bootstrap analysis

environmental news link dump

Good news:

• Everglades to benefit from purchase of U.S. Sugar property (with caveats).
• Brazil's new environmental head seizes cattle grazing on illegally deforested Amazonian land; seizure will also benefit government's food program for the poor.

Bad news:

• Invasive mussels found in Lake Mead. Bad, very bad.
• Fancy toilets use  4% of household energy in Japan.

No news:

• The White House refused to accept the Environmental Protection Agency’s conclusion that greenhouse gases are pollutants that must be controlled, telling agency officials that an e-mail message containing the document would not be opened. Remember when you were a child and you didn't want to hear what your parents were telling you? You put your hands over your ears and loudly chanted nonsense words. Yep.
• McCain releases vague green government plan, 8 months after Obama outlines his broader and more specific proposal.

did your shopping list kill a songbird?

Please read the op-ed piece in the today's New York Times, Did your shopping list kill a songbird? by ornithologist Bridget J. Stutchbury.  In it, she discusses the high levels of pesticides used to grow produce in foreign countries to satisfy the skyrocketing demand for out-of-season fruits and vegetables. While she notes that these foods are three times as likely to violate standards for pesticide residues as the same foods grown in the U.S. (and therefore pose some risk to humans), she emphasizes the deadly toll this pesticide use has on North American breeding songbirds.

Stutchbury recommends organic produce; several months ago I linked to another NYT article that gave a list of the five most important foods to buy organic. Stutchbury also emphasizes two others: bananas and coffee. I am currently reading the book Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World and frankly, I'm damn glad I don't really like bananas!  As for coffee, everything you might want to know about eco-friendly, sustainable coffee is over at Coffee & Conservation.

Stutchbury is the author of the recent book, Silence of the Songbirds: How We Are Losing the World's Songbirds and What We Can Do to Save Them. In it, she discusses these issues and provides a lot of information from the scientific literature and her own field studies. At times it's a little wonky; if you like your facts and actions a little more straightforward and easy to digest, I recommend (again) Laura Erickson's 101 Ways to Help Birds, which I reviewed here.

malnourished waterfowl dying in michigan-ontario

Locally, nearly 1000 Canvasbacks and Redheads have been found dead along Lake St. Clair (often referred to as "the sixth Great Lake"). This is a conservative number, considering how many may have died out in the lake that were not detected by shoreline observers. Toxicology reports have been coming back negative. The die-off has been attributed to malnutrition due to a larger-than-usual number of ducks wintering in the lake because it didn't freeze over as early as it usually does. Diving ducks that typically feed on invertebrates or mollusks (Bufflehead, scaup) don't seem to be impacted, while plant-eating Canvasbacks and to a lesser extend Redheads are most effected. My husband took this photo of a dead Canvasback on the Detroit River, where he's seen a few every weekend the past month. This phenomena has been occurring for at least several years, although perhaps not at this scale.

This situation has provoked kind of an odd reaction on the local bird forums, with people saying that they really hope it is malnutrion and not botulism, which also periodically claims a lot of waterfowl in the Great Lakes. I have to say I disagree, since botulism only occurs under certain circumstances and is often self-limiting. On the other hand, if malnutrition is is really due to too many ducks overwintering on Lake St. Clair (and other Great Lakes), we are likely in for a chronic and increasing problem.

A recent paper [1] looked at trends in ice duration in 65 waterbodies in the Great Lakes and found average rates of change in ice freeze and breakup dates were 5.8 and 3.3 times faster, respectively, than historical rates from 1846 to 1995 for the Northern Hemisphere.  The following chart [2] looks specifically at ice trends from the three basins of Lake Erie.

Since around 1990, the central and eastern basins of the lake have not been freezing over until later than they have since the late 1950s. The western basin is much shallower and tends to freeze earlier, and is most comparable to Lake St. Clair.

If migrating waterfowl increasingly encounter open water during fall migration, this may cause higher numbers to overwinter in these areas.  I have heard anecdotal reports to this effect, but was unable to put my hands on much hard data. I produced the chart below using numbers from the annual early-fall survey of Canvasbacks done by the Michigan Dept. of Natural Resources [3]. These numbers only represent the Michigan side of the lake, but indicate increasing numbers of Canvasbacks on the lake in early November.

