leader, Dr Rod Kavanagh, said the survey was undertaken to determine the extent to which these plantings could improve biological diversity in agricultural landscapes.

"We sampled birds at 120 sites encompassing the range of patch sizes, stand ages and structural conditions for both planted areas and nearby forest remnants to assess their potential as habitat. These were compared with surrounding paddocks. "

Eucalypt plantings were found to provide significant improvements in bird population density, compared with cleared or sparsely treed paddocks.

"Mixed eucalypt and shrub plantings contained similar bird communities to remnant native forest and woodland in the region," Dr Kavanagh said.

Factors found to be important for the presence of birds included the size of the patch, its age and distance from remnant forest and woodland.

Larger remnants and plantings - those more than five hectares in area - had more species and more individuals than smaller patches of similar vegetation.

Older plantings, aged between 10 and 25 years, had more individuals and species than younger plantings.

'Habitat connectivity', which is the distance from remnant forest, is an important variable influencing bird species richness in eucalypt plantations.

A few species, including the Brown Treecreeper, were confined to remnant forest and woodland in the region.

Dr Kavanagh said eucalypt plantings of all shapes and sizes, but especially those larger than five hectares, were found to have an important role to play in providing habitat for many bird species.

On Tuesday, Labour's Environment spokespersons Dr Joe Brincat and Roderick Galdes condemned last weekend's actions at the Nadur Tower, arguing that this is another indication that more needs to be done to enforce regulations and protect endangered birds from illegal hunting. Ironically, they noted, such illegalities are taking place during a period where hunting is restricted through government's latest measures.

The collaboration, wisdom, and efforts of all those concerned are required for attaining the best solution to this situation, the Labour MPs concluded.