About three weeks ago a red-tailed hawk named Pale Male was homeless in New York City, robbed by a real estate management company of the habitat (a spiked ledge on a Central Park co-op) that he and his mate had occupied for years. Although red-tailed hawks are fairly common, there was a great hue and cry in New York, and the management company finally agreed to relocate the spikes on a different ledge in hopes of providing a new nesting place.
But Pale Male is only one bird having a hard time. Across the planet, birds, which are recognized species indicators of healthy ecosystems, are facing a host of challenges. In our immediate area, cerulean warblers are losing nesting habitat in the forests of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the effects of climate change have the potential to make the Baltimore oriole the Bangor oriole. The entire area around the Chesapeake Bay, used by millions of migrating song and water birds, is being transformed from bird-friendly habitat into habitat for people pursuing birdies, or their own place to nest, among other things. Habitat for nesting, food and migration is being fed into the maw of consumption and development.
(Pale Male, Whose Eviction Prompted Protests In New York, Carrie)
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This doesn't have to be. There are 80 million people in this country who have some interaction with birds, ranging from feeding them in their back yards to traveling halfway around the world to see a particular species, to hunting them for sport and food. Those 80 million people share the lands and waters of Earth with 9,917 species of birds. Today more than a thousand of those species are considered to be of conservation concern, more than 300 classified as endangered and more than 150 thought to be on the edge of extinction.
The capacity that birds have to ignite our imagination and define our need to conserve habitat is powerful. "Bird" is one of the first words we teach our children. Birds have been the catalyst for many of our country's greatest conservation programs. But with so many species looking at the edge of oblivion, isn't it time for us to expand our imagination and do more?
I have three suggestions. First, this administration needs a conservation program it can hang its Stetson on, and birds should be a good fit. Laura Bush, according to a story that ran in The Post at the beginning of President Bush's first term, says she is a birder. The first lady should use the power of her office to do for birds what Lady Bird Johnson did for wildflowers. Second, her husband, who claims that he is managing habitat on his ranch for the endangered golden-cheeked warbler, should support $100 million in funding for the Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act. The act, originally sponsored by then-Sen. Spencer Abraham (R-Mich.), is up for reauthorization. Bird lovers all over the country should make themselves heard on this.
Finally, there is a need for some focused leadership in the bird conservation world. Pale Male's story was covered widely in the papers and was on every major news network. But the National Audubon Society's spokesman seemed content to focus on one nest for a pair of birds when the real news is hundreds of species of birds facing annihilation. What a wasted opportunity.
Bird conservation organizations such as the American Bird Conservancy (at www.abcbirds.org) could attract more supporters, and get to work on the 78 places they have identified in our hemisphere where birds are in immediate danger of extinction. John Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, says that a focus on birds and their conservation needs would produce broad positive gains for conservation in general. You don't have to look much further than at what Ducks Unlimited has done for wetland conservation to see the truth in that.
But making such things occur will require more than the words of birding conservationists. As David Sibley, the conservationist and author of "The Sibley Guide to Birds," has said, "Birds can still be saved if the millions of people who love birds band together and become a political and market force for conservation."
What went on in front of a building in New York gives me hope that this could happen, that Pale Male's need for a home will begin to resonate far beyond the Upper East Side, and that the millions of Americans who say they care about the environment and conservation will do more than just say they care.
The writer is president of the Fairfax Audubon Society and has worked for conservation nonprofits for 14 years.