And here's a chart showing the trend of wintering Canvasbacks on a portion of the Detroit River near Lake Erie, from the Rockwood (MI-ON) Christmas Bird Count (CBC). The idea being floated about is that more Canvasbacks (and other waterfowl) are staying in the Great Lakes, and when the lakes do freeze up, they are unable to obtain food and starve to death. This seems to me to be only part of the story. The following chart looks at the number of days Lake Erie stays frozen.

Since the 1980s, the trend for the number of days the entire lake has ice cover has been steadily decreasing. It seems possible to me that the increased number of waterfowl might in fact have ice-free foraging areas, but too much competition for too little food.  Canvasbacks rely on aquatic vegetation more than any other food source in winter -- especially wild celery (Vallisneria americana). This species did increase in the Detroit River (and Lake St. Clair) in the 1990s*.

But something else has been increasing in the region since the wild celery has been recovering -- Mute Swans. The chart below shows CBC trends on the Detroit River CBC. And a little further downriver, the situation is the same on the Rockwood CBC.

Mute Swans also feed on submerged vegetation, up to 8 pounds a day. This added competition for food just compounds the problem, and in fact, some Mute Swans have also been found dead. Mute Swans are resident (although in this area they retreat to inland marshes to nest), and consume submerged vegetation year round, eventually damaging the reproductive capacity of the plants.

This could be a perfect storm of climate change contributing to less ice cover, attracting more overwintering Canvasbacks, combining with a population explosion of non-native Mute Swans to create a substantial alteration in food availability. If that's the case, things will likely only get worse, not better.

did you just contribute to blowing the top off a mountain?

I've long intended on writing something about mountaintop removal mining, ever since reading Erik Reece's article in Harper's in 2005 (Ted Williams also wrote a great article in Audubon). This coal-extraction method is unbelievably environmentally devastating in many ways. The American Bird Conservancy has a whole page on how this mining threatens birds, including the declining Cerulean Warbler, whose core breeding range coincides with coal mining areas where this horrendous activity takes place.

The World's Fair has a whole series of posts on mountaintop removal mining, and has most recently posted a link to a fantastic resource: What is My Connection to Mountaintop Removal? Plug in your zip code, and it will show you the nearest coal-fired power plants to you (from which your electricity likely comes from) with full descriptions, and the direct connections to the mines where coal from that plant has come from. On the resulting Google Map, you can click on one of the mines and get photos and a description.

My grid revealed connections to six mines. The closest one, for illustrative purposes, is in Beckley, WV. The Google Map is staggering: an enormous raped area. It made me sick.

The web site also has many suggestions about what you can do to help, including a quick and easy letter to your local power company. As in all these issues, conservation is the most immediate and effective action we can take. Type in your zip above, and see if this doesn't prod you into action.

wal-mart buying illegally harvested wood

Is your baby sleeping in a crib made from trees that once sheltered Siberian Tigers?

I somehow missed main stream media coverage of a report released by the Environmental Investigation Agency revealing that the Chinese manufacturers of many of Wal-Mart's 900 wood products are acquiring their raw materials illegally from Russian forests. About 84% of Wal-Mart's wood products are sourced from China.

Sustainable is Good summed up the findings:

"Manufacturers repeatedly told undercover EIA investigators they had to turn to Russian wood because it was the only way to get wood of the necessary hardness at prices that fit Wal-Mart's established pricing structure. In order to meet the pricing demands of Wal-Mart, buying Russian timber is essential.

The report said much of the Russian timber comes from protected habitats where logging is illegal. Many of the manufacturers covered in the report said or implied Wal-Mart was aware of the source of the wood.  According to the EIA report, Wal-Mart does not ask its suppliers where their wood comes from, and the retailer's 'don't ask' policy" is having particularly dangerous consequences for the high conservation value forest of the Russian Far East and the endangered species dependent on them, including the world's largest cat, the Siberian tiger."

This is disappointing considering recent positive environmental initiatives undertaken by Wal-Mart. But, it's not surprising. This is exactly what happens when a huge retailer like Wal-Mart, which is often a supplier's largest buyer, puts the squeeze on and demands extremely low pricing.

