Photo: Cheryl Reynolds
Of the 20 birds taken for the study, seven died after capture. Thirteen are now being studied in Fort Collins. If the birds are not used in another study, they will be killed when this one is done due to California rules that prohibit the release of birds that have been trapped and transported across state lines.
I’m a big admirer of Bay Nature. The copies in my office are always avidly read by parents and I love their consistent ability to tell me new things about a species just when I’m scratching my head. Bay Nature has also been a generous friend to the Martinez Beavers, starting with Aleta George’s visit to the dam on a crisp morning in 2007 and running my photo in 2008.
Dan McGlynn’s recent woodpecker article, though, was a disappointment. My grandmother would say its a self-justification sandwich with two thin slices of fact packed in the middle. It starts with a visit to Fort Collins, Colorado (woodpecker Guantanamo) and a conversation with the spokesperson and researchers in charge of studying the birds. There are only 13 left because more than a third didn’t survive the transportation.
The first affront to reason comes from repeated statements that APHIS didn’t come into this case to fix the Rossmoor problem. They had a study in mind focused on scaring birds away from utility poles, and already had a permit to catch birds somewhere else. When they learned about the Rossmoor issue they decided to use those birds instead. Pure coincidence.
“We weren’t brought into Rossmoor to help solve the problem, our issue was with utility poles and we hope that what comes out of our study might somehow be part of a solution for Rossmoor,” says Tupper. Originally, the National Wildlife Research Center obtained a permit to trap the birds for the study on national forest land in California, where there are high densities of the species. When Tupper’s team learned that birds at Rossmoor were being hunted and killed under a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service permit, they changed their own federal permit to capture birds that were considered a nuisance and slated to be exterminated anyway.
While I absolutely believe that APHIS didn’t get involved to “help solve the problem”, (!) I’m full of curiousity about how the Rossmoor woodpecker issue came to their attention. Rumor is there is at least one retired AG worker inside the retirement compound so I’m guessing that when the permit was going to be revoked a favor was called in. The article doesn’t ask how they knew.
Researchers observe the birds for a week at a time and test three different deterrent noises, twonatural predator sounds — the calls of sharp-shinned and Cooper’s hawks — and one acorn woodpecker distress call. Once the study is complete, Tupper will compile and publish the data, and then a private company will design a solar-powered, vibration-sensitive device that will be marketed to utility companies.
(Gosh, I wonder how they got that woodpecker distress call.)
Now that we’ve spent nearly 1000 words defending APHIS and their noble committment to wildlife, I guess it’s time for a paragraph about the human greed and error that ultimately allowed these buildings to become woodpecker fodder. Ooh look, he’s even mentioning EFIS! The cheap trim material that is the subject of law suits around the nation, and not just because of woodpeckers!
About 10 years ago, three new subdivisions were built at Rossmoor. Two of those are the areas now most affected by the woodpecker. The newer homes were built farther up one of the hillsides and deeper into Rossmoor-owned open space. The homes were built by developer Shea Homes using a method called an Exterior Finish Insulation System--stucco over foam. The problem is one of compounding cause and effect: first, increased encroachment into prime acorn woodpecker habitat and second, a method of construction that is just what this species of woodpecker looks for in a granary site — a hard, hollow-sounding surface with a soft substrate underneath. The woodpeckers soon discovered that the trim, particularly around the windows, is soft substrate under a hard surface, their favorite. So they started boring holes in that trim. Now the buildings look like someone has sprayed them with machine gun fire, somehow miraculously sparing the glass but leaving scores of nickel-sized holes all around.
No mention of the wasted money spent to not fix the problem, or the ridicuolous claims by the Home Owner’s Association about how much the problem was costing them. Sigh. There is only one truly noble section of this article, and its a miniscule 350 words describing the observations of an actual biologist who studies the birds in the wild.
In the long term, however, it’s unclear that killing the birds will solve the problem, given their complicated social structure. Biologist Eric Walters has been researching acorn woodpeckers since the early 1990s and his work is part of a 40-year-old acorn woodpecker study at U.C.’s Hastings Reserve in Carmel Valley. An average group of birds being studied at Hastings has four or five individuals who create and maintain about 2,000 acorn holes. But groups can be as large as 15 to 20 birds and thus would require about 20,000 to 30,000 holes. Because of the intricacies of breeding behavior and territory, most woodpeckers inherit breeding turf and the granaries along with it. Creating thousands of holes takes a tremendous amount of time and energy, so birds not responsible for breeding, called helpers, often spend their time scouting for new granary sites. This can include abandoned or unused granaries. For the birds, finding these sites, says Walters, “is like finding a bank account with money in it.”
Walters cites another study done at Hastings in the 1980s when a group of birds was captured and removed from its territory. Twenty minutes later other woodpeckers were observed moving into the area and taking control of the granaries. The conclusion? If you remove the nuisance birds now, more will likely colonize the area. Acorn woodpeckers will travel up to five miles in a day to scout for new granary sites. For abatement to be successful, Walters argues, you would have to exterminate every acorn woodpecker within a five-mile radius.
Walters also takes issue with the population study done by Wildlife Services that justifies the various permits issues by USFWS. These studies are “a complete joke,” says Walters. The numbers are based on reported calls and sightings but when tallied up paint a picture of a population size 10 times more than the largest population ever recorded. It also rankles Walters, and Mount Diablo Audubon, that the birds captured for the National Wildlife Research Center’s study were taken in May, during peak egg and nesting season. “It doesn’t make any biological sense,” says Walters.
Ahhh, Eric. We like you. Can there be an article with more Eric? But 350 words is all he gets, and then we must rush off to the real hero of this story, Bill Friesen, the man responsible for putting Rossmoor on the map.
Friesen has a different take on how the talks ended. “Some Audubon members wanted to take over and bring in people to construct granaries,” he says. But he says that wasn’t an option because of liability. When Audubon backed away because the HOAs wouldn’t agree to a moratorium on the shooting, Friesen says they sent him a letter saying “now the political arm of the Audubon will flex its muscle.”
Ahhh, say no more! You know how crazy those twitchers at Audubon can be with their warbler tattoos, bar fights, and motorcycles races. Certainly there isn’t a single member that’s an actual contractor with their very own liability insurance, and you certainly wouldn’t want to let people who know about something be in charge of it. Any kind of success could happen!
In June, the HOAs constructed six artificial granaries near the edge of the Rossmoor open space. Each granary is a 20-foot post with a 2×12 board mounted on top. The boards have coin-sized holes in them and are made of soft woods like cedar and spruce.
No mention of bee boxes eh? Ohhh, how about this,
This is about when the Rossmoor woodpeckers ascended into the media spotlight. Friesen started receiving emails from as far away as Germany,
Umm…Alex? was that you? Actually its not true that the media attention started with their decision not to work with Audubon. The reason they were initially willing to work with them at all was because they had enormous public pressure, and when it let up they opted out. Remember this article back in January about the poor harrassed Mutuals and their Mandela-esque fight to withstand the big bad Audubon?
All in all the story has got to piss off some pretty significant Audubon supporters, which (by the way) are probably also subscribers and advertisers. Maybe it’s a good thing this is a “web article” only so just computer junkies like us are likely to read it.
Still, you might think about inviting Eric or Diana to do a guest column. Aside from the obvious slanted journalism and starry eyed admiriation for government officials with big letters in their acronymn, I’m imagining that you get more subscriptions from Audubon than from Friesen.
Know your audience.
