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February 1, 2002

Saving Songbirds

Endangered species action program an unqualified success...

By Mike Barnett
Editor

A Central Texas endangered species mitigation program developed and carried out by ranchers and private property owners is a roaring success, Kerr County Farm Bureau President Steve Bauer told attendees at a conservation conference during the recent American Farm Bureau Federation annual meeting in Reno, NV.

"In the past when endangered species have been mentioned, a lot of us have run backwards and tried to ignore it," Bauer said. "It's a problem that's not going away. It's a problem that needs to be addressed. If it's addressed promptly by groups that have our same goals in mind, the problem can be solved."

The program Bauer speaks of is a brownheaded cowbird trapping effort that has been carried out in Central Texas for several years. The brownheaded cowbird is a brood parasite that lays its eggs in the nests of other birds to raise. The cowbird chick—which hatches first and is bigger and stronger—lives while the songbird chick dies. The ultimate result is the reduction of songbird numbers, which has had severe consequences for two endangered birds—the golden-cheeked warbler and the black-capped vireo—and to Central Texas landowners who have these birds on their property.

"This brownheaded cowbird affects not just these two species, it affects 250 other songbird species," Bauer, a cow/calf and sheep producer, and owner of Double L Ranch and Wildlife Feed in Ingram, said. "So we can keep a lot of birds from going on the list through this program. And that's one of the goals we're looking at."

According to Bauer, the trapping program is a viable alternative to proposals like the Safe Harbor Program, pushed by some environmental groups, which calls for designation of habitat, limited agricultural practices and removal of livestock in exchange for exemptions for certain regulations.

The program—which involves trapping brown-headed cowbirds to relieve pressure on songbird populations—started around 1990, when landowners around Fort Hood in Central Texas begin to receive notice on how and when they could graze their cattle and restrictions on brush management practices they could put in place.

"They began to look at reasons why," Bauer explained. "It was the recovery plan written for the black-capped vireo.

"The Central Texas Cattle Raisers Association and a gentlemen by the name of Steve Manning laid out on the table to Wildlife and Fisheries a plan that at that time was real hard for them to embrace. It was going to involve private landowners doing the trapping, working to get endangered species off the list."

The program worked so well that county Farm Bureaus surrounding Fort Hood put up money to build traps, matched by money from the Texas Farm Bureau.

"We built those traps and had them placed," Bauer recalled. "Texas Parks and Wildlife then stepped up with their Landowner Incentive Program and has funded many more."

Since that time the program has grown immensely.

Today there are 337 people trained in the state of Texas. There are 34 Central Texas counties participating in the program with 440 working traps.

During the last trapping season—which ran from March 1 through May 31—some 25,000 brownheaded cowbirds were trapped, with only half of the 440 traps reporting. About half the birds trapped are female.

Number-crunchers have shown that for every female cowbird captured, 3.5 songbirds benefit as the result of reduced parasitism rates on nests.

"You can do the math real quick as to the benefit we're having on the songbirds," Bauer said.

A unique aspect of this landowner-driven program is the groups that have endorsed the trapping effort. Environmental groups such as the Nature Conservancy, Environmental Defense Fund and The Wildlife Society have pitched in to help.

"If we don't address these problems, there are groups out there that will address them," Bauer said. "Now they don't necessarily have the same goals in life. Production agriculture sometimes is not one of their goals."

Other diverse groups have joined in to make the program work, including county Farm Bureaus, local high school vocational agriculture departments, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and other state agencies.

Bauer said the ultimate goal—delisting the black-capped vireo and golden-cheeked warbler, and to avoid more songbird listings—is in sight.

The county Farm Bureau president is a member of a team that will rewrite a recovery plan that will draw up a "full-circle" program, which will include habitat management.

"We can show that we can grow the population but we have to also show that we can maintain a viable habitat for them to grow in," Bauer explained. "Prior to this, ash juniper, which is the primary brush species there, was controlled by bulldozing and so-on, which was very destructive to the habitat.

"Now this habitat is being prioritized with wildlife considerations, endangered species considerations, water considerations (both quality and quantity), the ranching considerations as far as the improvement of grazing, and also the aesthetics and land values. All of these things play a role in what we now look at for habitat management."

Bauer said the recovery team is now seeking funding for the recovery plan, eyeing funds distributed by the Department of Interior.

"We're carrying landowner conservation incentive programs into the 21st Century," Bauer said.