NEW YORK – The Migratory Bird Treaty Act, one of the first environmental laws in the country, turned 100 this week – but the protection it provides is in serious jeopardy.

Many states have named this the "Year of the Bird" in recognition of the centennial. But the U.S. Interior Department has said the legal penalties in the Act apply only to intentional killings.

Bob Dreher, vice president for conservation with Defenders of Wildlife, points out that the MBTA has been vitalin protecting millions of birds a year from industrial activities that cause their unintended but foreseeable deaths.

That includes oil spills and the oil industry practice of maintaining large, open oil pits and tanks that birds mistake for water.

"There can be thousands, tens of thousands of birds that will get killed in a single large oil pit or oil tank,” says Dreher. “And it's really simple common sense to cover those tanks or to put a netting over them to keep the birds from landing on them."

The Interior Department has told federal wildlife enforcement agencies that the MBTA no longer applies to actions not specifically intended to kill birds.

New York is a major crossroads for migratory birds. Now the Trump administration wants to allow oil drilling in the state's coastal waters.

Ana Paula Tavares – executive director, Audubon New York and Audubon Connecticut – notes that the Deepwater Horizon oil spill killed tens of thousands of birds.

"There was about $100 million in investment in restoring bird habitat that would have not been available if it was not for the MBTA," says Travares.

Seventeen former top Interior Department officials from almost every presidential administration since the early 1970s have repudiated the new interpretation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

Though the Interior Department's actions could be reversed by Congress or a change in the administration, Dreher says that could take months or years.

"In the meantime, birds are at risk and so, we're doing the only thing we can to try to turn this back as quickly as we can – and that is to ask the court to reverse it," says Dreher.

A coalition of groups, including the Audubon Society and Defenders of Wildlife, has filed a federal lawsuit in New York challenging the elimination of MBTA protections for birds.


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Conservationists in New York and nationwide will celebrate the 51st anniversary of the Endangered Species Act on Saturday.

Since its passage in 1973, more than 1,600 species in the U.S. have been protected by the law. New York's piping plover and numerous other grassland birds have seen their populations rebound and backers credit this legislation.

Susan Holmes, executive director of the Endangered Species Coalition, said bald eagles are a great example of the law's conservation impacts.

"There are, in New York State, 425 breeding pairs, which means that if you're taking the Amtrak north to say Croton or going north along the Hudson, there's a good chance that you'll see a bald eagle," Holmes pointed out. "All of this is thanks to the Endangered Species Act."

As beneficial as the law may be, barriers prevent it from working to its fullest extent. Holmes noted the biggest issue has been getting sufficient funding. This year, advocates asked Congress to raise its funding by more than $840 million, which would fully fund the program. The amount would ensure each species has at least $101,000 for conservation and protection efforts.

Beyond funding, Holmes feels more people getting involved in wildlife conservation can help strengthen the law. When it first passed, it had overwhelming bipartisan support from Congress and the public. Though public support for the Endangered Species Act remains high, Holmes noted lawmakers' support has waned.

"We've seen some polarization around the Endangered Species Act itself," Holmes observed. "That's not reflected by the public's concern for wildlife nor the public support for the law. So, I think it's true, we are not seeing the same kind of support among Republicans for endangered species protection that we saw back in 1973."

She added it applies more to elected officials who are Republicans than the party's voters. For 2025, Holmes stressed threats from climate change and habitat loss will linger but she hopes there will be a recommitment to fully funding the Endangered Species Act to ensure more threatened plants and animals are able to thrive.

The United States has a national mammal, tree and flower but the status of America's most treasured bird was not always so clear officially or ecologically until now.

Last week, the bald eagle officially became the national bird of the U.S. More than 50 years ago, pesticide use had decimated bald eagle populations. Researchers recorded the lowest number of nesting pairs in 1963, at just 417.

Aimee Delach, senior policy analyst at Defenders of Wildlife, said pesticides like DDT worked their way up the food chain in a process known as biomagnification.

"A species like a bald eagle, which eats a lot of fish, they're essentially getting a dose from everything that those fish have eaten in their lifetimes," Delach pointed out. "Biomagnification is why these pesticide issues show up worst in some of the 'top of the food chain' animals, like bald eagles."

Delach noted pesticides interfered with the bald eagle's calcium levels, which caused eggshells to be weak and less likely to hatch. The federal government banned the use of DDTin 1972 and a conservation law brought the bald eagle back from the brink. In 1973, Congress passed the Endangered Species Act and ever since, bald eagles have made major rebounds.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates the bald eagle population now stands at more than 300,000. Many people assume the bald eagle has always been our national bird but while it has been a symbol on our country's seal for centuries, it had never been officially designated.

Delach added the decision is long overdue.

"It's really fitting that the bald eagle be our national bird," Delach asserted. "There are almost 70 species of eagle across the world but the bald eagle is the only one that's found only in North America. So it really is our national bird, as far as its territory and range."

The Endangered Species Act will celebrate its 51st anniversary Saturday.

The federal Department of the Interior has awarded the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission more than $800,000 for recovery efforts for American martens, Wisconsin's only state endangered mammal - that many people have never heard of.

Martens have been trapped for their fur for various purposes. Jonathan Pauli is a professor of forest and wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

He said silvicultural practices and logging within local national forests altered martens' preferred habitats.

"This work is really trying to understand how do we manage habitat in a meaningful way," said Pauli, "on these working landscapes, to increase marten habitat, and connectivity of these different subpopulations, to ensure martens are here for the foreseeable future."

Pauli said the grant money - from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation's America The Beautiful Challenge - will bring together a diverse group of folks from the federal, state, tribal, and academic levels over four years. They'll create a forest management proposal - with recommended habitat improvements for marten recovery in Wisconsin.

The project will also include training for future biologists and ecologists.

In the 1930s, martens were considered regionally extinct. A series of regional reintroduction efforts has spanned nearly 60 years.

Pauli said martens play important cultural, economic, and ecological roles - including the ability, as predators, to keep rodent populations at bay that are important carriers of diseases such as Lyme's Disease.

Martens are also good dispersers of seeds for foods such as blueberries, and are culturally significant to the Ojibwe or Chippewa people.

With varying degrees of chestnut brown furs, they have distinct golden throats and are the size of a cat, with semi-retractable claws that help them navigate through forests and snow.

"They actually live and hunt underneath that snowpack," said Pauli, "that they can slink in and out from underneath the snow where they can hunt all the mice that are living underneath the snow - and then pop up out of the snow bank. And they have big feet like snowshoe hares, almost, where they can surf on top of the snow."

Pauli said it's a real treat when you actually get to see one because they are so rare and cryptic.

For the first time in a century, martens were spotted this year on Lake Superior's Madeline Island in northern Wisconsin.

Ecology experts say this gives them hope for a positive recovery trend for the rare mammal.




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