Chicago Wildlife News: Oil spill in Gulf raising concerns about Illinois' migratory birds

Oil spill in Gulf raising concerns about Illinois' migratory birds

(POSTED: 6/28/10) The BP oil spill is threatening wildlife well beyond the Gulf region -- with Illinois' migratory birds among those facing an uncertain future.

By some estimates, 60 species of birds travel from Illinois to or through the Gulf of Mexico when colder weather arrives.

If the oil isn't substantially gone from the water -- or from coastal marshes where some of those birds feed -- they could be in trouble, experts said.

The birds risk getting slicked by oil -- or finding their food supplies tainted, or diminished.

"If birds eat small fish or they eat small invertebrates, and if the oil affects the productivity of the populations of their food base, then that would be an indirect effect," said Jeffrey Brawn, department head of natural resources and environmental sciences at the University of Illinois.

Migratory bird biologist Randy Wilson from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service said, "Each of the birds uses this part of the country slightly differently."

Some winter in the Gulf, but others stop to rest and eat before making the journey to Central or South America.

"The question is: is it going to be oil in local areas, or is it basically going to be all of the Gulf Coast covered with oil from the panhandle of Florida to Louisiana?" said Chicago Field Museum senior conservation ecologist Doug Stotz.

Stotz is waiting to see if the oil remains off much of the coast. The marshes, he said, are a vital area.

While shorebirds are at risk, so are waterfowl, with experts mentioning the red-breasted Merganser and Scaup ducks as birds that migrate through Illinois along the Mississippi Flyway to the Gulf.

"Illinois is actually a mid-migration state," said John Buhnerkempe, division chief of wildlife resources at the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. "We don't raise a lot of ducks here. We watch the birds come in from the northern United States and Canada, and they fly through Illinois."

Experts seem to agree that it will be some time before we know the Gulf oil spill's affect on Illinois' migratory birds -- especially long-term.

"Birds are able to rebound from population crashes," said Michael Ward, an avian ecologist at the Illinois Natural History Survey and a visiting assistant professor at the U of I. "They are pretty amazing in that ability."

"It's the long-term -- five, 10 years of constantly being beaten down. That's when you get really grave conservation complications."

Here is a list of bird species that migrate from Illinois to or through the Gulf that some experts have shown concern about:

Grebes
Least terns
Piping plover
Red-breasted Merganser
Sanderling
Scaup ducks
Spotted sandpiper
Virginia rails
Yellow rails
Yellow-crowned night-heron

By Mari Grigaliunas, for ChicagoWildlifeNews.com
Contact: [email protected]

Photographs:

Top picture, red-breasted Merganser -- Waterfowl from Illinois that could be affected by oil spill when it migrates south in the fall. Credit: Dave Menke/U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

Middle picture, spotted sandpiper -- Shorebird from Illinois that could be affected by oil spill when it migrates south in the fall. Credit: Dave Menke/U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

Bottom picture, piping plover -- Shorebird from Illinois that could be affected by oil spill when it migrates south in the fall. Piping plover is also on the Illinois Endangered and Threatened Animals and Plants checklist. Credit: Gene Nieminen/U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

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