For years scientists have documented the alarming amounts of mercury polluting American rivers and lakes. Until now research on wildlife and mercury emissions from coal-burning plants has focused primarily on fish and fish-eating birds like loons and eagles. But now the toxic metal is showing up in unexpected places, including the blood and feathers of the Bicknell's thrush, a migrant songbird that breeds almost exclusively in the mountain forests of the Northeast. The study—the first of mercury in a terrestrial songbird—was published in the March issue of the journal Ecotoxicology.
The Bicknell's thrush—a species of the highest conservation concern on the Audubon WatchList—is already handicapped by its limited breeding range, its small global population, and its dwindling winter habitat in the Caribbean. “Mercury is one more potential stressor on these birds. Who knows what the cumulative effects are of all these,” says Christopher Rimmer, a lead author of the study and a biologist at the Vermont Institute of Natural Sciences.
Finding mercury in a terrestrial species like the Bicknell's thrush surprised scientists. “This research suggests that airborne mercury is pervasive and its impacts are not limited to surface waters and the wildlife that use them,” says study coauthor David Evers, a biologist at the BioDiversity Research Institute in Maine.
One-third of U.S. mercury emissions come from coal-burning electric-utility plants, most of which are in the Midwest. Pollutant-laced clouds, carried by the wind to the Northeast, are captured by the Appalachian and Adirondack mountains. The pollutants are then unleashed in rain that falls on the region's forests.
Humans are exposed to mercury primarily by eating fish, which is why 48 states have issued freshwater-fish advisories limiting consumption. As mercury builds up in the body's tissues, it can affect the heart, brain, and nervous system. Pregnant and nursing women in particular must be careful, because mercury can be passed on to their children, and an estimated 600,000 children born each year are at risk. In 2004 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that one in six women of childbearing age has unsafe mercury levels.
The new information about mercury in wildlife comes just as the EPA is being criticized for ignoring established scientific practices when drafting a proposal to control mercury emissions from power plants. In February the EPA inspector general found that top agency officials used standards set by the electric-utilities industry to determine mercury emissions standards; understated how much emissions could be reduced; and failed to completely assess the health costs, especially to children. Meanwhile, the Bush administration recently proposed new regulations that would reduce overall mercury pollution by allowing utilities to trade emission credits. Under the scheme, a cap on emissions set by each state would permit companies to trade pollution allowances. But critics charge that such a practice would lead to locally polluted “hot spots,” where the poison will be concentrated.
Whatever the final solution, time is running out, says Susan Gallo, a wildlife biologist with Maine Audubon. Gallo coordinates Maine Audubon's annual loon count, which has recorded increasing numbers of adults but a stagnant number of chicks. “If we don't fix our mercury problem,” she warns, “the long-term implications for the loon could be grave.”
Last February, 62 distinguished scientists, 20 Nobel laureates among them, charged the Bush administration with “manipulation of the process through which science enters into its decisions.” To discover the extent of the abuse, the Union of Concerned Scientists teamed up with Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility to survey 1,600 scientists in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Nearly 30 percent responded, despite agency directives not to. They spoke of a “climate of fear” at the USFWS—fear of the loss of jobs or of program funding. At a subsequent Congressional hearing, Representative Norman Dicks (D-WA) excoriated departed USFWS director Steve Williams: “You are letting political appointees beat up on biologists, so they are intimidated and can't do their job for habitat and species.” Nine of 10 managers cited cases where political appointees and members of Congress injected themselves into scientific determinations. Half knew of cases in which commercial interests caused the reversal or withdrawal of scientific conclusions. ¶ Many called for the removal of Julia MacDonald, an Interior Department appointee who recently claimed that historical records of millions of sage grouse (top) were “simply a fairy tale” and that the birds did not depend on sagebrush for survival. “They will eat other stuff if it is available,” she said. As a result, this endangered bird has been denied protection under the Endangered Species Act, while its habitat continues to be destroyed by commercial interests—gas drilling, mining, and development. For the full report, go to www.ucsusa.org .
