[obol] Falcon rescue in progress in SF

[Don Baccus]

On May 19, 2008, at 5:26 PM, David Irons wrote:

> This news story is incorrect in stating the Peregrine Falcons are  
> "endangered," in fact, they were delisted as an endangered species  
> nearly a decade ago

They are still on the California state list, proposed for delisting  
with the comment period open until July of this year.  Unless the  
article said they're on the federal list, it would appear that the  
article is correct.


> Even more stupifying is the effort to preserve the DNA of birds  
> whose nesting strategy is apparently flawed.  According to this  
> report, the biologists state that young birds are rarely able to  
> make across the water to terra firma on their maiden flights.  I  
> don't know if this is accurate, but if it is then we do gooder  
> humans should stand aside and not support a nesting strategy that  
> requires human interference for success.

I think you might want to take some care in making authoritative  
statements on population ecology if you believe things to be so simple.

Pushing out to suboptimal nesting habitat can allow a species to  
increase its range and numbers, just to give one possible counter  
argument.

A valid one for these peregrines?  I have no idea.  Unless there's  
relevant research, and unless you've studied that research and have  
interpreted it correctly, you don't either.

But  it's pretty typical, actually.  You can go to the greater malheur  
area and in some years the 30+ golden eagle territories will be fully  
occupied, in other years (the down years of their more-or-less 10 year  
population cycle) only a few.  At the lousy sites used in high  
occupancy years, often you'll find younger, less experienced birds.   
They aren't "genetically damaged", they're just waiting their turn to  
climb the nesting territory pecking order.  In lean years they may not  
nest at all or quickly abandon the nest.

Now having said that, I agree that the 'grine gets more attention than  
it deserves.  Their recovery has been studied in some detail, and at  
least some biologists have reached the conclusion that the relatively  
large sums of money spent on reintroduction programs have sped  
recovery by some years (I forget, a decade, two three?) but was not  
necessary for recovery.  Banning DDT was sufficient and healthy  
populations to the north and the birds natural tendency to ...  
peregrinate! ... was sufficient.  Still, I'm not unhappy the peregrine  
fund and various state agencies paid for reintroduction.  Nice to see  
the more rapid recovery, and a lot of young people cut their teeth on  
field work by running hack sites.

On the other hand, I can think of a lot of things we spend public  
money on that are downright harmful, so I'm not going to fret too much  
over whether or not people worry overmuch about drowning peregrine  
chicks.

And peregrine watches do get people involved in looking at and  
thinking about wildlife, and human impacts, etc.  No great harm in  
that, is there?

----
Don Baccus
http://donb.photo.net
http://birdnotes.net
http://openacs.org