Subject: [Tweeters] Renton airport anti-bird measures question
Date: Nov 28 13:08:26 2016
From: Dennis Paulson - dennispaulson at comcast.net


Wildlife Services is a source of one of the substantial environmental ?crimes? in the United States. They kill so many vertebrate animals, just because one or another segment of our society doesn?t like them, that it is shocking to see lists of the totals every year. If you feel up to it, here is the list for 2014: https://www.aphis.usda.gov/wildlife_damage/prog_data/2014/G/Tables/Table%20G_ShortReport.pdf

You can go back year after year and add them up to get an idea of activities like that described at the Renton airport that are surely taking an unjustifiable toll of some of our wildlife. You can see the totals at the end.

Speaking of airports, they killed 548 Upland Sandpipers in 12 states in that year, presumably as aviation threats. Does anyone believe that an Upland Sandpiper can threaten any kind of airplane? And this is a declining species that is considered of special conservation concern in numerous states. Or how about a total of 2,115 individuals of 5 species of swallows? Oh yes, they do poop a lot. 215,238 golden-plovers were ?dispersed? (only 17 were killed) in that year. What in heck does that mean? That they chased away almost 600/day every day for 365 days from the same few airports?

You can do your own thinking of why each of these species of birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians and fishes is killed.

As far as I know, there has been no successful attempt by conservation organizations to limit the damages to animal populations caused by Wildlife Services. That they are part of the Department of Agriculture rather than the Department of the Interior tells the story.

Dennis Paulson
Seattle, WA