Wal-Mart bears a lot of responsibility here. But of course they would not be demanding insanely cheap wood (etc.) if their customers didn't also demand it. In these instances, I increasingly blame consumers. This demand for incredibly cheap merchandise does not consider either the immediate or long-term costs to the environment or producers .

I strongly believe that whether it's drugs, cheap picture frames, or cheap food, so long as there is a demand, there will be a supply. Until we change our buying habits, we can't fully expect suppliers like Wal-Mart to change, either.

Siberian Tiger by mape_s and Wal-Mart truck by gisarah under a Creative Commons license.

ecology of christmas: christmas trees

Real or fake?  Every year, folks try to decide whether to get a live Christmas tree, or put up an artificial tree.  This topic has been fairly well covered on several green blogs, so I will offer an overview and resources.

Umbra at The Grist sums up the verdict on artificial trees:  They are made mostly of PVC (sometimes stabilized with lead), a product that is essentially toxic from cradle to grave.  And they are likely made overseas, probably in China. Triple Pundit actually did the math on which type of tree -- real or fake -- was more carbon-neutral. Real tree won again.

Still, a real tree, if you have to have a tree at all, should be chosen with a lot of care.  Two things to keep in mind: find an organic grower, because most tree farms use a hell of a lot of noxious pesticides and chemicals. Second, make sure your responsibly-grown tree is grown close to home.  Why would you want to buy a tree that has been trucked across the country?

Here is some background reading:

• An article from Wisconsin Natural Resources on use of chemical and integrated pest management on tree farms, with a lot of great information on common pests and their control.
• E Magazine also had an article about pesticides on Christmas tree farms.
• And another from North Carolina State University.
• Once you've taken all that in, you can read about the impact of these toxins on birds at American Bird Conservancy's pesticides and birds site. You can look up individual pesticides on this page.
• An article on real vs. fake from the Maryland Sierra Club chapter.

While you're at it, replace your old incandescent holiday lights with energy-sipping LEDs. LED lights use 1/10th of the energy of mini-incandescents, and 1/100th of the energy of traditional holiday bulbs, are cooler and safer, and extremely durable. Exact savings depend on how much you pay for electricity (you can get an idea from this calculator) but for your typical indoor tree you're looking at a dime versus ten bucks for the holiday season. Multiply that by other decorative lights, especially outdoors, and it adds up.

More importantly, it reduces greenhouse gas emissions. According to a New York Times article, the St. Paul, MN incandescent city tree is responsible for 18.7 tons of carbon dioxide emissions, while the LED-lit tree in Rockefeller Center only a tenth of that amount (any at all for a non-essential display seems too much to me, but that's another issue). LEDs cost more up front, but will also last 200,000 hours, versus 2,000 for the average incandescent. Check to see if your municipality, local power company, or nearby retailer offers recycling for old bulbs, or coupons or incentives to switch to LEDs. Update: Here's the be-all, end-all post on holiday LEDs.

Plenty of my friends decorate their homes quite lavishly -- one friend with heirloom items -- without a tree, which makes a whole lot of sense to me. Personally, I've completely opted out of holiday decorating, although I've considered consulting this book and then erecting a Festivus pole. It goes well with all the Airing of Grievances I do around this time of year, anyway.

problematic charisma 3: canada geese

The overpopulation of certain species, whether native or not, can cause problems.  When these species are appealing to the public, their control becomes an even bigger challenge.  Previously, I discussed these issues in regards to White-tailed Deer and Mute Swans.  We can finish of the hat trick with the problems surrounding resident, or Giant, Canada Geese (Branta canadensis maxima), the largest of seven subspecies (four other subspecies are now considered a distinct species complex, Cackling Goose, Branta hutchinsii).

After the early 1900s, when Canada Goose populations became depleted by hunting and other pressures, this race of goose was re-introduced into many areas to bolster their numbers.  It is an example of a wildlife program that was way too successful.  Just over the last 10 years, the populations of resident Canada Geese have grown at 1 to 5% a year, with 1 million birds in the Atlantic Flyway and 1.6 million in the Mississippi Flyway.  The map (click to enlarge) is from the Mississippi Flyway Giant Canada Goose Management Plan (PDF) and shows the hotspots of breeding Giant Canada Geese in the Mississippi Flyway as of 1995.

