|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||
|
|
||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||
|
|
|
|
||||||||
|
|
|
|
||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||
|
|
|
|
||||||||
|
|
||||||||||
|
04 Jan 2000 Cerulean Blues
The FWS reported a Cerulean Warbler population decline of 3.6% per year between 1966 and 1998, with a slight improvement in this trend (although it remains negative) since 1980. In October, environmental groups petitioned the FWS requesting that the warbler be listed as threatened. The entire FWS report on the Cerulean Warbler may be downloaded from the web. As has been previously noted on this page, Fermata is working with communities in the southeastern corner of Ohio known as the Edge of Appalachia. Both Adams and Scioto counties are included in this distinctive region, an area where the Appalachian foothills during the last glaciation resisted being scoured flat like much of the rest of the state. Straddling the Adams/Scioto county line is Shawnee State Park which, when combined with Shawnee State Forest, totals over 60,000 contiguous acres of hardwood forest. The western edge of Shawnee skirts The Ohio Nature Conservancy’s (Conservancy) Edge of Appalachia Preserve, one of the Conservancy’s Last Great Places. Last spring (10-13 May 2000) the Conservancy asked Fermata to participate in a nature tourism workshop held at Shawnee State Park. This gathering afforded us our first opportunity to meet representatives from Adams County (OH) and Les Cheneaux (MI), two locations where we are now deeply involved in developing nature tourism strategies. More germane to the subject at hand, we celebrated the abundance of Cerulean Warblers that surrounded (and serenaded) us there. The Cerulean Warbler continues to prosper within the Edge of Appalachia, although its future is, as elsewhere, in question. In a sense the warbler serves as a metaphor for the systematic (and continuing) loss and transformation of mature hardwood forests in the Appalachian range. As we work with the Edge of Appalachia region to develop a holistic (and conservation-oriented) nature tourism strategy, our intention will be use focus upon the Cerulean Warbler and its plight. In a survey (subscribers can access this in the subscribers area in PDF format) of wildlife viewers along the Platte River in Nebraska, Fermata learned that while viewers expressed a strong willingness to pay for the conservation of a single charismatic species (in that case, the Sandhill Crane), they were less willing to pay for the preservation of the habitat that the crane depended on for its survival. This dichotomy between single species and more holistic conservation efforts is likely due to a lack of understanding of the more complex issues related to ecosystem preservation than to indifference, apathy or antipathy. The general public better relates to a single, charismatic organism than to a nebulous concept or philosophy. The Edge of Appalachia does indeed have an edge in this regard in the Cerulean Warbler. So to meet a Cerulean Warbler (or a dozen, for that matter), we recommend spending a spring weekend at Shawnee State Park and the Edge of Appalachia. Wood warblers abound, as well as a healthy variety of other neotropical migrants such as vireos, flycatchers, thrushes, tanagers and buntings. Take a hike through the Edge of Appalachia and experience precisely why the conservation of these mature woodland habitats (and inhabitants such as the Cerulean Warbler) is so critical to our own souls, our own sense of wholeness. To lose the Cerulean Warbler from the eastern forests would impoverish all of us, even those who have never seen the bird nor would recognize this azure wisp as being cerulean.
Trip du Jour, Jan 4, 2001
|
|||||||||||||||||||
