Connecticut Audubon Society’s Conservation Blog

It seems as if the General Assembly in Hartford is following through on something we were told last month: they will act on no major pesticide bills this year and instead will form a task force.

The Connecticut Post has an account, here.

We were told that the pro-pesticide lobby and legislators were poised to overturn a ban on the use of pesticides at pre-K through 8th-grade schools, and that the task force idea was a way for legislators who favor tougher pesticide rules to buy time.

An exception to the no-pesticide-bill decision seems to be a bill that would ban two mosquito insecticides, resmethrin and methoprene, in the coastal zone. It moved out of the Environment Committee this week and is waiting to be put on the House calendar for a vote.

We have more about these bills and our positions on them on our Legislative Tracking page. — Tom Andersen, director of communications and community outreach.

American Kestrel numbers are falling, perhaps because of pesticides. Connecticut Audubon Society photo by Scott Kruitbosch.

Aerial insectivores aren’t the only category of common birds that are becoming far less common.

As we noted in our Connecticut State of the Birds 2013 report, populations of aerial insectivores such as Barn Swallows, Chimney Swifts, Common Nighthawks, and various flycatchers – birds that eat only insects they catch on the wing – have dropped dramatically since at least the 1960s.

But grassland birds are declining too. A year ago, in Sanctuary, the journal of the Massachusetts Audubon Society, ornithologist and writer Chris Leahy noted that it is no longer easy to find American Kestrels and Eastern Meadowlarks in New England:

“All but taken for granted as common roadside birds as late as the 1980s, the kestrel and meadowlark have plummeted alarmingly within just a few decades throughout much of their range. Initially an obvious cause presented itself. These are birds of agricultural habitats, and everyone knows that farmland in New England is fast becoming part of a historical landscape; surely these birds were classic victims of habitat loss. But birdwatchers who pay close attention to their local patches of habitat noted that kestrels and meadowlarks are now absent from places where they were recently common – even though the critical elements of their habitat were still amply present.”

The title of Leahy’s piece was, “Of Kestrels, Meadowlarks, and Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers,” and he went on to note that almost three-quarters of what kestrels and meadowlarks eat are bugs – and then to argue that we’re seeing fewer of those field birds because pesticides use is pervasive.

Then late last month, just as we were releasing this year’s Connecticut State of the Birds, the online journal PLOS ONE published a peer-reviewed study called, “Pesticide Acute Toxicity Is a Better Correlate of U.S. Grassland Bird Declines than Agricultural Intensification.”

What that title means is this: the decline of grassland birds is more closely linked to pesticide poisoning than to habitat change. The birds include Grasshopper Sparrow, Vesper Sparrow, Savannah Sparrow, Northern Harrier, Bobolink and Eastern Meadowlark.

The authors, Pierre Mineau and Mélanie Whiteside, write:

“Our results suggest that the use of lethally toxic insecticides cannot be ignored when trying to identify causes of grassland population declines in North America. Indeed, they offer a more plausible explanation for overall declines than does the oft-cited ‘habitat loss through agricultural intensification’. “

Among other points, they say that even when only a small proportion of total cropland is treated, it affects overall bird population trends. And although pastures are believed to be safer for birds than cropland, a common pasture crop, alfalfa, carries the third highest lethal risk of any crop based on pesticide use.

The stakes are high. The authors note that 215 species of neotropical migrants use agricultural areas in North America. And the exposure and mortality are significant:

Bobolinks are among the grassland birds that are in decline. Connecticut Audubon Society photo by Scott Kruitbosch.

“ … large quantities of products of very high toxicity to birds have been used for decades despite evidence that poisonings were frequent even when products were applied according to label direction. The Avian Incident Monitoring System (AIMS), a joint project of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the American Bird Conservancy (ABC), listed 113 pesticides which have caused direct bird mortality. An analysis of a large number of avian field studies suggests that avian kills were a normal corollary of insecticide use in many crops grown in North America. For example, analyses of granular insecticide use patterns in western Canada indicated that the abundance of several common species was negatively correlated with these toxic insecticides.”

One commonly-cited study “estimated that pesticide-induced direct mortality numbered approximately 67 million per year in the U.S. … This estimate was undoubtedly quite conservative.”

And in another study, Pierre Mineau, one of the authors of the PLOS ONE paper, “estimated, based on several industry-led field studies that at its peak, a single use pattern (for corn rootworm) of a single insecticide (carbofuran), in a single crop (corn) was killing 17 to 91 million songbirds annually in the U.S. Midwest.”

You have to look hard for good news in this, but Mineau and Whiteside offer some:

“An analysis of pesticide use patterns in the US does suggest that the situation is improving as a result of the gradual withdrawal of the most toxic products, largely because of human health concerns. The current analysis considered bird trends from 1980 to 2003; there is evidence that the acute lethal risk to birds was already dropping during the second half of that period.”

