Someone stuck a camera in a tree, hooked it up to an encoder, and pointed it at a wild Bald Eagle nest. The cam is live when there’s daylight on the nest in Vancouver, BC; archive footage is shown overnight.
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Did you know that 19 of the world’s 21 species of albatross are seriously threatened by longlining, a form of sea fishing? The most at-risk species, the Amsterdam Albatross, has only 17 breeding pairs remaining in the wild.
100,000 albatrosses die each year on fishing hooks, many from longline fishing. Longline fishing fleets set out lines as long as 80 miles. Each line contains thousands of hooks baited with squid and fish, which attract the albatrosses. It is estimated that a third of the albatross deaths are caused by illegal fishing operations.
Save the Albatross is a campaign begun in 2000 by the organzation Bird Life International, in partnership with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
The website of the campaign highlights solutions to the problems caused by longline fishing. It also outlines steps the organization has taken to save albatrosses all around the world. Albatross species and their way of life are also explained in detail. How the campaign is progressing and how readers can help the campaign are also topics.
The Wisconsin Humane Society has recently launched the campaign WIngs: Wisconsin Night Guardians for Songbirds. The campaign focuses on the prevention of bird window collisions.
Birds may be confused by reflected landscapes in windows and crash into them. They might also see through a building’s windows on both sides and think they can fly through as if going through a tunnel. Night-migrating birds also may be confused by brightly lit buildings and fly towards them or around them until they become exhausted.
Here are some tips on how to prevent needless bird injuries and deaths from window collisions.
1. Close curtains to prevent the tunnel effect.
2. Apply window clings or ribbons to windows.
3. Install bird feeders very close or very far from windows.
There are more practical tips to be found on the WIngs website.
Birdlife Finland launched a new website this week, www.etelasuomenmetsat.fi, designed to highlight the need to save the forests in the south of the country. The website, in Finnish, Swedish and English, features information on seventeen forests in southern Finland which are currently unprotected.
According to the website of BirdLife International:
“Birds such as Siberian Jay Perisoreus infaustus, Capercaille Tetrao urogallus, and the White-backed Woodpecker Dendrocopus leucotus, as well as hundreds of insects, plants and fungi have already become extinct or are rare in the region directly as a result of clear cutting and modern forestry methods that leave little room for wildlife or for visitors.”
