Do Birds Matter?

by Mike Stiles

This question, posed in a recent edition of Audubon magazine inspired this month's column. A quick internet search with that question returned many other articles and blogs that show that birds do matter to many, many people. It's a shame we even have to ask the question, but allow me to answer too.

Since we humans often reduce ideas to their economic value, I'll briefly ponder how much money is spent just in Morro Bay alone by birders traveling to this bird-rich area, or how much money is saved by farmers and gardeners because of the unthinkable tons of detrimental insects eaten every day in this country, or how many plants are pollinated by birds or the amount of seeds dispersed by birds.

I hear people grouse about the money we spend trying to save birds. The California Condor, reduced to 22 birds in the 1980's was taken from the wild to a captive breeding program and then released back into their former territory. It is estimated that forty million dollars have been spent to bring the population back up to nearly 400 individuals.

I realize that $40,000,000 looks like a large number to some. Personally, I wonder how much money is wasted by the federal government every second of our lives for things I don't happen to agree with.

I asked Dave Clendenen, formerlly the lead biologist in the California Condor recovery project, how he felt about the amount of money we've spent on that one species.

Dave spent a large chunk of his young adult life living out of a backpack in the wilds of southern California studying the bird. He risked his own life rappelling down sandstone cliffs to inspect condor nests. He took some of the last remaining condors out of the wild, and was instrumental in the release of the captive born birds.

To Dave, the condor is a symbol of our natural world. Once widespread over the continent for millions of years, the bird was pushed to a tiny fragment of its former range. Destruction of habitat, hunting, egg collecting, and even the collecting of birds by Native Americans for ceremonial purposes, led to the near extinction of the condor.

Dave thinks that simply the raised awareness the condor recovery provided across the nation was well worth the money spent. 

But, you may want to argue, it's only one species. And you won't be alone.  Even Manuel Lujan, former Secretary of the Interior, once asked: "Do we have to save every subspecies?" I would retort yes, we have to save every species, because if we don't save this one, we won't save the next one, or the next one . . . or the next marsh . . . or prairie . . . or continent. Will we use the "it's just one species" excuse until the place is uninhabitable? Let us hope not.

I've written for years in this column of the incredible beauty, the near miraculous feats of strength and intelligence, the unimaginable stories of migration, the complex song and family life, and the sheer joy of our avifauna. I don't care a whit about the economy of birds.

Do birds matter? Of course they do. Just because.

Burrowing Owl on Banner by Cleve Nash

All content copyright Slo Coast Journal and Mike Stiles. Do not use without express written permission.