There are several pesticide bills being considered by the Connecticut General Assembly in Hartford this year – bills that would ban the use of lawn pesticides in parks and schools, and ban the use of two particular pesticides in the coastal area. Connecticut Audubon Society supports them all. Details and links are on our Legislative Tracking page. — Tom Andersen, director of communications and community outreach

My colleague Anthony Zemba and I are looking forward to spending a good part of Saturday, March 23, at the Connecticut Land Conservation Council’s 29th annual conference, which this year is titled “Can Open Space Be Permanently Protected?”

Connecticut Audubon Society, which owns 2,600 acres of conservation land, is a longtime member of the CLCC and has participated in its conference in the past. This year our Conservation Services program, which Anthony heads, is a co-sponsor of the event.  

The CLCC serves as an umbrella organization for the 137 land trusts in Connecticut. Its executive director, Amy Paterson, is among a small group of leading conservation advocates in Hartford and has put together an ad hoc committee called the State Land Working Group, which I’m a member of, to advocate for better land conservation policies.

Connecticut Audubon Society is believes strongly that permanent open space protection requires scientifically-based habitat conservation and management. Our Conservation Services staff recently completed a landmark plan to help Aspetuck Land Trust protect its 1009-acre Trout Brook Valley Preserve. We’re also just starting a habitat management planning project with the Norwalk Land Trust.  

The conference will be at Wesleyan University, in Middletown. The CLCC is offering workshops throughout the day in seven broad areas, including the basics of transactions, advocacy, legal issues, and stewardship.

I’ll be a panelist for a communications workshop called “Finding Local Partners and Building Membership.”

Registration is still open. There’s more information about the organization and the conference on the CLCC website.

– Tom Andersen, director of communications and community outreach

Photo copyright Connecticut Audubon Society.

Clean water is obviously essential to human health. But our waterways are also wildlife habitats, and the cleaner they are, the better they are for birds, fish and other wildlife. We submitted the testimony below to the General Assembly’s Joint Committee on Finance, Revenue and Bonding, in support of a bill that would provide money to upgrade and improve Connecticut’s sewage treatment plants (you can learn more about all the bills we’re working on, here):

Connecticut Audubon Society, a member of Connecticut’s Clean Water Investment Coalition, supports Governor’s Bill 842, which would provide $997 million through the Clean Water Fund over the next two years for clean water infrastructure.

Our mission is to conserve the state’s environment through science-based education and advocacy focused on the state’s bird populations and habitats. While much of the support for the Clean Water Fund focuses, appropriately, on the jobs it creates, we wish to discuss how the Clean Water Fund benefits conservation.

The obvious prerequisite for functioning aquatic, estuarine and marine ecosystems is clean water.

Up-to-date, well-maintained wastewater treatment plants and sewer systems in Hartford and Middletown, for example, help keep the Connecticut River clean, allowing the river to support a large and diverse population of fish. Those fish become food for the scores of Bald Eagles that winter on the river. Those fish are also food for the eagles that stay here for the summer to nest and raise young – Connecticut now has 25 pairs of nesting Bald Eagles.

Up-to-date, well-maintained wastewater treatment plants and sewer systems in Norwalk, for example, keep the water clean for the expansive oyster beds around the Norwalk Islands, providing shellfish not just for the oyster industry but for the American Oystercatchers that nest on our beaches.

Rivers, estuaries such as the mouth of the Housatonic and its adjacent 1,500 acres of salt marsh, and Long Island Sound itself are among our richest habitats. In summer our shores are graced with Least Terns and Piping Plovers (both threatened in Connecticut), Great Egrets and Snowy Egrets, cormorants and gulls, and many other species that need clean water as much as they need clear air.

The nitrogen removal, phosphorus removal and pathogen disinfection that our sewage plants provide are essential to keeping our waterways clean and rich in oxygen. Operating and maintaining sewage infrastructure is a local function but it is a shared responsibility.

Connecticut deserves credit for embracing that responsibility by providing money through the Clean Water Fund. The Fund creates jobs, it leads to better recreational opportunities for state residents, and it restores and improves some of our most important wildlife habitats.

Connecticut Audubon Society operates nature centers in Fairfield, Milford, Glastonbury and Pomfret, an EcoTravel office in Essex and an advocacy program in Hartford. We manage 19 wildlife sanctuaries, and have preserved over 2,600 acres of open space. Our education program reaches more than 200,000 children and adults annually.

We strongly believe that a fully-funded Clean Water Fund is essential to helping conserve Connecticut’s birds and their habitats.

Eastern Phoebes are among the aerial insectivores that are in decline. Pesticides are suspected as being part of the cause. Photo by Sandee Harraden.

We testified before the General Assembly’s Environment Committee in Hartford on Monday in favor of four bills, the most prominent of which was a proposal to ban the use of pesticides in Connecticut’s municipal parks.

The rationale for pesticide bills in Hartford generally is that they would limit the exposure of people, especially children, to dangerous chemicals – an excellent rationale. Those bills would limit the exposure of birds and other wildlife to the same chemicals, and that makes them on-mission for Connecticut Audubon Society as well.

