Following up on a previous report about global warming’s impact on songbird populations (Silent Spring Happening Now at a Forest Near You), comes this new report from Minnesota birdwatchers and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) on additional songbird deaths.

According to the local Star Tribune, a late, cold spring in the upper Midwest has further decimated songbird populations. These migrating birds, who flew in right on schedule (at least the schedule determined by the last decade of warming), were subsequently unable to find food. First it was cold, which prevented insects emerging, and then it was a late-April snowstorm, blanketing everything even marginally edible.

Science Daily calls this past winter (2007-08) the coolest since 2001, based on statistics from the NOAA’s (National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration) National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.

Ten years of increasingly warm temperatures across the North American continent have reset the internal clocks of many species of migrating birds. This latest reprieve, likely scheduled to run as long as La Nina – a highly unpredictable Pacific Ocean oscillation that leads to cooler, drier conditions – has further disrupted migratory patterns, leaving many species of birds stranded in unforgiving and equally unpredictable northern climates.

The inevitable result was the discovery, by Minnesota birders, of numbers of dead swallows, bluebirds, kinglets, purple martins, warblers and robins, all of which feed primarily on insects and wild fruits.

Officials have called the event unusual.

"I don’t remember anything quite as dramatic,” said Carroll Henderson, DNR non-game wildlife program leader, who added that the area most affected extended from the Twin Cities northward. “It was probably a very spotty impact. Other birds will be migrating in somewhat later, so I think the bulk of our bird populations will still be okay. In terms of the tree swallows and bluebirds, they do have a very high reproductive potential, so if they have a bad year once every few years, they should be able to bounce back.”

Henderson further stated that he didn’t attribute the phenomenon to global warming.

This is the same DNR (in conjunction with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) that considers the 310-acre Boyer Lake in Becker County, Minnesota not worth protecting. It is also the DNR that helped push through the Koch pipeline, destroying countless acres of prime Minnesota farmlands and wetlands. It is the same DNR that failed to block the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) from removing one of its agents to hide the fact that 3M had been polluting local rivers for 50 years with PFOS and other perfluorinated compounds, to the tune of 50,000 pounds a year (see 3M and Minnesota: The End of the Affair).

I’m not sure if I trust the DNR’s opinion anymore. To say that the recent songbird deaths are unrelated to global warming is presumptuous and shows a lack of understanding on a scale bordering on criminal disregard for the very resources the DNR is sworn to protect. The DNR may not be able to alter the weather or restore the dead songbirds, but a little more understanding of the mechanisms that drive global warming, combined with a slightly more enlightened and compassionate attitude, would go a long way toward restoring my confidence in them.

In any case, if you’re in the Upper Midwest this year, and planning to attend the annual Horicon Marsh Bird Festival this weekend, be prepared to see fewer songbirds. But don’t worry. The DNR says they will recover – if we don’t get them first with deforestation, pesticide spraying, “clean” coal plants and shiny, new pollutant-spewing SUV’s.

Disclosure: I don’t own stock in Koch or 3M.

Site Disclaimer