IN MY OPINION: Billions of birds have disappeared. It’s not a good sign for humans on an endangered planet.

Shawn Graff has spent his life in preservation and conservation – first of historic Wisconsin mansions and museums, then of precious lands in the Milwaukee River and Lake Michigan watersheds. His latest cause is to reverse a major decline in woodland and grassland birds across America.

He likes challenges, and as midwest director of the American Bird Conservancy, (ABC), he has bitten off a big one. From his home in Slinger, he flies all over the country to develop strategies and resources to save the birds.

His former leadership positions included 13 years as executive director of the Ozaukee Washington Land Trust, which preserved more than 6,000 acres in the two counties, often along the banks of the Milwaukee River and its tributaries. Graff has all the necessary experience for a major undertaking.

Recent research based on bird counts showed a massive drop of 29% in the country since 1970 in most bird species, which once numbered an estimated 10 billon. The report was a shocker. It’s downright scary for any conservationist and should be for everyone who lives on this planet. In one sense, as our feathered species go, so we go.

Is there any hope for reversing this negative trend? Graff says yes.

He cites the positive numbers for waterfowl in North America. Thanks in part to conservation organizations like Ducks Unlimited, waterfowl counts have been bumping up against 50 million for the last five years, around an all-time high.

There are other good stories about birds; the resurgence of the American eagle following the banning of DDT by the EPA in 1972; the proliferation of the American turkey across the upper Midwest; the bigger flocks of sandhill cranes that need open prairies, grasslands and wetlands for breeding and foraging; the expansion of the white pelican into the Great Lakes.

The most common denominators in these amazing recoveries are habitat improvement and elimination of bird killers. Not only eagles, but other raptors are on the rise because of the elimination of DDT.

Other menaces are free roaming cats, which kill as many as 2.4 billion birds per year, an incredible number, and collisions with clear windows, which take out an estimated one billion birds per year.

ABC has strategies on both—keep your cats indoors; put hanging objects in your clear windows; buy glass designed with patterns to prevent strikes.

The biggest ABC campaign is habitat restoration. Graff cites the de-listing this year of the endangered Kirtland’s warbler. “It’s a big victory,” he said. That species was down to an estimated 172 pairs in 2013. The restoration efforts have the count back to 2,000 pairs.

It might be expected that conservationists would despair over the massive bird declines. But the positive impact of habitat preservation and restoration of wetlands in the Canadian nesting areas for ducks offer hope. The same goes for the broad scale improvements in water quality in our rivers and lakes across the country. The improved habitat has restored duck populations. Geese have multiplied to what some regard as nuisance levels. Flocks of sandhill cranes now have extended their breeding range into most of Wisconsin, as far south as Ozaukee and Washington counties.         

FYI: My wife and I have not had any bird strikes on our windows since hanging a contraption in what was our deadliest glass window.
 

Torinus, of West Bend, comments on business, health care, politics and environmental issues in his blog at johntorinus.com.