Daniel Mennill
Assistant Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
University of Windsor
401 Sunset Avenue
Windsor, Ontario, Canada
N9B3P4
 
E-mail: dmennillATuwindsorDOTca
Web: www.uwindsor.ca/dmennill
Office: 519-253-3000 ext 4726
Lab: 519-253-3000 ext 4725
Fax: 519-971-3609

Dan Mennill a biologist from the University
of Windsor is currently involved with the search for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in Florida.

He was our speaker at the
February meeting on 2/5/07.

Dan Mennill's  Home Page
Ivory-billed Woodpeckers Information Page
The Ivory-billed Woodpecker once lived throughout the bottomland forests of southeastern North America. Habitat destruction and hunting greatly reduced their numbers, and many people believed this maginificent species was extinct by the middle
of the 20th century. In May 2005, three researchers from Auburn University
encountered an Ivory-billed Woodpecker in the bottomland forests of the Florida panhandle. An international team of researchers from the University of Windsor and Auburn University began a detailed search for Ivory-bills along the Choctawhatchee River in December 2005. Dr. Dan Mennill coordinated an acoustic survey of the site, constructing seven remote Listening Stations capable of recording the sounds of the bottomland forests 24 hours per day. Recordings from Florida were analyzed in the Mennill Sound Analysis Laboratory at the University of Windsor. Through this website you can learn about the search, hear the recordings, view photos of the search team
and the woodpecker's bottomland forest habitat, and find out more about the
Ivory-billed Woodpecker.

 

Bald Eagle Delisting

U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials proposed to remove of the bald eagle from the Endangered Species Act, calling the resurgence of this national
symbol a conservation success.

Nesting pairs of bald eagles have risen nationwide to 7,066 -- up from a low of 417 in 1963, when high levels of the insecticide DDT were damaging their eggs.

The USFWS published a proposal on its website to remove the bald eagle from the protected list, along with a set of voluntary guidelines to protect it. The public is invited to comment on the delisting, management guidelines, and definition of “disturb” until May 17, after which the agency will make its final decision.

The proposal includes nesting management guidelines and a regulatory definition of “disturb” to help landowners and others understand how they can help protect bald eagles consistent with existing laws.

Representatives of national environmental groups -- Defenders of Wildlife, The National Wildlife Federation, and Environmental Defense -- support the proposal to delist the eagle, saying the population's rebound shows that the act is working.

Environmental groups caution that other existing laws will need to be closely reviewed to protect the eagle's habitat from logging and development, which has been a crucial benefit of the act.

Two of the laws, the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, prohibit killing, transporting, selling or otherwise harming eagles, nests, and eggs. The laws don't directly protect habitat, a safeguard in the Endangered Species Act.

“The eagles in California and the Southwest, in particular, have not recovered to the point where delisting is appropriate,” says a representative from The Center for Biological Diversity in San Francisco. Wildlife officials have found 160 nesting pairs in California, two in Nevada, four in Utah, and 43 in Arizona, as compared with 1,133 in Florida.

If the bald eagle is delisted, the largest concern is losing some of the best habitat to logging and other development. Athough their numbers are growing, eagles are in trouble nationwide as the birds continue to lose habitat and fresh water from human population increases.

Lawsuits are currently filed against the federal agency in San Francisco, seeking to protect the tricolored blackbird. Groups have also petitioned the federal government to add the yellow-billed cuckoo and the California spotted owl to the threatened list. All of these species are victims of habitat loss.

Scientists estimate that there were as many as 500,000 bald eagles in North America when Europeans arrived. They were first protected by Congress in 1940, and then classified as endangered in 1967 under a law that preceded the 1973 act. As their numbers plummeted, scientists linked DDT contamination of prey to the thinning and breaking of eggshells. The chemical was banned nationwide in 1972.

In 1995, bald eagles’ status was changed from endangered to threatened. In 1999, when breeding pairs reached 6,471, the Fish and Wildlife Service proposed removing the species from the list. The attempt was dropped after public concerns that its habitat would go unprotected.

For information on sending comments to the USFWS click here.