Fools Crow, Ceremonial Chief of the Teton Sioux
"Treat the Earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children."
But what of the future, very GLOOMY I am afraid to say.
Some English Statistics from David Leggett of Wild Art Taxidermy in Cambridge, UK.
Since 1959, over 9,000 kilometers (5,600 miles) of roads and highways have been built in Britain. Before 1954 the proportion of recorded barn owl deaths due to road traffic stood at six percent. By the 1990s, says the study, this had risen to 50 percent. During the same period U.K. traffic volume rose ten-fold. The barn owl was Britain's most common owl in the early 19th century. Today things are very different; only an estimated 4,000 breeding pairs remain. Though other factors, such as habitat loss, have played their part, conservationists say these road losses have had a huge impact. This isn't to say other raptors haven't suffered on the roads. Leggett points to studies that suggest that in some years more than 100,000 immature tawny owls (Strix aluco) are killed by traffic. This species has around 75,000 breeding pairs, however, and seems able to absorb such losses. After owls, U.K. government figures identify kestrels, common buzzards, and peregrine falcons as other raptors most likely to end up as roadkill
First European bird to become extinct for 150 years
By Brian Unwin of the Independent
A rare species of curlew is in grave danger of becoming the first European bird to die out since the great auk more than 150 years ago. Only nine slender-billed curlews - which breed in Russia and central Asia and winter in places such as the Mediterranean - are known to have been seen throughout the world last year.
A smaller cousin of the familiar Eurasian Curlew, one of Britain's best-known wetland birds, the slender-billed has for several years been classed as "critically endangered" by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. "I suspect that, without a miracle, it will become extinct in the next decade," said Dr Will Cresswell, an Oxford University ornithology lecturer. "One characteristic of species with very low populations - and in the case of Slender-billed Curlew there could be as few as 50 left - is they bump along for years and then something happens and they vanish for good."
Dr Cresswell was part of an expedition which spent ten weeks searching the Kustani, Petyropavlovsk and Pavlodar regions of Kazakhstan for the nesting grounds. Not one was found. In fact, no one has set eyes on a slender-billed curlew's nest since 1924 when one was discovered in Russia. A big problem for conservationists is the mystery over the bird's movements and the precise whereabouts of its breeding grounds and winter haunts.
The latest edition of Birding World magazine reports sightings of the species last year in only three locations. During April birds turned up at two places in northern Greece, with up to five at Porto Lagos and three on Lake Mitrikou. The only other report was of one Druridge Bay, Northumberland, in May - which, if accepted by the British Birds Rarities Committee, was the first sighting in the UK.
The last known regular winter haunt in the world was the Merdja Zerga, a large tidal lagoon on the north-west African coast between Tangier and Rabat. But each year the number decreased until there was only one, which left in late February, 1995, to begin its long spring migration to Russia's steppes. It did not return in the autumn. The same year up to 19 were also present at a site in southern Italy up to late March, but they did not return in subsequent winters
Britain's acknowledged world expert on Slender-billed Curlews is Adam Gretton, now with the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group, who has been on three expeditions to Siberia and one to Kazakhstan looking for nesting birds without success. In 1994 he estimated the population to be between 50 and 270 birds but their status could be worse now. He said: "Ten years ago there were up to a dozen records a year internationally. But now that is down to two or three the situation is very worrying. However, there is a ray of hope. There could be birds wintering regularly in places where access is difficult.
"It is possible there could be regular wintering in Algeria, Iraq and Iran which, because of the political situation, have become no-go areas for people studying birds. However, the situation is improving in Iran so it may be possible before too long for an expedition to go in there to look for possible sites. Mr Gretton pointed out: "The other problem continues to be finding their breeding territory. It's like looking for a needle in a haystack. It's somewhere on a marshy steppe east of the Ural Mountains, but finding a diminishing population in such as vast region is very difficult." Slender-billed Curlews are generally about 20% smaller than Eurasian Curlews and their long, curved bill is more delicate but superficially they are very similar and can only be told apart through careful examination. This adds to the problem. Mr Gretton said at least 17 birds were known to have been killed by hunters in the past 20 years. It was difficult to prevent this happening when they looked so similar to Eurasian Curlews which are a popular target of hunters. * The Great Auk, a flightless seabird resembling a very large Razorbill had no defence against human predators and became extinct in 1844 when the last pair were killed on a small island off Iceland. The last one in Britain died on St Kilda, the remote Scottish island group, in 1840. Two islanders beat it to death, believing it to be a witch.
The Independent on Wednesday - 10th February 1999
New Zealand Huia
Extinction of the huia (Heteralocha acutirostris) in 1907 was a tragic loss to New Zealand's ancient native avifauna. It serves as a reminder of the importance of bird protection. While today we are astounded by the ruthless hunting of huia to extinction during a very short period, and the ignorance of the time, even amongst respected ornithologists, we are left with no excuse for more bird losses with current knowledge of the value of biodiversity. The huia was probably New Zealand's most eccentric bird. It was a large 48 cm (19 inch) black bird with a bright orange "wattle" at the base of an ivory beak. It had a distinguishing wide band of white at the end of its long tail feathers. Huia were so sexually dimorphic, and unique because of the different beak forms of the male and female, that they were at first thought to be separate species. They were normally found feeding in pairs. In cooperative roles, the male used his short strong beak, which resembled the beak of a starling, to break up rotting tree trunks in search of huhu bugs and other insects. The female used her long curved beak, which was like a nectar feeder's, to reach into otherwise unreachable places. A Rotorua ranger, William Cobeldick, spotted a huia pair near Lake Waikareiti, and a lone huia at Taharua Stream in the Urewera National Park in 1924, but it had been declared extinct many years before this. The wattlebirds of New Zealand are not found anywhere else in the world, and the huia was unique as the only bird in the world with completely different beak forms in the male and female. The ancient Callaeidae family flew to New Zealand 60 million years ago, and like many of the birds in the isolated archipelago, huia adopted ground feeding habits in an ecology devoid of mammals.
