Why Birds Really Matter

  Last weekend at the National Audubon Convention it was very clear that birds mattered. In fact, among the 400+ convention attendees (Audubon members, staff, speakers from across the country), it was also very clear that bird conservation mattered a lot. In fact, after the multi-day convention, it seemed apparent that birds and bird conservation was the key--if not the key--to  a fulfilling personal life, strong communities, sustainable agriculture, pure water, clean air, ecosystem resilience, and a healthy planet. 

   It seems foolish to disagree.  Audubon has done a laudable job using the best available science to prove these statements are true and not hypotheses or slogans. 

   Expressing why exactly a particular bird, a population of birds, or a species of birds matter is a challenge--one greater than I had imagined. 

Read dozens of short answers in Audubon's "Why Do Birds Matter?"

  These answers are all interesting, many of them compelling, but none really satisfying. This might be a good thing. It might mean that, ultimately, words are inadequate for describing our feelings about birds precisely because those feelings are beyond words. Yet, being a writer, I must try.

   When I ask myself why birds matter, I narrow down the question to why my favorite bird--the marbled murrelet--matters to me. 

    Given the problems in the world, it is difficult to explain why this relatively little-known bird really matters to anyone on  a practical level:  This dove-sized seabird of the Pacific coast is not a source of food for humans, it is not a major source of food for another animal species, it does not (as far as I know) have symbiotic relationship with another animal or plan. It is not a keystone species in the ocean where it spends 95% of its time nor in the old-growth forest where it nests briefly in summer. 

A marbled murrelet chick ready to fledge.

   We may never get an answer to these questions as we struggle to articulate why birds matter.

   The quick answer is that the marbled murrelet matters because it is an "indicator species"-- that is, its presence, abundance, or absence indicates the health of an ecosystems. Changes in its population signal changes in biological conditions of the entire marine and old-growth coastal forest ecosystems. 

   So the marbled murrelet is a useful tool? That seems unfair and disrespectful. 

   To be sure, the crashing murrelet populations (nearly 30% between 2001-2011) indicate that the old-growth forests and the marine waters where the murrelets forage are in serious trouble.  Other birds with declining populations (which is most of them these days) also indicate fraying ecosystems. But this is not why these birds matter. 

   We cannot convincingly argue that, in the face of human suffering and misery, that birds are aesthetically pleasing and enhance the beauty of the natural world.

   So birds are decorations for us to enjoy? 

   How about birds are important because they are part of the fabric of the planet's ecosystems? This is true, just as it is true that every thread in a sweater is part of that sweater. Just as is it true that no one knows just how many threads you can pull and remove before the sweater is no longer a sweater but a  pile of threads that are not entwined, cannot reassemble themselves into any kind of functioning bit of clothing. When does the sweater become a rag? When does an ecosystem become a park, a clearcut, a zoo, and extirpation, a complete loss?    

Here is why birds matter to me: they make me feel good.

    But why?

    Because they make me feel connected--to the bird itself, to its habitat, to the rest of the living planet. The dove-sized marbled murrelet connects me to the vast Pacific Ocean where it swims. It connects me to the small  herring, salmon, squid it eats. It brings me the salty air and fog it flies through, the coastal bluffs it flies over, and open meadows it crosses. My ears ring with its plaintive call. The murrelet connects me to the cathedral-like forests of trees I will never climb. It connects me to the old-growth forest--its trees, mosses, lichen, ferns, owls, woodpeckers, martens, fishers, flying squirrels, voles, crows, and salamanders.  These eight-ounce masterpieces of bone and feather connect me to the people I have met who love and study these birds, who work hard to protect them, who care about the forests and the oceans. 

   Feeling connected to them makes us feel good. (Just look how much we spend on staying connected to our fellow human beings through direct contact and conversations, post cards, phone calls, e-mails, text messages, blogs, posts, feeds, and tweets!) 

    We are social animals. We are social. We are animals. Feeling connected is important. Feeling connected helps us act wisely. It helps us do good work for the earth. It helps us take care of living things. 

