Conservation groups sue Oregon to help protect tiny seabird, the marbled murrelet

by By STEVEN DUBOIS , Associated Press

Thursday, August 2nd 2018

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Conservation groups sued the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Commission on Thursday for failing to strengthen protections for the marbled murrelet, tiny seabirds that venture inland to raise their young and depend on old-growth forests for nesting.

The groups petitioned the commission in 2016 to reclassify the bird's status from threatened to endangered under the state Endangered Species Act. A listing as endangered would require the state to develop a management plan and survival guidelines for the birds that are about 9 inches (22 centimeters) long and weigh 7 to 8 ounces (198 to 255 grams).

The commission denied the petition in June by a 4-2 vote, after hearing testimony from officials in timber-rich coastal counties who worried about the economic impact of restricting logging to save the birds. Commissioners opposed to reclassification said researchers from Oregon State University are in the early stages of a 10-year study about the seabird, and they wanted to wait for results.

The defeat was tough for conservationists because the commission in February had accepted a recommendation to grant the petition.

Read on  

ODFW declines murrelet listing change

Seabird to remain a threatened species

The population of marbled murrelets, a seabird listed as a threatened species, is considered to be faring well enough to avoid the “endangered” species status.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) in February initially voted to list the bird as endangered, but the chair of the board was absent. Upon his return this week, the board voted 4-2 against “up-listing” the bird.

State Rep. David Brock Smith, R-Port Orford, was the last to speak at the ODFW meeting this week in opposition to the uplisting.

“It appears that the Oregon population may now be fluctuating around a new, lower baseline,” a January ODFW status report reads. “Based on this monitoring program, the Oregon population was estimated at 10,975 birds in 2015 and was likely somewhere between 8,188 and 13,762 birds. The fairly wide confidence limits for these population estimates reflect the challenges of monitoring a highly mobile seabird that is sparsely distributed.”

Continued  

A ‘special and mysterious’ bird

‘Special’ murrelet comes out of hiding

By Nancy McCarthy

The Daily Astorian

Published on March 29, 2018 10:58AM

When they are nesting, marbled murrelets stay silent and well hidden. In fact, the coastal seabirds remained a mystery from the time they were discovered in the 1700s by Capt. Cook until 1974, when the first nest was discovered in California.

“There was nothing known about the bird at the time, or at least white man thought,” said S. Kim Nelson, a research biologist with Oregon State University and the Oregon Department of Fisheries and Wildlife.

Nelson spoke at a “Listening to the Land” lecture sponsored by the North Coast Land Conservancy in Seaside March 21.

“The native Americans knew about the marbled murrelets, they knew where they nested,” Nelson said. “They knew about the beautiful dance they do in courtship where they put their bills up in the air and swim across the water and they dive under the water and come up together.”

But nobody thought to ask the Native Americans about the bird that nests deep in forests and forages for prey at the ocean’s edge.

“The Tlinget tribe revered the marbled murrelet. They wouldn’t eat the murrelet because they thought they were so special and mysterious,” Nelson said.

Continued  

Murrelet status upgraded

Published March 13, 2018 at 08:16PM

Bird no longer a threatened species

There’s good news and bad news this week about the status of the iconic marbled murrelet.

The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission announced the good news: The coastal bird has been relisted from being a threatened species to an endangered one.

The bad? Circumstances that led to the new listing.

Now the state will have to draft survival guidelines and a management plan to ensure the seabird survives — and thrives — in Oregon.

The murrelet was first listed as a threatened species 23 years ago, and the petition to “uplist” the bird began in 2016 by Cascadia Wildlands, Oregon Wild, Coast Range Forest Watch, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Audubon Society of Portland and the Oregon Chapter of the Sierra Club.

The birds

Marbled murrelets are dove-sized seabirds that range along the North American coast from southeastern Alaska to Northern California. They forage in marine waters, usually within a few miles of shore, dive for schooling fish such as sand lance, anchovy or herring, and like puffins or murres, their close relatives, they are characterized by a stubby bodies and wings. Unlike puffins or murres, they do not form breeding colonies, nesting nowhere near rocky headlands or islands.

Read more  

Autonomous acoustic sensors help researchers find endangered seabirds

Technology to detect and record bird calls could be more cost-effective than surveys by field biologists for monitoring marbled murrelet nesting sites

Date: February 25, 2016

Source: University of California - Santa Cruz

Marbled murrelets are so secretive that biologists didn't even know where they nested until the 1970s, and monitoring the populations of these endangered seabirds remains a challenge. A new study, however, suggests that autonomous acoustic sensors used to detect and record murrelet calls could offer a viable alternative to surveys conducted by field biologists.