Bill McQuilkin Jr. of Florida, who joined National Audubon's board of directors in 2001, has been an active volunteer at Audubon's local, state, and national levels. His grasp of grassroots issues made him the obvious choice to head the board's Ad Hoc Chapter Committee and to work on other collaborative programs. Audubon recently caught up with him.
Question: How long have you been involved with Audubon?
McQuilkin: I became president of the St. Johns County Audubon chapter in the 1990s. Florida Audubon was a separate organization then. When the proposal came up to merge the state and national organizations, I pushed hard for it. After that the chapters in the seven southeastern states elected me to the national board.
Q: You're a strong believer in the value of grassroots and the role chapters play in it.
A: Chapters and volunteers are the lifeblood of our organization. They do the citizen science, such as Christmas Bird Counts and Great Backyard Bird Counts.
Q: How do the strengths of the national staff and the chapters complement each other?
A: The board, with national and state staffs, provides the vision, creating large-scale programs for, let's say, the Everglades or the Mississippi River system. Chapter volunteers help implement the strategies.
Q: Can you give us an example of these partnerships from your travels?
A: In Mississippi we asked the state office to develop the Great Backyard Bird Count. The office helped organize the campaign and raised funds for public awareness, while the chapters pitched in with enthusiasm. Together they provided school programs with a CD for kids.
Q: As chair of the board's Ad Hoc Chapter Committee, what do you see as its primary accomplishment?
A: The opening of a dialogue between the chapters and the state and national offices. Phone calls and e-mails are all right, but they can't replace sitting around a table. I was on the road many weekends; so was Lynn Tennefoss of Chapter Services. State executive directors like David Miller in New York, Dave Henderson in New Mexico, and Jerry Tinianow in Ohio were invaluable in facilitating our meetings with chapter leaders. As Audubon president John Flicker said, “In the end, the process became as important as the product.”
Q: What opportunities lie ahead?
A: Chapters will forge relationships with each other, as well as the state and national offices and local government agencies and land trusts. Historically, our grassroots have been a powerful movement for conservation. We want to build on them in the 21st century.
—Frank Graham Jr.
The epic migrations of albatrosses have long led poets to wonder at the birds' restlessness—and scientists to ponder exactly where albatrosses go during their months-long oceanic wanderings, which can cover thousands of miles. When adult albatrosses breed, they spend roughly six months on their island or coastal breeding grounds (18 of the world's 21 albatross species live in the Southern Hemisphere). They then spend 6 to 18 months cruising the open oceans. Almost nothing is known about the routes these wanderings take. However romantic, this mystery has crippled efforts to save albatrosses from deaths caused by longline fishing—for tuna, in particular—that make them among the earth's most threatened bird families. Now, though, a new tagging study has begun to solve the mystery.
In April 1999 a team of zoologists from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) placed leg-mounted light-level loggers (a new, long-lasting photosensitive device that each dawn and dusk records the bird's location on a microchip) on 47 grey-headed albatrosses that nested on South Georgia Island, east of Tierra del Fuego. Eighteen months later 35 of the birds returned to South Georgia, 22 of them carrying functioning loggers packed with 18 months of information—11,034 bird days altogether. When the BAS scientists downloaded and charted the data, says team leader John Croxall, “the results were as clear and robust as we could have hoped for.”
All the birds used one of three winter migration strategies: They stuck close to their southwest Atlantic breeding area; they flew to a part of the Indian Ocean used by other albatrosses; or they took fairly regular circumpolar navigational routes that included the locations used in the first two strategies, as well as other areas of the Indian and Pacific oceans.
The consistency of the migrations, says Croxall, will greatly aid conservation efforts. The main routes, for instance, take the albatrosses to the southwest Indian Ocean at the same time tuna fishing occurs there. Conservationists must make a concerted effort to have the tuna industry use the most effective, up-to-date techniques to avoid bycatch of albatrosses, says Croxall. Simple measures such as placing properly designed lines of streamers behind the boats to block the birds from getting too close, and using more weight on fishing lines so hooks sink before the albatrosses reach them, would make all the difference.
© 2005 National Audubon Society
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