The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Audubon: 6 bird species under threat in Conn.
About 3 miles off the coast of Guilford, a windswept three-acre crescent of land known as Falkner Island becomes one of Connecticut’s most important hubs for birds each summer, when thousands of terns descend upon the island to nest.
Among the 2,500 pairs of squawking, flapping, flying and diving seabirds are about 40 pairs of roseate terns — a medium-size bird with a namesake pinkish hue. The species has been disappearing from other rocks and small spits of land around the western Atlantic Ocean at an alarming rate.
Roseate terns are listed on both the federal and state endangered species lists, with a population of about 4,683 breeding pairs in the Northeast, about half of which nest in Long Island Sound.
Yet even in protected areas such as Falker Island — a part of the Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge — the terns face threats from erosion and loss of habitat, according to a report published Thursday by the Connecticut Audubon Society.
As recently as 1978, 200 breeding pairs of roseate terns were on Falkner Island, a population that has declined by 80 percent today, the report stated.
The Audubon Society’s 2021 State of the Birds report, which in part highlighted the plight of the roseate tern, is based on a 2019 study that found that 3 billion birds have been lost across North America over the last 50 years, a decline of about one-third.
In Connecticut, the report focused on several species that have been emblematic of that decline, including terns, rusty blackbirds, semipalmated sandpipers, wood thrush, long-tailed ducks and whitewinged scooters. While some of those species, such as roseate terns, have long held protected status, others have faced precipitous declines only recently.
“Today, more species than ever are sliding toward threatened and endangered status,” wrote Peter Marra, a professor of biology at Georgetown University and contributor to the Audubon report. “Not only does that mean more species are closer to extinction, it also means that, if listed, species will be subject to regulatory action and cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Patrick Comins, executive director of Connecticut Audubon Society, said the “most shocking” figures from the report had to do with birds that are considered relatively common, such as the semipalmated sandpiper, which migrates in flocks with thousands of birds each spring and fall.
Surveys of the bird’s breeding grounds in South America, however, show that its population has declined by 80 percent over the past three decades, according to the report.
Connecticut is a vital stopover point for semipalmated sandpipers and other shorebirds during their thousandmile journeys from the Arctic to the tropics. Here, the birds must regain some of their energy by fattening up on eggs laid by horseshoe crabs, which have been decimated by over-harvesting for use as bait.
In an attempt to restore the birds’ food supply, the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection said earlier this year that it would consider tougher limits on harvests of horseshoe crabs.
Comins said the decline of the sandpipers bears a startling resemblance to the extinction of other species, such as the passenger pigeon or eskimo curlew, which once roamed the continent in great numbers.
“We like to think of conservation as something distant, like the Amazon Rainforest or the Great Barrier Reef or the like, but really it begins right in our own backyard,” he said. “And there are things we can do right here in Connecticut to make a difference for these issues of global conservation concern.”
The effects of climate change are also a major threat to local birds, particularly those adapted to specialized roles in forests that are changing as a result of rising temperatures. There are more than 80 species of climate-vulnerable birds in Connecticut, according to the report, including the wood thrush.
To save these and other species, Comins called on Congress to pass the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act, a bipartisan piece of legislation that would unlock more than $1 billion in new funds for conservation efforts. The bill is co-sponsored by three members of Connecticut’s congressional delegation.
A spokesman for the Connecticut Audubon Society said the group’s state report will precede a similar report to be published early next year by the National Audubon Society and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology focusing on declining bird populations.
The report also recommended action by state leaders to increase funds to purchase and preserve open space in Connecticut, particularly areas with important ecological significance to bird species. Conservation efforts have already led to some success stories, such as the return of ospreys to much of the Connecticut shoreline.
Some of those vital nesting and feeding areas, including the tern colony on Falkner Island, face the threat of disappearing even if they are not developed.
Erosion, which is likely to worsen with rising sea levels, is chipping away several hundred square feet from the island every year, according to the Audubon Society.
Luckily for the terns, efforts to boost their populations through the use of artificial nesting boxes and protection of their habitat appear to have had some success, with the number of nesting pairs in the Sound increasing by about one-third in recent years, the report stated.