Pesticides are implicated in the disturbing population decline of 17 species of aerial insectivores that nest in Connecticut, which was the subject of our Connecticut State of the Birds 2013 report, which we released on Friday.

Here’s our testimony:

Connecticut Audubon Society strongly supports passage of Senate Bill 914, An Act Concerning the Application of Pesticides at Municipal Parks.

As conservationists, we tend to view bugs not as pests but as food for birds and as essential parts of our ecosystem. While we realize there are some legitimate uses for the poisons that kill these bugs, we support a general reduction in their use.  

Pesticides limit the amount of food available for birds and poison them indirectly when they eat bugs that have recently ingested pesticides. And as we know from the example of Ospreys and Peregrine Falcons, which came close to extinction because DDT made their shells too brittle to be incubated, pesticides can have drastic indirect affects too.

But this is a timely issue for us in a more specific way. On February 22, we released our 8th annual Connecticut State of the Birds report, The Seventh Habitat and the Decline of Our Aerial Insectivores.

In articles by the Connecticut State Ornithologist, wildlife biologists for the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, a Cornell University professors, the conservation staff of Connecticut Audubon and others, the report details the dramatic population decline of 17 species of birds that nest in Connecticut and eat only insects that they catch on the wing – so-called aerial insectivores.

The population decline has been so drastic that the report states that “unless rates of decline are halted or reversed in a timely way, total population collapse eventually becomes something of a mathematical certainty.”

Much more research needs to be done but the consensus is that pesticide use has played an important role in the decline of these birds. Senate Bill 914 is a small step. But it’s a step in the right direction and we urge its passage.

All 17 species of aerial insectivores that nest in Connecticut are declining in population, including Great-Crested Flycatchers, like this one. Photo by Sandee Harraden.

Our Connecticut State of the Birds 2013 report, “The Seventh Habitat and the Decline of Our Aerial Insectivores,” delves into the mysterious population decline of 17 species of birds that nest in Connecticut and rely on a diet of insects caught on the wing.

Released Friday, the report identifies pesticides as a possible cause of the decline: pesticides kill the bugs that aerial insectivores eat, and so it’s likely that a reduction in the use of these poisons will help the aerial insectivores.

We’ll be in Hartford on Monday testifying before the General Assembly’s Environment Committee in support of two bills that would lead to pesticide reductions in Connecticut.

You can read the news release about Connecticut State of the Birds 2013 on our website, here.

You’ll also find a link to the report itself and to excerpts from each of the articles (along with a list of authors).

The news release also includes a link to a video of the news conference, and we’ve provided links to news coverage of the event.

-- Tom Andersen, director of communications and community outreach

The Community Investment Act is one of Connecticut’s most important sources of land conservation funds. Since 2005, it has funded 88 purchases, permanently protecting 2,707 acres of open space and 15 community gardens, at a cost of $15.3 million. Another round of grants announced recently will protect an additional 2,730 acres.

But a bill being considered by the General Assembly in Hartford would divert $4 million annually from the traditional purposes of the Community Investment Act – open space acquisition, farmland preservation/dairy support, brownfields remediation and affordable housing – into a “healthy foods initiative” for local schools.

The healthy foods initiative is no doubt a worthy program. But it should not be used to divert funds from land conservation and the other well-established purposes specified in the Community Investment Act. Connecticut’s conservation community is recommending that the healthy foods initiative be funded as a separate line item in the Department of Education budget.

Here is the text of a letter that we at Connecticut Audubon Society sent recently to the General Assembly’s Education and Appropriation committees:

Connecticut Audubon Society opposes the inclusion in H.B. No. 6357 (An Act Implementing the Budget Recommendations of the Governor Concerning Education) of a provision that would fund the Department of Education’s Healthy Foods Initiative through the Community Investment Act (section 22, paragraph A).

The provision would unacceptably siphon precious funding from the four customary land use purposes of the Community Investment Act, namely open space acquisition, farmland preservation/dairy support, brownfields remediation and affordable housing.

As the state’s leading conservation organization, with a membership that reaches into all corners and municipalities of the state, Connecticut Audubon Society’s main interest here is in the open space funding component of the Community Investment Act.

Money for conservation in Connecticut is hard enough to come by as it is. Shoe-horning the Healthy Foods Initiative into the CIA would benefit a no-doubt worthy cause at the expense of one of the CIA’s core programs – one that has had demonstrable achievements.

Since 2005, the CIA has funded 88 purchases through the Open Space and Watershed Land Acquisition Grant Program, permanently protecting 2,707 acres of open space and 15 community gardens, at a cost of $15.3 million. Another round of grants announced recently will permanently protect an additional 2,730 acres.

Connecticut Audubon Society stands with the rest of Connecticut’s conservation community in recommending that the Healthy Foods Initiative be funded as a separate line item in the Department of Education budget.

We urge your committee to remove the provision that would fund the Healthy Foods Initiative through the Community Investment Act.

– Tom Andersen, director of communications and community outreach

Respectfully,