Make captimes.com your all-day, every-day, Madison news home page. Subscribe to get news updates delivered by email. Learn more.

Outdoors: Helping birds in Wisconsin truly a group effort

Tim Eisele
Special to The Capital Times  —  1/23/2008 9:54 am

The Wisconsin Bird Conservation Initiative (WBCI) is a partnership of more than 163 organizations around the state involved with bird conservation.

Andy Paulios, wildlife biologist for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and coordinator of WBCI, said the organization integrates both non-game and game-bird species into one conservation initiative that works through voluntary projects.

"Wisconsin has more than 220 breeding bird species and is incredibly important to a number of bird species of concern," Paulios said. "We have two federally endangered and threatened species nesting in the state, the piping plover and Kirtland's warbler."

Paulios said that Wisconsin has a diverse set of breeding forest birds, including 25 percent of the world's population of golden-winged warblers, plus a healthy population of cerulean warblers.

Grassland birds are in serious decline, some of which have declined 60 to 90 percent since the 1960s.

Wetlands are incredibly important to more than 100 species of birds in migration and breeding season.

"These all take a coordinated effort among all of the partners," Paulios said. "We take on projects that can't be completed by any one partner alone," he said.

Some of the problems include loss and fragmentation of habitat, feral predators, climate change, lead poisoning and crashes into windows and tall towers.

WBCI was started in 1999 by groups such as DNR, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Madison Audubon Society, Ruffed Grouse Society, and others and is very involved in North American Bird Conservation efforts.

The Initiative produces state bird conservation plans, available on its Web site at www.wisconsinbirds.org, including species accounts, habitat management guidance, landscape level priorities, and identifying important bird areas -- sites that provide critical habitat for bird populations.

WBCI will institute statewide population monitoring, and this summer will begin monitoring nocturnal birds and marshland birds. WBCI will hold a workshop on these species in Green Bay on March 15.

WBCI uses committees, and its issues committee is concerned about collisions of birds with wind power generators, collisions with buildings and TV/radio towers, lead poisoning, and effects of pesticides.

Some of the birds that spend some of their lives in Wisconsin spend much of their lives outside the United States, as far south as Argentina. WBCI is working with partners to identify concerns about survival in other countries.

"To really address the issues such as habitat, you need a partnership of lots of groups and NGO's and agencies all working on a common vision to accomplish anything," Paulios said. "The issues are too big for any one group."

Tim Eisele
Special to The Capital Times  —  1/23/2008 9:54 am