
The changes to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) most recently proposed by the Trump Administration are almost impossible to comprehend. Proposed rules state that migratory bird death will only be prosecuted if the express purpose of the action was to intentionally kill birds. This means that the majority of actions that result in the death of migratory birds, such as oil spills or habitat destruction, will not be subject to enforcement under the MBTA.
As I have been trying to wrap my head around the far-reaching consequences of the proposed regulations, it has me reflecting on my career in conservation biology and how the MBTA has directly—and positively—influenced it.
Click here to support legislation to restore the Migratory Bird Treaty Act
My first foray into wildlife biology was in Prince William Sound, Alaska, in 1999. I was an eager 20-year-old biology student, fortunate enough to be able to pursue a summer job that did not pay well. I stumbled into a project working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to study the Black-legged Kittiwakes’ foraging behavior. The project was largely funded by monies paid to mitigate environmental damage caused by the Exxon-Valdez spill a decade prior—monies that were directly attributable to the MBTA. The woods and waters of southern Alaska teemed with more life than I have seen anywhere since, but it only took a foot kicking away cobbles to find pools of crude oil from the spill here ten years earlier. It struck me then that, though this disaster cannot be fully compensated for, the money resulting from the MBTA was ultimately leveraged into many more benefits.
My life and career has taken a lot of turns since that time in Alaska, yet along the way I have continuously encountered conservation efforts that were funded and enabled by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. And, like the law itself, these efforts crossed international borders. As the name implies, the MBTA is a treaty between nations—the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Japan, and Russia. Many of us question what the implications are of the U.S. changing policies on a long-established treaty with other nations. My graduate work was in New Brunswick, Canada. I worked for a land trust there for a few years after finishing my studies. While I was working in land conservation, a large industrial forest landowner built a road that destroyed Great Blue Heron nests. Because of the Canadian equivalent to the MBTA, the land owner ultimately paid money to Bird Studies Canada, an organization dedicated to bird conservation. MBTA money has been used for permanent land conservation and restoration, cutting-edge research, long term monitoring projects, and more.
I’ve seen time and time again how the MBTA is an essential way in which we can hold companies accountable for damaging our shared natural resources and obtain the resources to aid their recovery. Many bird-safe measures, like red lights on cell towers to reduce bird strikes, only happen because companies have an incentive to prevent as many bird deaths as possible. The $100 million that British Petroleum paid for direct and indirect bird losses from 210 million gallons of oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico was leveraged into countless restoration and conservation projects. If a similar tragedy were to occur with the proposed new rules in place, those responsible would not be held accountable if the killing of birds was not the intent of the activity. Of course, the intent of drilling for oil, cutting a tree, or spinning a wind turbine is not to kill birds, but they can and do, at times in large numbers.
Recent research has established that we have lost a staggering 3 billion birds in the past few decades. Now is the time to invest more to protect our wildlife, not remove foundational laws in resource conservation. The famous allusion to a canary in a coal mine is applicable here—except this is not just one canary. The loss of billions of birds is telling us that we need to invest more time and money into our wild birds.
The original words of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act remain the same as they have for over 100 years: “. . . it shall be unlawful at any time, by any means or in any manner, to pursue, hunt, take, capture, kill, attempt to take, capture, or kill . . . any migratory bird, any part, nest, or egg of any such bird.” Killing at ‘any time’ by ‘any means’ needs no clarification, and intent has nothing to do with it.
Thank you for alerting us to this issue. My husband is a bird photographer & I write poems to his photographs to create PhotoPoems. The conservation of migratory birds is dear to our hearts.
Best wishes!
Maryam & Akiba
The links in this attached news release from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility provide useful information regarding this proposal to radically modify the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and how you can submit comments by the deadline of mid-March. The links also provide copies of other protests that have been lodged over the manner in which this whole proposal has been handled:
https://www.peer.org/even-bureaucracies-taking-on-trumpian-tone/
For anyone who is a former employee of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and would like to sign a letter of protest from many hundreds of fellow professionals in the agency who have worked in ornithology and related disciplines, there is information posted on the Web site of the Association of Retired Fish and Wildlife Service Employees on how to do that. You can Google that name and find the link and the relevant information.
For any Maine residents with birder friends and professional contacts in Canada, especially the Canadian Maritimes, letters and comments need to go in to the official site for public comments from Canadians (again, read the Fish and Wildlife Service proposed rule and press release on where to file comments, through the PEER link above). This proposal has major implications for Canada and the bird life that summers and reproduces there.
Canada is a signatory nation to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. In fact, it (Great Britain signed on Canada’s behalf) was the first nation to sign a bird protection treaty with the U.S. … in 1916, of all times in history, while World War I was raging. That tells you how important our predecessors felt bird conservation was. They were already planning for a new world, after the guns of World War I fell silent. Now, in an instant, the Trump Administration proposes to wipe out a century of accomplishment by giving the killing of migratory birds on an industrial scale a complete pass.
This is one of the most shocking emasculations of national and international conservation law yet attempted. Birders need to put down their binoculars for a moment and write letters of indignation to their Congressional delegation, to their Canadian friends, to their local newspaper letters-to-the-editor columns, but most of all to the official Federal Government address for public comments. You (and the birds) have two weeks before it is too late.
David Klinger
Boise, Idaho
[email protected]
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (1977-2012/retired)
Maine Audubon Society life member
3/1/20
Please consider voting against proposed changes to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA), by the Trump Administration to only prosecute those targeting the death of migratory birds, NOT inadvertently causing their death as currently covered by the MBTA.
Under the present law recent data shows we have lost over 3 billion birds in the past few decades as stated in the aforementioned document.
Do not support the demise and extinction of migratory and non-migratory birds by allowing the present laws to be changed.
If you support legislation to restore the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, I will be happy to, with help from your publicists, have your support put on social media in any way I can, to ensure the people of Maine will KNOW you value migratory birds, as you do each person residing in Maine.
Feel free to contact me at- 207-798-1988
I am against every when it comes to preserving wildlife, including the proposed Corridor.