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15 June 2007 
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Drastic Bird Population Declines Reported in U.S. and Europe

14 June 2007, BirdLife International – According to new research from the National Audubon Society, populations of some of the most common birds in the United States have declined significantly since the 1960s. Breeding Bird Survey results have been analyzed together with data from Christmas Bird Counts to produce Audubon’s Common Birds in Decline list. The report shows that twenty different common bird species have fallen by at least half since 1967, including Eastern Meadowlark, Northern Pintail, Northern Bobwhite, Snow Bunting, and Greater Scaup. Habitat loss is considered to be a major factor in the declines. As the coordinator of Christmas Bird Counts in Canada, BSC and its volunteers provided critical data for this research.  Visit the Audubon website to learn more.
   In a separate study, similar declines have been noted in European farmland birds. Research indicates that between 1980 and 2005, numbers of common farmland birds across Europe dropped by an average of 44%. The information was gathered over the last 25 years through 20 national breeding bird surveys, and was collated by members of the Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme (which includes leading scientists from the European Bird Census Council, BirdLife International, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and Statistics Netherlands). The declines are thought to be a result of agricultural intensification throughout the European Union. Visit the BirdLife International website  for more information about this report.

U.S. West Nile Virus Study Released

17 May 2007 – The paper “West Nile virus emergence and large-scale declines of North American bird populations” by S.L. LaDeau, A.M. Kilpatrick, and P.P. Marra, was published in the May 17 issue of Nature. The study analyzed 26 years of data from the Breeding Bird Survey, and focused on 20 common bird species. The authors found that since the 1999 emergence of West Nile Virus, there have been significant declines in the populations of seven species: American Crow, Blue Jay, Tufted Titmouse, American Robin, House Wren, Chickadee (numbers were combined for Black-capped and Carolina chickadees), and Eastern Bluebird. The American Crow population had the largest decline. By 2005 only two of the species had recovered to pre-1999 levels – Blue Jay and House Wren. The full paper can be downloaded online here.

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        NATIONAL

 

2007 Student Award Recipients Announced

8 June 2007 – BSC is pleased to announce this year’s student award recipients. The 2007 James L. Baillie Student Award for Field Research went to Heather Major of Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, for her doctoral field research on Ancient Murrelets on Langara Island, Haida Gwaii, “Recovery of nocturnal burrow-nesting seabirds following eradication of introduced predators in British Columbia.” The 2007 Fred Cooke Student Research Award recipient is Nicole K. Barker, University of Windsor, Ontario, who will use the award for travel to her M.Sc. field research site in Santa Rosa National Park, Costa Rica, where she is studying “Effective communications in human-impacted tropical forests: Song transmission and the singing behaviours of Rufous-and-white Wrens.”
   The Baillie Student Award, funded by BSC with proceeds from the Baillie Birdathon, is open to any student conducting ornithological research at a Canadian university on Canadian birds in their natural environment. The Fred Cooke Student Research Award is offered jointly by BSC and the Society of Canadian Ornithologists to support ornithological conference travel or research activities by a student at a Canadian university. Applications for these awards are available on the Society of Canadian Ornithologists website.  The application deadline for the 2008 awards is February 15, 2008.

BSC Board Member Named Chief Justice of Ontario

1 June 2007 – The Honourable Mr. Justice Warren Winkler, a member of BSC’s Board of Directors since 2005, has been appointed Chief Justice of Ontario. Chief Justice Winkler grew up in Pincher Creek, Alberta, and is a graduate of the University of Manitoba and the Osgoode Hall Law School. He was founding partner of the Toronto law firm Winkler, Filion and Wakely. Chief Justice Winkler was appointed to the Superior Court of Ontario in 1993 and became Regional Senior Justice in the Toronto Region of that Court in 2004.
   Chief Justice Winkler is a champion of environmental responsibility, and he has acted as a judicial mediator for large multi-party disputes including the Walkerton water disaster. His interests include fly-fishing as well as farming and birding at his home near Markdale, Ontario. He was instrumental in the creation of the Long Point Waterfowl and Wetlands Research Fund in the late 1980s, has served as its chair since its inception, and in that role has worked closely with Bird Studies Canada for many years.
 

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Students Support BSC’s Bald Eagle Monitoring Project

15 June 2007 – Environmental and Natural Resource Sciences Professor Dave Wood and a group of his students from Sir Sandford Fleming College have successfully raised over $5000 to support Bald Eagle conservation in Ontario. The group supplemented their fundraising activities with a successful grant application to the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources Community Fisheries and Wildlife Involvement Program, and also received a donation from the Victoria Stewardship Council.
   The money will purchase a satellite transmitter for Destination Eagle, to help us learn more about the movements of young eagles hatched from the lower Great Lakes. The students are shown in the photograph above: (back row L-R) Tim Pitman, Kate Easterling, Brooke Bays, Keith Jay, Jason Hebert, Andrew Orton; (kneeling L-R) Holly Pees, and Keri-Beth Quennell. BSC thanks you, and the eagles thank you!

Sighting Spells Hope for Critically Endangered Songbird

13 June 2007 – In Ontario, the news of a male Loggerhead Shrike – found tending a nest on the Carden Alvar, near the City of Kawartha Lakes – was celebrated by researchers and conservationists. What makes the observation truly special is that it presents additional tangible evidence for the success of a sophisticated captive-breeding and release program that has been implemented recently to help bolster the wild populations of this endangered songbird in eastern Canada.
   Hatched and raised in captivity and then released by the multi-agency recovery team, this is the third captive-bred shrike so far that has been known to successfully learn to migrate south in the fall, successfully over-winter in the U.S., successfully migrate back north to Ontario, and actually be found again breeding in the wild. With the entire known, wild, breeding population in Ontario now numbering only 20-25 pairs, these results offer hope that the release program can help forestall further declines. For further information, select this link.

New Paper on Swan Artifact Ingestion Available Online

1 June 2007 – A paper examining artifact ingestion in swans using the lower Great Lakes has been published in Ardea. Jenna Bowen (Honours Student, University of Western Ontario) and Dr. Scott Petrie (Research Director, Long Point Waterfowl and Wetlands Research Fund) undertook the study to examine the prevalence of artifacts in native Tundra Swans and introduced Mute Swans using the lower Great Lakes. Mute Swans collected in this study had one of the highest overall frequencies of artifact ingestion ever reported for a waterfowl species, while Tundra Swans had a relatively low overall incidence of artifact ingestion. Select this link to download a PDF version of the paper.

New Endangered Species Act for Ontario

17 May 2007 – The Ontario government has passed new legislation to provide increased protection for the province’s species at risk. The Endangered Species Act, 2007, increases the number of protected species and enables scientists to determine which species should be added to the list each year. The Act includes mandatory habitat protection, and requires the development of recovery strategies for endangered species. Supporters of the Act claim it is among the toughest in North America. Visit the Legislative Assembly of Ontario website to view the legislation.

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