Extinct stuffed bird from 50 years ago now missing

Jeff Dankert
Staff Writer

A stuffed passenger pigeon that turned up 50 years ago in La Salle is now missing and this discovery by the News Tribune two weeks has launched a hunt for its whereabouts.

Passenger pigeons once numbered in the billions in Illinois and across eastern North America. The last known wild bird was killed in 1900 in Ohio and the last captive bird died in 1914 in the Cincinnati Zoo.

This makes stuffed specimens valuable.

On Jan. 3, 1963, the Daily News-Tribune published a story about a stuffed passenger pigeon at the La Salle-Peru-Oglesby Junior College, which occupied the building now home to La Salle-Peru Township High School, La Salle.

“A mounted specimen of a passenger pigeon was being saved for posterity through the efforts of a zoology instructor at LPO Junior College,” the story said.

Zoology instructor Ed Keiser discovered the bird amid other deteriorating specimens in a display case. The school had no record of its collection or donation. Keiser had it identified by two Illinois ornithologists, Frank Bellrose and William French. They remarked it “was one of the finest specimens they had seen in existence,” Keiser said.

When Keiser found the bird it was incorrectly labeled as a “mourning dove,” he said today.
“I knew it wasn’t a mourning dove,” Keiser said. After he had it identified, he returned it to the display case and that was that.

“I really don’t have any idea,” he said. “I do know it was shown to several people.”

In 1966 La Salle-Peru-Oglesby Junior College changed its name to Illinois Valley Community College and in 1968 moved to its new location near Oglesby. Keiser left before the move.

“It was still there (at LP High School) when I left,” he said.

Keiser, who today is emeritus professor of biology at University of Mississippi, and other staff present at that time said the bird was not brought to the new college building.

“I’m sure no one would have thrown it away,” Keiser said. “It was a very beautiful specimen and everybody who saw it said it was really a fine specimen and I hope it’s not lost.”

There is a science room at the high school full of old stuffed birds but no passenger pigeon. 

Present day LP High School biology teacher Angelique Depenbrock is searching.

“I did scour my rooms twice and the back rooms and all I found was a sparrow and a titmouse bird,” she said.

Keiser thought it might be in Room 321, but this room is no longer used for science and shows no hiding places. Lou Borio, biology teacher at the college until he retired in 1995, said he also remembers the bird in a glass case in Room 321, in a back or side office area, like a storage or supply room.

“That bird was in excellent condition,” Borio said.

Marv Getty, who began teaching biology at the high school in 1970 and left 13 years ago, said he does not recall the pigeon.

“I asked some of my colleagues about that and they said other teachers might have borrowed that,” he said. “They had seen various birds around the building, over in the wood shop and things like that.”

The News Tribune contacted Project Passenger Pigeon with the Chicago Academy of Sciences and its Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum. Project participants, including Joel Greenberg, are spreading the word and searching known collections.

“I think this search is really cool,” Greenberg said. “There are numerous stories of missing passenger pigeons. And one museum traded two passenger pigeons for a polar bear cub.”

When the NewsTribune contacted Fran Brolley at Illinois Valley Community College, Brolley called up Keiser. Keiser, whose long career has kept him working beyond retirement, was going through keepsakes and came across the 50-year-old newspaper story about the pigeon just as Brolley called him.

“The day Fran called, after 50 years, I happened to pick up that box,” Keiser said. “I had just scanned that picture of me holding the bird. The phone rang and it was Fran. Fifty years, and to the second. I got goose-bumps on the coincidence.”

http://newstrib.com/main.asp?SectionID=2&SubSectionID=28&ArticleID=26135

Rescue for birds covered in 'wax' in the south west

The RSPCA said it had rescued more than 100 birds, which had been taken to the West Hatch Animal Centre in Taunton.

Earlier reports suggested the white substance was palm oil, but scientists were unable to confirm this, though they believe it is vegetable-based.

Many birds were found at Chesil Cove near Weymouth but others are appearing up to 200 miles away in Cornwall.

There are also reports of some washing up in Hampshire and Sussex.

At least two of the rescued birds, which are mainly guillemots, have died but rescuers are trying to save others.

Martin Cade, warden of Portland Bird Observatory, said it looked like "hundreds of birds" were being washed up, covered in a "PVA glue-type" substance, while even more could be seen out at sea.

He said: "Most of them aren't dead, and if they get cleaned up by the RSPCA, they have a have a chance of survival."

Steve Trewhella, a naturalist based in Dorset, spent much of Thursday at Chesil beach.


Read on: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-21275648

Pigeon DNA gives up fancy secrets

By Jonathan Amos
They may not be everybody's favourite, but pigeons have now joined that elite club of animals to have had their DNA laid bare by researchers.