In comparison to the traditional surveys used to find the shy birds, the new technology could enable scientists to conduct broader, more cost-effective searches, according to UC Santa Cruz graduate student Abraham Borker, first author of a paper on the new findings published in Wildlife Society Bulletin.

Marbled murrelets are the odd ducks of seabirds. For most of the year, they sport typical marine bird plumage, dark on top and light on bottom to conceal them from predators above and below. But when breeding season nears, they turn a mottled ashy brown, which blends well with the coastal old-growth redwood forests where they nest. Murrelets sometimes fly up to 50 miles inland to nest, laying a single egg on a bed of moss high in a large tree.

Continued ...

Two birds subject of B.C. conservation plan

By Michael Mui, 24 Hours Vancouver

Monday, February 1, 2016 5:16:27 PST PM

B.C. government is proposing conservation plans for two different threatened feathered species with significant populations in the Lower Mainland — a bird of prey and a small seabird.

The plan was shared with Metro Vancouver recently by the provincial Ministry of Forests, describing a need to increase protected habitat.

The first is the Northern Goshawk, raven-sized raptors believed to make up up to 780 “home ranges” across the province — the term describes a breeding area with a surrounding suitable foraging area where the birds can raise their young.

These birds are listed as threatened under the federal Species at Risk Act registry, mainly because they have a small population and have lost traditional habitats.

Locally, in the south coast region, it’s believed another 83 home ranges need to be protected to meet current conservation goals. Government’s current plan is to protect 30 of those areas by 2020 as part of a B.C.-wide strategy.

Marbled Murrolet live in coastal areas and rely on old-growth forest.

“Their at-risk status is due mainly to the loss and fragmentation of their old growth nesting habitat and due to threats in the marine habitats where they feed,” the ministry said in its plan, pointing to things like oil spills and fisheries by-catch as some threats.

“It is estimated that an additional 210,000 hectares of (murrelet) habitat would have to be protected in order to achieve the federal minimum habitat thresholds applied to provincial Crown land only.”

The current strategy proposes the creation of reserves in the Great Bear Rainforest, and through managing old growth forests and “priority” habitats along the coast.

By 2017, government is expected to specify the amounts of land needed to be protected in each B.C. conservation region.

Source

Better Protection Coming for Seabird in Santa Cruz Mountains

by Chris Clarke

on March 12, 2014 3:10 PM

A diminutive seabird that gained national prominence during the "Timber Wars" of the 1990s will get a bit more stringent protection in Santa Cruz County. It's a result of a settlement between an environmental group and the California State Parks -- and residents will get cleaner state parks in the process.

The southernmost population of the marbled murrelet, a 10-inch auk relative, lays its eggs in the thick moss atop branches of ancient redwood trees and other old growth, just barely hangs on in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Only about five percent of the bird's nesting habitat remains: most of it has been logged, making the Threatened species a bit of a cause célèbre during the controversy over logging of the Pacific Northwest's ancient forests during the 1990s.

In the Santa Cruz Mountains' redwood parks, one of the biggest threats to the murrelet comes from other birds raiding its nests. The chief culprits are ravens and Steller's jays, both avid nest predators. Garbage left by campers in state parks attracts the ravens and jays, which increases pressure on the murrelets. That's why a legal settlement announced Tuesday in which State Parks agrees to keep garbage away from scavengers is being lauded by wildlife defenders.

Continued

Oregon settles seabird suits, cancels timber sales

By JEFF BARNARD, Associated Press

Updated 8:57 pm, Wednesday, February 5, 2014

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — The Oregon Department of Forestry has agreed to cancel more than two dozen timber sales on state forests because they threaten the survival of the marbled murrelet, a seabird that nests in large old trees.

The proposed settlement filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Eugene comes in a lawsuit brought by three conservation groups, Cascadia Wildlands, theCenter for Biological Diversity, and Audubon Society of Portland.

Read more

Logging Industry Loses Latest Attack on Threatened Seabird

Marbled murrelets, a unique coastal bird, and their old-growth forest habitat will remain protected

Washington, D.C.--(ENEWSPF)--September 5, 2013. A federal district court today maintained conservation protections for marbled murrelets, a unique coastal bird in the Pacific Northwest. The court rejected the remaining claims in a timber industry lawsuit that sought to expand logging of the seabird’s old-growth forest nesting habitat. The lawsuit was the timber industry’s fourth attempt in the past decade to eliminate protections for the old-growth forests that marbled murrelets call home, despite undisputed scientific evidence that murrelets are continuing to disappear from the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California.

“It is time for logging interests to move on,” said Kristen Boyles, staff attorney with Earthjustice. “Science, law, and public opinion do not support their demand to log the old-growth forests that marbled murrelets call home.”

