SMSC Diary (Week 3): Battling the Need for Control and Desire for Freedom

As conservationists, our goal is to protect and preserve the wild planet as best we can. Does this mean we chain ourselves to every tree in the path of a chainsaw? No. Does it mean we wish we could? Maybe. Each day, conservationists are forced to ask a few key questions – can I protect everything? If not, what can I realistically protect? And if I am protecting it, does that mean it is still wild? These fundamental questions have no single answer, but possibly many that must be reached via discussions among scientists, politicians, and citizens to name only a few.

This week our class left campus at 5:30 AM to observe bird banding in Patuxent, Maryland. We met citizen scientists, or people who volunteer their time to monitor ecosystems of interest, to catalogue the presence of songbird species utilizing the brush habitat in a power line clearing.

During the development of this clearing, the power company was very conscious of the wellbeing of the songbirds in this habitat. Instead of clear cutting the entire area below the power lines, the company decided to keep the vital bush habitat for the birds and only manage the tall trees that exceed the average bush height.

In order to quantify the birds living in this habitat the scientists installed a maze of 26 mist nets to catch birds within songbird size range – nets with different sized holes can be selected based on the targeted bird species. The nets were then systematically checked for birds every 40 minutes beginning at 6:50 AM and ending at 9:30 AM. If birds were found in a net, they were then brought back to basecamp (a table surrounded by camping chairs under a hut) to be measured, identified, and given a number band around their ankle (unless they already had one) to indicate that they have been documented.

You may be wondering, what’s the point? Well, here it is: how is our wild bird diversity responding to these power lines? In other words, are the birds continuing to live their lives successfully even though we have disturbed a key part of it – their habitat. In this instance, conservationists are assessing the impact of human activity on a slightly altered ecosystem. The data collected by the bird banders can be used to report the health of the bird community to the power company. Perhaps, if the biodiversity is decreasing the company can then reassess their management practices in order to better preserve, or in this instance promote the recovery, of this community.

Based on what I have discussed, it makes sense to have citizen scientists monitor these populations. These are wild birds, living freely of humans. However, this conclusion brings us back to my first point.

If we are monitoring these populations, even using capture and release methods, are they still wild? This is the question wildlife conservationists are forced to assess every day.