A team from the US, Denmark and China reports the sequencing of the genome of the rock pigeon (Columba livia) in this week's Science magazine.

It has allowed the origins of some of the roughly 350 breeds to be traced.

The researchers have even managed to pinpoint the gene responsible for the head-crests seen in many fancy birds.

This gene, known as EphB2, controls whether the head and neck feathers on a bird turn upwards to create the ostentatious displays or downwards to maintain a line of smooth plumage.

It is a single mutation, or error, in EphB2 that turns the crest on.

By analysing the DNA around the gene, the scientists have been able to show this feather feature, much prized by pigeon "fanciers", to have evolved just the once. It was then spread through the various bird populations by breeders who wanted to see it in their own animals.

Continued: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21279422

Wind turbine in bird region skirts scrutiny

Absence of zoning laws ties hands of Erie Twp. officials

PORT CLINTON — A wind turbine project in Ottawa County’s Erie Township breezed past most regulatory steps as it whipped up opposition from bird enthusiasts.

Work is under way at the Lake Erie Business Park to install a 900-kilowatt, roughly 325-foot high turbine near the center of the park, west of Port Clinton between the lakeshore and State Rt. 2.

The turbine has not undergone the level of scrutiny required for a smaller proposed turbine that stirred up controversy on adjacent property at Camp Perry.

That project, a proposed 198-foot high, 500 to 600-kilowatt, federally funded turbine, triggered reviews by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The Camp Perry site is under assessment and generated concerns about its proximity to bald eagle nests and bird migration routes.

Similar concerns exist with the nearby business park turbine site, which didn’t require such reviews.

Continued:  http://www.toledoblade.com/local/2013/01/29/Wind-turbine-in-bird-region-skirts-scrutiny.html

Rare bird phenomenon swirls in Israel's sky

Huge flocks of synchronized starlings created what's known as a murmuration in Israel this weekend. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nbcnews.com/50618504/#50617086

Robins, not nightingales, are the mystery nighttime songsters, says RSPB

11:04am Tuesday 29th January 2013 in News

The RSPB’s wildlife enquiries team has had an influx of calls reporting singing nightingales. But the wildlife charity is assuring callers that the birds are likely to be robins, which sing at night even during winter.

Richard James, an RSPB wildlife advisor, said: “We’ve had lots of calls from people sharing what they had spotted during their Big Garden Birdwatch, but many also called rather excitedly to say they’d heard nightingales singing in the evenings. They were a little disappointed when we told them the birds were almost certainly robins, although they were still surprised to find out these birds sing at night.”

The main purpose of singing is to attract a mate and defend a territory. Robins are one of the few birds that hold a territory throughout the winter so continue to sing when the majority of other birds have stopped.

Continued:  http://www.smallholder.co.uk/news/10191394.Robins__not_nightingales__are_the_mystery_nighttime_songsters__says_RSPB/

Wind farm in Lesotho could cause the local extinction of vultures

Wind farm could endanger Cape and Bearded vultures - Courtesy of Birdlife

January 2013. BirdLife South Africa and BirdLife International are very concerned that the proposed development of a wind farm at Letseng in Lesotho could have severe impacts on the already declining populations of Cape Vultures and Lammergeiers. South Africa and Lesotho share the responsibility of safeguarding the populations of Lammergeiers and Cape Vultures in the Lesotho Highlands and the surrounding escarpment of South Africa.

PowerNET Developments (Pty) Ltd propose to erect 42 wind turbines (each with a capacity of 850 kW) near Letšeng-La-Terae, on the north-eastern escarpment of the Drakensberg. The environmental impact assessment (EIA) for the proposed Letseng Wind Farm is in its final stages of completion. The avifaunal specialist report, compiled by well-respected ornithologist Dr Andrew Jenkins, indicates that even with mitigation, the anticipated impacts of the project on highly unique and sensitive avifauna will be of high to very high negative significance, rendering the project unsustainable.

Significant impacts on bird populations
While wind energy is fairly new to southern Africa, poorly located wind turbines elsewhere in the world have had significant impacts on bird populations. Impacts include loss of habitat, disturbance and mortality through collisions with the turbine blades. In Smøla, Norway, for example, wind farms caused the local population of White-tailed Eagles (also known as Sea Eagles) to plunge by 95% - reducing the number from 19 eagle pairs to only one pair.

Such devastating impacts have not occurred at all wind farms. "The considered location of wind farms is the key to ensuring that impacts on birds are kept to a minimum", says Samantha Ralston, Birds and Renewable Energy Manager for BirdLife South Africa. Among other things, turbines should be kept well away from areas frequently used by collision-prone birds such as large-bodied raptors.

Continued:  http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/cape-vultures.html