The Carolina Parakeet died out because of a number of different threats. To make space for more agricultural land, large areas of forest were cut down, taking away its living space. The colorful feathers (green body, yellow head, and red around the bill) were in demand as decorations in ladies' hats, and the birds were kept as pets. Even though the birds bred easily in captivity, little was done by owners to increase the population of tamed birds. Finally, they were killed in large numbers because farmers considered them a pest, although many farmers valued them for controlling invasive cockleburs. A factor that contributed to their extinction was the unfortunate flocking behavior that led them to return immediately to a location where some of the birds had just been killed. This led to even more being shot by hunters as they gathered about the wounded and dead members of the flock. The last wild specimen was killed in Okeechobee County in Florida in 1913, and the last captive bird died at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1918. This was the male specimen "Incas," who died within a year of his mate "Lady Jane."
The Labrador duck was a small ocean duck. It was mostly found on sandy beaches around the ocean. It existed along the Atlantic coast from New Brunswick to Chesapeake Bay. It comes from Canada but it was also found in Maine. It didn’t move that far away from the ocean.The Labrador duck built a nest of large fir twigs. Its nesting habits are though to have generally resembled those of eiders.
This migratory bird probably bred along the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Coastal Labrador, Canada. In the winter Labrador Duck migrated south to the coasts of New England, New Jersey and Long Island, it could than be found from Nova Scotia south to Chesapeake Bay, USA. These birds could be found in sandy sheltered bays, inlets, harbours, and estuaries and on sandbars
The Labrador duck was apparently rare, even at the time of its discovery. The numbers of this rare species decreased further between 1850 and 1870. The last record of a Labrador Duck was a male that was caught in the autumn of 1875 in the waters near Long Island, New York. This specimen is now in the United States National Museum in Washington and has the number 77126. Another duck was said to have been shot three years later, on 2 December 1878 near Elmira, New York. However, this cannot be verified, since the specimen is lost.
The causes of extinction of this sea duck are not exactly known. Like any other waterfowl, it was occasionally hunted, and even offered for sale at the meat markets of New York and Baltimore, despite the unappetizing taste. Shooting and trapping on the winter quarters were certainly proximate factors in the species’ extinction. Overharvest of birds and eggs on the breeding grounds could also have been a factor. Another cause can be the increasing human influence on the coastal ecosystems of eastern North America. That may have caused a change in the molluscan fauna, which eventually may have been fatal to this small duck.
54 specimens of the Labrador Duck are preserved in museum collections. The largest collection containing ten specimens, is in the American Museum of Natural History in New York
Victorian Taxidermy
The Scottish Wildcat
In Scotland the wildcat became extinct in the Lothians before 1800 and by 1830 it was absent from almost the whole of the south of Scotland and from Nairn, Moray and Banff. In Dumfries and Galloway, the last wildcat was killed at Balmaangan in 1810 or 1820. The final wildcat bastion in the south was Berwickshire where they had been numerous in the 1800s, the last animal being sighted near Old Cambus in 1849. By 1882, there were no wildcats to the south of Argyll and Perthshire, where they were confined to the most remote and mountainous regions. The last wildcat in Aberdeenshire was killed in 1875 in Glen Tanar, and by 1882 the wildcat was becoming scare in Inverness-shire. Only in the far north, in Ross, Cromarty and Sutherland was it still abundant. In 1887 the wildcat was reported to be declining in Sutherland and in 1904 it was regarded as rare in Ross. In 1920 the wildcat was reported to be still present in Wester Ross, Sutherland, Inverness and Argyll, but the authors were not optimistic about its future. The wildcat looked set to follow the polecat and disappear from the list of Scottish fauna.
Ironically, it was the outbreak of war which ultimately saved the Scottish wildcat from extinction, when many gamekeepers left the estates to fight in Flanders in 1914. Since the end of the war there has been a gradual decrease in activity by gamekeepers and the wildcat has been spreading south again. Unfortunately, records for this post-war period are sparse compared to the intense interest in Natural History which characterized the Victorian and Edwardians eras. However, from the available records it is clear that the wildcat reacted very quickly to the relaxation of persecution. By 1919 the wildcat had become re-established in Perthshire after an absence of 19 years and by 1935 it had recolonised Stirlingshire, Banffshire, and Dunbartonshire. It reappeared in Moray, Nairn and Aberdeenshire between 1920 and 1946, and Kincardineshire and Angus between 1946 and 1962.
The wildcat has also started to expand south of the Clyde and Forth with a sighting just 40 miles from Edinburgh in 1963 and another in Lanarkshire in 1971.The wildcat had survived the threat to its existence, which was posed by game keeping and is now protected by law. However, the wildcat is still under threat from another animal - the domestic cat. Interbreeding between domestic cats and the wildcat is believed by many to be a recent problem. The British Nature Conservancy Council reported on its study into interbreeding and concluded that as a result of less intense persecution, wild cats were increasing in Scotland, where they had been all but exterminated by 1900. However, as long as wildcats were confined to remote areas their genetic integrity was probably secure, as the wildcats were unlikely to come into contact with domestic cats.