The map shows their affinity for urban areas, with their expanses of turf grass and retention ponds, which is perfect goose habitat. Compared to other subspecies, Giant Canada Geese reach sexual maturity earlier, have larger clutches and better nesting success, and higher survival rates. The easy access to food sources and reduced predation in urban areas are in part responsible for the success of the geese and their exploding populations.

This many geese are bound to cause problems, especially in populated areas. These are primarily of the nuisance variety, in which golf courses, parks, and lawns get peppered with goose poop, to the tune of a half pound of turds per goose per day. This has the potential to contaminate water, but is mostly just gross and unsanitary to walk in. More than a nuisance is the potential safety hazard of geese at airports.  Ecological ramifications include overgrazing of natural vegetation (and crop damage) and related soil erosion, fish-killing algal blooms due to fecal nutrient overload and/or oxygen depletion in ponds and shallow lakes, and out-competing other waterfowl for food and nesting places.  Finally, one overlooked but serious issue is that wildlife managers have had to spend increasing amounts of time and resources trying to cope with resident Canada Goose problems at the expense of other natural resource initiatives.

Managing urban geese tends be on a property-by-property basis, and these measures tend to be fairly anemic. Harassment techniques, including using trained dogs to chase geese, require a great deal of effort (and/or money), and must be continually employed to modify the behavior of each individual problem goose. Barriers used to steer geese away from walkways and lawns are only marginally effective (unless electrified). Repellents must be reapplied throughout the season, are expensive, and only help to deter geese from turf. A longer-term solution is landscaping to decrease the amount of appealing habitat, which includes shrub or herbaceous buffer zones and eliminating short grass, especially near water. Re-landscaping is always practical or possible in all situations.

These tactics, as well as translocation programs, typically only serve to transfer the problem elsewhere. Ultimately, actually reducing goose numbers becomes part of many management plans. Various non-lethal techniques have been tried, without substantial success. Removing eggs typically causes renesting.  Eggs can be addled or replaced with dummy eggs, which delays or inhibits renesting, but requires a huge amount of manpower and time. Contraceptives have been tried, but geese must ingest an adequate dose daily for at least 16 days (and often are not sedentary enough to do so), and it results in a reduction of productivity, not a prevention of reproduction. Bait presentation must be strictly controlled so as not to harm non-target organisms (birds and small mammals) that will and do consume the bait.

Lethal controls are the least expensive, most efficient, and if done correctly, probably most humane, and certainly most effective means of controlling goose populations. The obvious avenue in this situation would be to expand hunting regulations. This has been done, but with limited success. Two obstacles are the severity of the problem in urban areas where hunting would not be practical or safe, and the need to make sure resident birds are being hunted, not those of migratory populations, which have differing population trends. During the non-breeding season, resident and migratory birds often occur in mixed flocks.

Many people are very opposed to lethal measure to control goose populations.  This is especially true because much of the trouble with geese is their conflict with people, versus serious ecological damage (not that proven ecological impacts would necessarily make lethal control more palatable to many people; Mute Swans and White-tailed Deer are excellent examples of that).

Nonetheless, these growing resident goose populations prompted the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to develop an impact statement on resident Canada Goose management. The introduction explains,

The purpose of this Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) is to evaluate alternative strategies to reduce, manage, and control resident Canada goose populations in the continental United States and to reduce related damages. Further, the objective ... is to provide a regulatory mechanism that would allow State and local agencies, other Federal agencies, and groups and individuals to respond to damage complaints or damages by resident Canada geese. The means must be more effective than the current system; environmentally sound, cost-effective, flexible enough to meet the variety of management needs found throughout the flyways...

The impact statement is a pretty thorough document, which helps explain the the whole resident Canada Goose issue. You can read:

• The news release on impact statement.
• FAQ on the impact statement (PDF).
• Purpose and Need section (PDF).
• The whole impact statement, in PDF chunks (link is to the index).

