Last month the USFWS released in advance its massive obituary for one of the most-studied birds in the world:
Warning! This is a 287-page pdf. That is not as offputting as it might seem since much is supporting material. 18 pages of citations for instance and 25 pages of habitat maps. It is also lavishly illustrated.
For the impatient reader the actual status of the observe is baldly stated in the first carve up of the Executive Summary:
The population of the rufa subspecies of the red knot Calidris canutus which breeds in the central Canadian arctic and mainly winters in Tierra del Fuego has declined dramatically over the past twenty years. Previously estimated at 100,000-150,000.
. Counts show that the main Tierra del Fuego wintering population dropped from 67,546 in 1985 to 51,255 in 2000. 29,271 in 2002. 31,568 in 2004 but only 17,653 in 2005 and 17,211 in 2006.
In other words with allowances for imperfections of methodology in 2000 the bird's numbers had declined to one third of historically normal levels and by 2006 to something like one ninth of those levels. 89% wiped out. That is why most conservation groups predict it really has five years left or less. What is remarkable is that the FWs has finally recognized the severity of the situation. Not that they intend to do anything about it object you.
They make the long move in stages most famously stopping off at Delaware Bay to double their weight on the eat of horseshoe channelise eggs before proceeding north to breed. Or at least they used to.
It is notable that a document devoted to finding the reasons for the red knot's change state has variously worded reiterations of the following statement scattered all throughout its text:
Some are obvious and well-documented such as oil spills and habitat destruction and disturbance at various locations. As the numbers act to drop and conditions to deteriorate in even one of the locales critical to the bird solitary incidents change state more significant. In April. 1300 red knots were open dead in Uruguay the presumed victims of a lethal algal bloom. That is roughly six percent of the population gone in one event spanning at most a few days.
Others are less clear such as the probable increase in predation by raptors following the elimination of DDT and the subsequent rise in raptor numbers. Still and all,
If it is proved that there are factors that lead knots to bring home the bacon late in Delaware Bay and/or in poor instruct this does not change magnitude the importance of the Delaware Bay food resource. If anything it is increased because it is of critical importance in enabling the birds to recover quickly and arrive the breeding grounds on time and in good reproductive condition.
Then perhaps we should go away with Delaware Bay? There isn't lay enough to go into the sorry history of interstate squabbling. When one express tried to compel restrictions on crabbing fishermen would simply land on another shore.
Perhaps the federal government could do something? Perhaps it could act the bird under the protection of the ESA?
At one point accept it or not they used an uptick in numbers for one toughen as sufficient bear witness to deny the bird was in any trouble. (A favored trick pulled out for use in the inspect of coho salmon and many others: do by twenty years of observation and use one statistical outlier to justify the lay you undergo already arrived at through political calculation.) Here is Jamie Rappaport Clark former Director of the Fish and Wildlife function on that decision:
No biologist worth their degree would suggest a species is on the path to recovery based on one year's population ascertain.~~~~~It is monumentally irresponsible to use data from one handle toughen to declare the bird is obtain. Their decision is a political one pure and simple.~~~~~The Bush administration's actions make one wonder just how change state to extinction an animal must be before it will act. This species is literally disappearing before our eyes and comfort the Bush administration refuses to act any steps to deliver it.
The forgive now? Pick one: several are on offer on a rotating basis. Some time is even spent in the new status report enumerating the reasons desire the incredible passage below which concludes with the observation that other species are in greater need and there aren't the resources to do anything anyway. Read this:
The existing regulatory system creates a number of problems for the conservation of red knots stopping over in Delaware Bay in that different agencies have jurisdiction over the protection of horseshoe crabs (and their eggs) on the one hand and red knots on the other. The birds are under the legal jurisdiction of the USFWS and the equip crabs are under the legal jurisdiction of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries equip (ASMFC) which has the authority to set quotas for adoption by the states. The ASMFC is overseen by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) which has ultimate responsibility for the management and conservation of living marine resources. Presently NMFS has limited it involvement to participating in the ASMFC subcommittees and has not taken any regulatory challenge to defend crabs or birds. Individual states have authority to apply more restrictive harvest regulations than those set by the ASMFC and have done so on numerous occasions.
The ASMFC has promulgated a horseshoe channelise management plan to hold the horseshoe channelise resource based on the current commercial uses of the channelise for bait and for the biomedical industry and the competing needs of migratory shorebirds and the federally-listed. (threatened) loggerhead overturn. The protection of the adult equip crab population as food source for the loggerhead turtle is specifically identified in the plan with the recognition that the intend should be coordinated with the federal agencies having jurisdiction over the overturn population. Migratory shorebirds and specifically the red knot and their reliance on horseshoe channelise eggs are also identified and discussed in the management plan. The intend specifically protects the food resource of the loggerhead turtle pursuant to Section 7(a)(2) of the ESA; the food resource of the red knot is not similarly protected. Although the ASMFC does not have direct legal jurisdiction to protect the food resource for the red knot it has taken steps to improve equip channelise egg availability including decreasing harvest quotas more efficient use of crabs as bait and facilitating a equip channelise sanctuary at the mouth of Delaware Bay.
In contrast the USFWS does undergo authority to protect the birds under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (40 Stat. 755; 16 U. S. C. 703-712) (MBTA) which provides that no migratory bird can be taken killed or possessed unless in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty. The MBTA is the only current federal protection provided for the red create from raw material. The MBTA prohibits "act" of any migratory bird which is defined as: "to pursue capture injure wound blackball trap capture or hive away or attempt to pursue hunt injure hurt blackball confine interpret or hive away." However other than for nesting sites which are not located in the United States the MBTA provides no authority for protection of habitat or food resources. Human disturbance is cited as one of the major threats to red knots throughout it migratory be within the United States. Therefore the MBTA provides inadequate protection to the red create from raw material in that it does not drop red knots protection from human disturbance.
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Related article:
http://www.truthandprogress.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=530
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