Thanks so much Michael for the excellent summary below of the decline of waterfowl / shorebirds / seabirds from the 70's and 80's to now in the Vancouver, B.C. area. The trends you document are consistent with my observations in the Seattle area, though my memories / records in this area for that period are relatively spotty.

The following is, in my less than humble opinion, ON TOPIC and is about the birds we love. Please read on. As you read, I ask you to ask yourself what are any of the things you might do to contribute to turning the tide of these disturbing trends harming the birds we all love. I beleive that responsible birding includes stewardship of their habitat:

My understanding is that much of this decline of our waterfowl may be attributed to the effects of global warming, and likely the hand-in-hand acidification of the ocean due to Carbon Dioxide poisoning. Another critical factor is a global corporate fishing industry externalizes costs to long term fisheries and externalizes costs to the the whole ocean ecosystem, thus wreaking enormous long-term damage to ocean communities in the process of maximizing short-term profit. Oil corporation and commercial shipping oil spills may be important in the equation also. Other direct and indirect dumping of plastics, chemicals and garbage into the ocean is most likely also critical. This includes anything that goes into a creek or river. I'll admit that my car that is now leaking oil is included.

Another factor in the decline of our water birds is the transformation of ever increasing amounts of surface area of the earth to commercial use and ecosystem damaging "development" *(see note below), thus damaging the sustainability, quality and connnectivity of remaining habitat patches. This commercial use includes oil extraction operations and other mining, unsustainable logging operations, as well as conversion of more natural land to housing and commercial buildings, roads and landscaping. Conversion to farmland, especially corporate style farming, is an important part of this also. Our spreading, and failure to control, ever multiplying invasive organisms is also a critical factor in the degradation of habitats.

*(I tend to prefer the term "devastation" for what greedy "developers" a.k.a. "devastators" call "development". The natural communities they destroy took millions of years to "develop". Worse still, these devastators have had us refer to what might otherwise be called "developments" that took a million years to develop, as "undeveloped", implying that in their relatively Eden-like state they are unfulfilled lands until they are destroyed to make way for commercial develpment.)

There are surely other things that we (humans) and (inhuman) corporations and governments do that are impacting our water birds in their breeding homes, along their migratory routes and in their wintering homes. Most of these can be attributed to what I define as "greed". I don't believe that greed is wanting more than you need. I define "greed" as being willing to harm others or the natural world to get more than you need for yourself and your family's wellbeing. While our culture has been dominated by forces of greed and riddled by both conscious and unconscious greed for thousands of years, this "greed" has grown, over the last 60 years or so, at a rate, and to a level, never seen before.

I believe it is not enough to enjoy nature. If we are going to enjoy the birds, the wildflowers, the butterflies, fungi etc. it is our responsibility to live our lives in such a way that we have a net contribution to the long term protection and restoration of the natural communities that we love. We must ask what we can do to reverse the trends of the last 50 to 5000 years of human (and corporate) greed. This includes both standing up to the most powerful entities in the world and thinking carefully about whether everything we buy and do is worth the ultimate ecological costs. It also includes asking ourselves what positive actions we can take to improve matters for our global plant and animal communities that ultimately sustain all of us, both physically and spiritually.

-Stewart

Stewart Wechsler
-Ecological Consultant - Nature Guide
Naturalist - Botanist
206 932-7225
ecostewart at quidnunc.net
-Advice on the most site-appropriate native plants to maximize the site's potential for native biodiversity
-Educational programs, nature walks, and field trips for schools, public and private groups
-Botanical Surveys

"Politics" is anytime someone speaks out in opposition to the will of any person or any entity with power.
If we don't speak truth to power we offer ourselves, our loved ones and our beloved earth up to our predators.


----- Original Message -----
From: Michael Price
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Sent: Friday, October 30, 2009 1:28 AM
Subject: [Tweeters] Re: Stanley Park/Burrard Inlet Declines


Hi Tweets,


Sorry for an over-generalisation, gracefully pointed out privately. I can only plead that it was late and I was by then almost completely asleep at the switch.


>all, except for Barrow's Goldeneye which feeds on mussels and barnacles,
feed on small fish.