More information:

• Making peace with geese.  Wisconsin Natural Resources magazine.
• Tips on how to landscape to reduce urban goose habitat from the Indiana Dept. of Natural Resources.
• David Sibley's page on identification of Canada Goose subspecies, with a great map at the bottom of the page.
• USGS information on Giant Canada Geese - introduction.
• Giant Canada Goose flocks, Mississippi Flyway

get rid of catalogs, part 2

Two years ago I wrote a post, kick the catalog habit, which has turned out to be one my most popular. I provided some motivation:

17 billion catalogs are mailed annually in the U.S., <5% contain post-consumer recycled material, and most get at least some of their virgin fiber from the boreal forest.

I included the customer service numbers and web sites to many merchants likely to be patronized by readers of this blog so people could quit getting catalogs. It was highly effective for me; I get very few catalogs any more ( but see footnote). And while I think stopping this deluge of paper is well worth it, it does take effort.

Today the New York Times had a piece about a new service called Catalog Choice. It's free (unlike some similar fee-based services) and developed by the National Wildlife Federation, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Ecology Center. Sign up, log in, check off the catalogs you receive and include the customer number, and they do the rest.

Do it now! Since catalog mailings are prepared well in advance, it often takes a month or so so stop them. But with prompt action, you may be able to staunch the holiday flow of dead trees to your mailbox.

Footnote: I have had to make more than one request to a few merchants to get myself off their mailing lists. The worst offender, which I have yet to extract myself from, is Linensource. I thought I had been successful when I got yet another catalog, addressed to my dead mother. My mother died 7 years ago, was in a nursing home for 4 years before that, and never lived at my address.  How did that happen?? I was so pissed off I wrote them a nasty email. No more catalogs to mom, but more to me!  Here is my small bit of revenge: Don't buy anything from this crappy company.

put your lists into action

Today is Blog Action Day, where over 10,000 bloggers worldwide are speaking out on a single subject, the environment.

It made me think about something that birders do that they could turn into a positive action to help the environment. I think that just about anyone who loves birds -- whether they travel the world or never go beyond their own neighborhood -- writes down what they see. Elaborate or simple, these lists kept over time have tremendous power.

Rather than just lamenting that the nice woodlot where you have seen good birds over the years is being developed, do something about it before the bulldozers arrive. Habitat is not (legally) destroyed Property is not developed without going through some sort of planning commission, hearing, permitting process, etc. It's nearly always true that there is a public comment period at some point along the line. Find out how this works in your community, and when development is proposed, speak out.

I have submitted comments to our state agency that regulates wetland permits. Anybody can do this. I had happened to have visited a vacant corner lot several times when I found survey stakes on it one day. There wasn't anything especially spectacular there, but it was a nice mixed habitat that was hard to come by in our very metropolitan area. I went online, found the permit request (which provided many details about the proposed housing development), and submitted comments to the agency. My comments included a list of birds, insects, and plants I'd noted there, as well as general comments about the effects of lawn care products, parking lot runoff, fragmentation, etc. that seemed appropriate to this project. This was enough that the development plan as proposed by the owner had to be modified -- twice. (This process took long enough that the economy in Michigan tanked and the entire development is on hold.)

You don't need to have detailed scientific data to influence this process. It helps to have dates and numbers, and the more specific the better. But often community opposition can be enough to change the tide. Letters to government officials are also very effective, especially with local governments. I've read that politicians consider each letter to represent the views of 100 people that didn't bother to express their opinions. A well-written series of letters (and demographic studies have proven birders are an educated and literate lot) is a powerful tool for change. It's one birders are well advised to utilize often.

As you see the next grassland paved over or forest succumb to the chain saw, don't just think, "How could they let this happen?" Remember that they is you.

asian carp numbers near lake michigan double

Update:
The Washington Post reports that the annual census of Asian carp (voracious, leaping invasive species I discussed in detail here) in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal found over twice as many carp as last year. This is the canal that connects the Mississippi River with Lake Michigan. The carp have been moving upriver from their point of introduction in the south, altering ecosystems and threatening the Great Lakes should they breach an aging electric barrier in the canal. The story says the carp have not moved too much closer to the lake since 2002, but that funding for a barrier upgrade is still just putzing along.