Continued

Conservation Groups Call For Increased Protections For Rapidly-Declining Seabird

Monday, May 13, 2013 

In a letter sent Monday, over 100 conservation and scientific organizations are calling on the Obama administration to provide new protective measures for the Marbled Murrelet, a federally-listed bird species whose population is rapidly declining. 

The letter asserts that the “accelerated decline of this species is an indication that current protections for its old-growth forest habitat need to be augmented, benefitting clean air, clean water, wild salmon runs, carbon sequestration, and other ecosystem services uniquely provided by these irreplaceable forests.” 

A recent peer-reviewed study by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and USDA Forest Service found that the Marbled Murrelet’s population in California, Oregon, and Washington had declined by 29 percent over the last decade. This trend is consistent with the government’s 2009 five-year status review of the species, which concluded the population could be extinct outside of the Puget Sound area within 100 years. 

Marbled Murrelet 

- photo by U.S. Forest Service

“More needs to be done. These findings indicate that current efforts to eliminate threats and protect habitat are not enough to bring this species back,” said Steve Holmer, senior policy advisor for American Bird Conservancy, a leading bird conservation group. “Additional habitat protection, acquisition of new forest reserves, and improved recreation management offer hope for its eventual recovery.” 

Murrelet habitat on state and private lands continues to be lost to logging. One study (Falxa et al) documented a 30 percent loss of murrelet habitat on nonfederal lands within the tri-state range between 1996 and 2006. That same study recognized timber harvest as the primary cause of habitat loss on nonfederal lands.

Proposed changes to the Northwest Forest Plan have also left the species’ habitat more vulnerable to disturbance. The final 2012 Northern Spotted Owl critical habitat rule encourages logging in owl-critical habitat, which, in part, overlaps with that of the murrelet. Agency analysis included in the owl rule’s draft environmental assessment indicates that such management practices would likely be harmful to the Marbled Murrelet. Logging—both clearcutting and commercial thinning—increases fragmentation, opening the forests to nest predators such as crows, ravens, and jays. 

“To conserve the murrelet, a plan is needed that will protect the remaining habitat and prevent fragmentation in nearby forests to minimize predation and nest disturbance,” said Mr. Holmer. “These steps would offer hope for the Marbled Murrelet, and help to preserve an ancient forest legacy for the benefit and enjoyment of current and future generations of Americans.” 

http://www.chattanoogan.com/2013/5/13/251099/Conservation-Groups-Call-For-Increased.aspx

Population of threatened Marbled Murrelet down almost 30 percent in last ten years

Rare birds declining due to habitat loss
December 2012. US Federal conservation efforts haven't come close to reversing or even halting the decline of the Marbled Murrelet, a seabird that nests in old growth forests in the Pacific Northwest. That's the conclusion of a major new peer-reviewed study of the status of the Marbled Murrelet, which was prepared by scientists from the US Forest Service, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and Crescent Research, a private research firm.The study found that Marbled Murrelet numbers in five different study areas fell sharply between 2001 and 2010, from a total count of roughly 22,200 to a total count of roughly 16,700. The five study areas encompass all but one of the Marbled Murrelet conservation zones identified in the federal Marbled Murrelet Recovery Plan.

"This study confirms the fears that many conservationists have held for years," said Steve Holmer, Senior Policy Analyst for American Bird Conservancy. "By showing that the Marbled Murrelet is still in sharp decline, the study emphasizes the need for stronger, more aggressive conservation measures."

Nest in tall trees
Marbled Murrelets nest in tall trees found in forests in Washington, Oregon and California. The authors of the study cite the loss of nesting habitat as a major cause of the murrelet's decline over the past century; they add that it still may be a contributing factor, thanks to major fires, logging and big wind storms.

Continued: http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/marbled-murrelet012.html

State withdraws timber sales over sea bird nesting

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — The Oregon Department of Forestry has quietly withdrawn more timber sales that are the target of a lawsuit by conservation groups trying to protect nesting trees for a threatened sea bird called the marbled murrelet.

The annual operations plan for the Coos District, dated September 19, says the Elliott State Forest will look for alternative timber to sell while the lawsuit over protections for marbled murrelet habitat moves through federal court. The move comes on top of a decision to withdraw other timber last July.

Cascadia Wildlands and others have challenged the department's new method for avoiding threatened and endangered species, and want it to go back to focusing on habitat.

There was no immediate comment on the move from the department.

http://www.seattlepi.com/news/science/article/State-withdraws-timber-sales-over-sea-bird-nesting-4038137.php#ixzz2CIOfA9Qc