How To Help Birds in the Long Run
Conservation wins take time to build鈥攁nd quick action to protect.
When contributing editor Rene Ebersole first started poking around the black market for songbirds in South Florida, she knew she was onto something big. So did federal investigators. It took another two years for the undercover operation to unfold and for the first wave of smugglers to be prosecuted under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The resulting cover story provides a rare glimpse into one way the nation鈥檚 most powerful avian-conservation law is being enforced鈥攂y a web of wildlife agents working covertly on behalf of birds.
Other bird champions in the Fall 2018 issue of 探花精选 are operating in the light (even as they push for Lights Out, to prevent migrating species from becoming confused at night). In Toronto and elsewhere, advocates, architects, and inventors are teaming up to ensure birds鈥 safe passage through North American cities, as Marguerite Holloway describes in her feature聽story. Twenty-five years after the bird-friendly-building movement began, it鈥檚 on the verge of becoming standard practice.
Enacting change on behalf of birds requires patience and vision. The benefits may take years, decades, or even generations to unfold. in Boise knows that. Every year for the past five years it has 聽that teaches kids who have immigrated to Idaho from all over the world about their new environment. 探花精选鈥檚 video producer, Mike Fernandez,聽himself moved to Idaho from Peru as a child. Like Fernandez, there鈥檚 a good chance many of those kids鈥攚ho learn about birds of prey and participate in hummingbird banding鈥攚ill grow up to champion birds, too.聽
But as tangible and as hard-won as many successes are, some can be undone quickly. Our nation鈥檚 other bedrock wildlife-protection law, the Endangered Species Act, has become the to roll it back. A recent 探花精选 investigation found that public-comment periods for proposed government actions, such as the revisions to the ESA, are shrinking. That closes on September 24. To preserve the ESA鈥檚 protections, and many other conservation victories, we need to not only be farsighted鈥攚e need to act fast.
This story originally ran in the Fall 2018 issue as 鈥淭he Long Game.鈥 To receive our print magazine, become a member by .