   Please, pick a bird--any bird. 

   Like it.

   Read about it.

   Follow it.

   Love it.

   Connect.

Be a Lorax! Please Write Today!

Due to format incompatability, this image cannot be expanded. I have summarized it below.

   Once again, the marbled murrelet and our old-growth forests are on the chopping block. Tomorrow (May 3) two nearly-hundred-acre parcels of old-growth Douglas-fir in Wahkiakum and Pacific Counties are being considered by the Washington State Department of Natural Resources for clearcutting.

Despite the fact that this is marbled murrelet nesting habitat.

Despite the fact that the murrelet population in Washington State is just 5,600 and is declining at 7.4% per year.

Despite the fact that the murrelet has been listed as a threatened species under both federal and state endangered species legislation.

Despite the fact that the 1997 Recovery Plan for the Marbled Murrelet mandates conservation measures to stabilize and recovery the marbled murrelet populations.

Despite the fact that a team of murrelet scientists recommended in 2008 that the state should specially manage or set aside 100,000 acres of older forests on the Olympic Peninsula and in Southwest Washington for this bird.

Public Lands Commissioner Goldmark and the Board of Natural Resources are essentially ignoring this advice and are postponing the adoption of long-term conservation plan until 2013, continuing to clear-cut marbled murrelet habitat until that time.

Clearcutting is a short sighted, unsustainable way to cut timber.Not only does this practice completely remove all trees, but it creates open edges into remaining forest surrounding the cut; this provides easy access for marbled murrelet nest predators such as ravens and jays which do not traditionally hunt in old-growth forests. In addition, it destroys habitat for other species by the removal of the trees, destruction of the  understory vegetation, increased soil erosion, and increased sedimentation of streams (salmon habitat).

Clearcutting is not management. It is not stewardship. It is not wise. But you are. Please take a minute of your day to write Commissioner Goldmark: Peter.goldmark@dnr.wa.gov and the Board of Natural Resources  bnr@dnr.wa.gov. Ask them to defer clearcutting of all marbled murrelet management areas until the State adopts a long-term conservation strategy consistent with its 2008 science report.

Thank you thank you from me and the murrelet. To read more on this bird, go to www.mariaruthbooks.com

Fog Lark News

Downy Marbled Murrelet on its tree-top nest. Actually this is the preserved form of the chick discovered on its nest in 1974 in a Douglas-fir in Big Basin Redwood State Park in California. The discovery was made not by a birder or ornithologist, but by a tree trimmer working in the 220-foot-high fir. When this chick pecked at his vicious speed saw, the tree trimmer decided the bird was worth saving. The bird is now in the collection of the California Academy of Sciences.  

  I've been writing about clouds almost exclusively the past few months, but it's time to hark back to the subject of my last book,Rare Bird. The bird is the marbled murrelet, an endangered seabird that nests in the old-growth coniferous forests of the Pacific Coast. Early loggers called it a "fog lark," because they would hear it's call early in the mornings when the thick coastal fog obscured all but the lower trunks of the trees they were felling. Few loggers likely ever saw a murrelet as these birds are secretive and camouflaged in the forest and silent on their elusive nests.

  You can see photos of the murrelet and read more about this amazing bird on my website .

  If you're in the Puget Sound region, I'll be giving two talks about this bird. One (a very brief introduction) for the Olympia Mountaineers Wednesday, March 2, at 6 p.m. And on March 9 for the Seattle chapter of the Sierra Club at the REI. 

The cover of Joan Dunning's new book shows an adult murrelet and it's chick on a moss-covered branch, likely hundreds of feet up an old-growth redwood tree. The nesting location of this unusual bird wasn't discovered until 1974.

  Though my head is in the clouds these days, working onStill Life with Clouds, author-illustrator Joan Dunning, has created a beautiful children's book on the marbled murrelet. It's calledSeabird in the Forest and it's due out in April from Houghton-Mifflin. Click here for a sneak preview of the book. Joan has published several books for adults and children on natural history topics, including Leaving Home, Secrets of the Nest, and From the Redwood Forest . She lives in Arcata, California enviably close to the marbled murrelets. Through her art and writing, Joan has worked passionately to help conserve the old-growth forests and it's mysteries. The story of the murrelet chick is a compelling one that will appeal to adults and children alike.