I had intended to qualify that blanket statement to make clear it applied only to the piscivorous seabirds which used to be common along the Stanley Park littoral and in other parts of Burrard Inlet---alcids, loons, grebes, mergansers, small gulls and terns and the jaegers which exploit them both. I did not intend for it to apply to the listed shorebirds or the mollusk-eating scoters, nor (usually) Barrow's Goldeneye, Bufflehead, Harlequin Duck, either scaup, or Long-tailed Duck. What has caused _their_ drastic declines? I don't know.


So, here's the list I had intended.


* diet mainly small fish
** diet mostly seabed mollusks, cretaceans etc.
+ both
^ other

1970-80 present


*Common Loon fairly common uncommon to rare
*Pacific Loon fairly common rare
*Red-throated Loon common rare

+Horned Grebe very common fairly common to
uncommon
*Red-necked Grebe uncommon rare
*Western Grebe very abundant uncommon

^Ruddy Duck common rare
**Greater Scaup common uncommon to rare
**Lesser Scaup very abundant fairly common to
uncommon
**Black Scoter locally common rare
**White-winged Scoter uncommon uncommon
**Surf Scoter very abundant locally
abundant to common
+Long-tailed Duck uncommon rare
**Barrow's Goldeneye locally abundant locally common
**Bufflehead common uncommon,
common transient only
*Red-breasted Merganser very common fairly common to
uncommon


*Parasitic Jaeger uncommon migrant very rare

*Bonaparte's Gull common summer and fall uncommon
*Common Tern very common rare
*Caspian Tern common fairly common

*Common Murre common offshore undetermined
*Pigeon Guillemot fairly common uncommon
*Marbled Murrelet common extirpated
*Rhinoceros Auklet uncommon to rare rare

Black Turnstone locally common uncommon, common
transient only
Dunlin common winter, abundant transient rare winter, uncommon
transient
Sanderling common winter uncommon to rare
Semipalmated Sandpiper common juv migrant very rare
Western Sandpiper common juv migrant very rare
Least Sandpiper common juv migrant very rare


Again, let me stress that this mostly applies the Stanley Park littoral, though for some species this includes Burrard Inlet as well.


Why I feel some confidence in generalising is from the following examples. From the 1960's to the early 1990's, each average winter day would see a winter-resident flock of between 20 and 30 Red-throated Loons arrayed about 1 km out from the entrance to False Creek; a little further out and in deeper water, an average winter day would see about 5--6 Pacific Loons and 5--10 Long-tailed Ducks. Pairs of Marbled Murrelets were scattered all around the inlet. Common Loons seemed to settle on a territorial width of shoreline of about 200m--300m, which meant there were quite a few. There was a standing flock of Black Scoters of about 50-75 birds at a particular cove along Bayswater Beach. Any day in winter, I could look out into the center of outer Burrard Inlet and see 8,000-10,000 Western Grebes. They're all gone. If you see them now, they're single birds, usually in passage, and very hard to find otherwise.


When it came to Bonaparte's Gulls, Common Terns and Parasitic Jaegers, in that period a typical day in mid-September would see a heavy traffic of all three along the shoreline of Spanish Banks. This year I went out to Spanish Banks in September for the first time in many years. Deliberately, I went out on the same date where exactly ten years ago, 1999, at West Spanish Banks I had seen about 100 Common Terns, 150 Bonaparte's Gulls, 5 different Parasitic Jaegers, 6 Common Loons, 30 Western Grebes, 1 Clark's Grebe, Horned and Red-throated Grebes, Common Murres, Pigeon Guillemots, a Rhino Auklet, and tons of offshore California Gulls, just to see what changes if any there had been.


This year, 2009, on the same date at the same time of day with conditions of dead calm and ideal visibility, observing from exactly the same location: 3 Pelagic Cormorants and a single GW Gull far out on the inlet. Period. That was it. To the limit of visibility, except for these distant three cormorants and one gull, the entire inlet was completely empty . As a birder, I've spent the last decade feeling apprehensive; this is the first time I've actually felt frightened.


Michael Price
Vancouver BC Canada
loblollyboy at gmail.com

"I feel like a fugitive from th' law of averages!" -- GI Willie