Subject: Re: Peregrine update #7 (fwd)
Date: Jun 24 20:25:15 1995
From: "M. Smith" - whimbrel at u.washington.edu



I ment to send this to all, but only sent it to Michael Price. Ellen
Blackstone's recent note made me think of it.

On Fri, 23 Jun 1995, Michael Price wrote:

> Natural Selection? In an urban environment? Many of the the stresses on the
> urban Peregrine populations are unique. Their natural libraries of instinct
> and training are insufficient to help them cope with those differences.
> These birds would probably not be experiencing these stresses if we had not
> hacked their parents into the cities, therefore part of our *consequent*

Yes, true for other cities, but certainly not Seattle. The adults
weren't hacked into Seattle, they came on their own (unlike cities in the
east). Secondly, Seattle probably wouldn't have had peregrines nesting
there 500 years ago either, where are the cliffs they need? Certainly
one would show up now and then to eat, but seems unlikely that they
could nest in the sandy cliffs we have here. So Seattlites really
*haven't* altered our area to diminish Peregrines, the construction of
buildings has provided structure that was absent before.

Not to say that Seattlites haven't done anything to help the decline of
the birds in the first place however...

-------------
Michael R. Smith
Univ. of Washington, Seattle
whimbrel at u.washington.edu
http://salmo.cqs.washington.edu/~wagap/mike.html