Murrelets in the Mountains

It’s about sixty miles from my home in Olympia to the town of Ashford, in the foothills of Mt. Rainier. It’s an easy trip for motorists, a challenge for cyclists, and unthinkable journey for a chubby little seabird flying non-stop from Puget Sound or the Pacific Coast. But the marbled murrelet makes this long journey from salt water to the forest to its unlikely nesting site—a wide branch high in an old-growth tree. Though most of Washington’s population of murrelets nests closer to the coast, biologists have detected murrelets in an 80-acre patch of old-growth forest, known as the “Ashford 80.”

These eighty acres are part of the Nisqually Land Trust’s recent acquisition of 600 acres between Gifford Pinchot National Forest and Elbe Hills State Forest. This purchase, from Hancock Forest Management, brings a total of 1940 acres of timberland into protection for the federally threatened marbled murrelet and northern spotted owl as well as nine other species of concern. The Mt. Rainier Gateway Reserve, as the property is officially called, was purchased by the Land Trust through a grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and a donation from the Nisqually Indian Tribe; the Washington Department of Natural Resources will hold a conservation easement on the property.

On a recent foggy July morning, I was part of an expedition to celebrate the Reserve and the marbled murrelet at the Copper Creek Hut, a cozy gathering place that is part of the Mount Tahoma Trail Association’s hut-to-hut ski-trail system. An extensive stretch of the trail system is now part of the Reserve property. The low, grey clouds accompanied us through Yelm, along the Nisqually River, and past Lake Alder, but as we began the climb up toward Ashford, blue skies greeted us as did the promise of a view of the mountain. From Ashford, we bumped along a rugged road in a four-wheel drive for a good 20 minutes, imagining how very different this would be on cross-country skis or snowshoes—and on top of ten feet of snow.

The sun-drenched hut was a welcoming sight as was the new Mount Rainer Gateway Reserve sign and the view of Mt. Rainier. This close-up view of the mountain’s west side was capital-S Scenery. It was so breathtaking that I couldn’t take in with my eyes alone so I found myself taking deeper and deeper breaths to better and more fully absorb its magnificence and beauty. I had never really thought about it before, but breathing really deeply must be a physical response to breathtaking sights.

The view of the “Ashford 80” kept my breathing deep, almost to the point of hyperventilating. There, maybe a quarter mile below the ridge where I was standing, was a dark, green and angular patch of trees rising above the recently logged hillside. This was murrelet nesting habitat—eighty acres, sixty miles from the water. It was mind boggling. There, somewhere in that dense wood, were wide, moss-covered branches where a pair of murrelets could lay a single egg and raise a chick. There, in the shade of the towering evergreens, was the summer home of a seabird with a hellish daily commute to saltwater. There, each morning around sunrise, an adult murrelet would land with a whole, small fish for its chick. There, for a month, a murrelet chick would sit, still and silent, waiting for the moment when it’s flight feathers would carry it to the sea. There, in that piece of forest, was a future for the murrelet.

I have lived within sight of Mt. Rainier for just over three years now. I look for it when I am out driving or biking. Even a brief glimpse of it, peeking briefly out of the clouds, will make my day. As will a walk around the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge, or a crossing of a Nisqually River bridge, knowing that the murrelets may follow this river to the mountain. And now, with a view of the Ashford 80 emblazoned in my mind, I see the mountain not as a destination for hikers, day-trippers, skiers, or snow-shoers, but as a home for the murrelet, a gateway for hope.

NOTE: Access to Copper Creek Hut is winter-only and restricted to members of the Mount Tahoma Trail Association. For information on joining, go to http://www.skimtta.com/. For information on the Nisqually Land Trust properties, projects, and upcoming events, go to http://www.nisquallylandtrust.org/