This message was sent from a participating class. As you will read, it is an effort to encourage people to contact their representatives in the U.S. Congress about plans to cut funding for some activities of the National Biological Survey.
1) What is the National Biological Survey (NBS)?
2) Do you value the programs the NBS provides?
3) Who wrote this notice?
Be sure to express your own opinion about this matter to your representatives. It's important for students to take part in these discussions too!
Elizabeth Donnelly
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SAVE AMERICA'S BIRD SCIENCE
AVIAN ACTION ALERT
Call Congress Today, May 24.
What?
The attached alert details the legislative struggles of the National
Biological Service (NBS) and invites you to participate in "Save Bird Science
Day."
Please contact Congress on May 24 and tell your elected representatives to support the NBS and its avian research and monitoring programs.
Who?
This alert will be sent to Audubon's regional offices, chapter newsletter
editors, state Breeding Bird Survey compilers, Christmas Bird Count
compilers, Birds in the Balance activists, and Audubon activists in targeted
states (AK, FL, MS, NM, OR, WA, UT and selected districts in AZ and PA). We
are inviting other ornithological and wildlife groups to participate in this
effort to generate calls for birds.
When?
Today, May 24, 1995
How?
Call Congress.
Thank You!!
Susan Murray, National Audubon Society
Congress Threatens to End Bird Monitoring and Research Programs The leadership of the U.S. Congress proposes to pay for the Contract for America by eliminating the National Biological Service (NBS) and most of our country's government avian research, inventorying, and monitoring. At risk are NBS programs such as the Breeding Bird Survey and the Bird Banding Laboratory.
In response to the impending threat to our country's bird science, and in honor of the professional and volunteer work of scientists and citizens like you, National Audubon Society is sponsoring a National Bird Science Day on May 24, 1995. Volunteer field ornithologists and bird enthusiasts from across the country will contact Congress and explain that the loss of the avian research and large-scale monitoring projects conducted by the NBS would cripple bird conservation in North America. Please call your House member and two Senators on May 24 to keep NBS fully funded and intact.
The NBS: What it Does
The National Biological Service was created in 1993 to collect information
about nation's biological resources, to monitor wildlife populations, and to
make the data available to government agencies, universities, industries, and
private landowners to assist them in making land and resource management
decisions. By unifying previously scattered government functions into one
agency, the NBS is among the most cost-effective federal agencies. Examples
of NBS activities range from assisting ranchers with potentially devastating
livestock diseases to studying the ability of Pacific salmon to return to the
Columbia and Snake rivers to developing alternatives for hydrologic
restoration of the Florida Everglades. While critics claim that the NBS will
increase federal environmental regulations on business, in fact the NBS was
established to conduct scientific research, independent of regulating
agencies.
High Stakes
The law requires that the federal government monitor all bird populations.
The following are NBS programs that monitor and protect birds:
Bird Banding Laboratory
Maintains a database of over 31 million bands recording information about
age, sex, location and date of banded birds. These data are used to establish
the distribution, annual survival rates and mortalities of birds, and to
determine where neotropical migrants nest and winter. The data are also used
to establish hunting seasons and bag limits.
Breeding Bird Survey
The only continent-wide bird population monitoring program, collecting data
on over 500 species. Over 4,000 skilled volunteer field ornithologists
participate in the annual survey.
Electronic Data Processing
Provides data storage, retrieval capabilities and analyzes population data
from the Bird Banding Lab, the Breeding Bird Survey and Audubon's Christmas
Bird Count.
Other NBS Bird Research
The NBS also conducts or funds a wide range of other critical bird research
and monitoring activities, such as conducting hawk migration counts, research
on neotropical migrants, and seabirds and shorebirds in Alaska.
On the Chopping Block
The House will decide the fate of the NBS by June 1st and the Senate will
determine the NBS funding level by August 1st. Members of Congress are
threatening to cut the agency altogether from the upcoming 1996 federal
budget, which begins October 1995.
Scientists Speak Out
In an open letter sent to Congress in March, 400 eminent biologists,
ecologists and scientists, including Roger Tory Peterson, E.O. Wilson and Tom
Eisner, warned that the loss of the National Biological Service would "be a
short-sighted mistake with long-term consequences."
What You Can Do
Call your House member and two Senators on May 24, 1995
Ask your elected officials to preserve current and future National Biological Service funding. The NBS is a lean agency with a 1995 budget of $166.9 million. The bird conservation programs within the NBS are severely underfunded (less than $5 million for nongame species) and should receive more funding, not less.
Tell your Member of Congress that cutting back on science now will cost more in the long run. Provide examples of NBS programs.
[Sam Droege, (FROG@NBS.GOV) mmarizes the activities of the National
Biological Service.]
1. NBS funds 7 (seven) major raptor monitoring sites.
Derby Hill, NY
Hawk Ridge, MN
Cape May, NJ
Goschutes, UT
Sandy Hook, NJ
Whitefish Point, MI
2. We are involved in the research and creation of a new network of migration monitoring sites, plus the development of a checklist monitoring program. The objective here is to estimate population trends for birds in northern Canada and Alaska plus create an additional set of population estimates that will corroborate trends from the BBS and CBC. Many of you are aware of this process already, but the official announcement will not come for a couple of more weeks, once we have we have the protocol documents prepared. For those of you interested, I can send you a white paper, that outlines the rationale on the topic. The programs title will be the North American Migration Monitoring Program.
3. We are committed to the analysis of Christmas Bird Count data. We have analyzed data from 1959-1988 and are in the process of entering everything from 1901 to 1994.
4. We house and make available the Breeding Bird Census data. We used to fund its publication, but have had to drop that because of tightening purse strings.
5. Data availability.
We make all our data available FOR FREE. We process something close
to a thousand requests a year. Data are available on floppy, 9-track, CD,
printout, DAT, WWW, FTP, soon by FAXBACK, and, of course by calling or
emailing us with questions.
6. The BBS and CBC represent the most comprehensive monitoring program for any group of species in the entire world. That's right, Europe, England, Australia, etc. have nothing in place that permits the calculation of continental level estimates of population trend (though England is developing one). These programs permit us to evaluate large scale questions about raptors, neotropical migrants, and declines in grassland birds. Without them, changes in bird numbers are left to speculation and consequently lack credibility in all but the most extreme cases, which, by then, becomes too late to take action. The whole Partner's in Flight program was the result of one of our analyses of population changes.
7. Non-bird things.
We are in the process of helping in the creation of North American
amphibian and butterfly monitoring programs.
8. Put Monitoring in its Proper Context.
Monitoring programs are the nation's biological smoke alarms.
Monitoring permits biologists, policy makers, and industry to consider
patterns of trends in individual species and communities prior to major
crashes. Rather than waiting for the house to burn down, leaving nothing but
a bunch of expensive repairs to endangered species, we can spot troubles
before they become critical. At that point programs like Partner's in Flight
can work together with government, private landowners, and industry to
preserve the future of plant and animal species.
Spread the word about Save Bird Science Day. Tell your friends, fellow chapter members, and scientists about May 24 and urge them to participate. Chapters with phone trees and other ways to get the word out should alert everyone to the threats to the NBS.
Congressional offices should hear nothing on that day other than, "Keep the National Biological Service intact and fully funded." You can make it happen by making a brief phone call.
To contact your Representative write U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. 20515 or call the Capitol switchboard at 202-225-3121 and to reach your Senators write U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510 or call 202-224-3121.
The following Members are key to protecting NBS appropriations.
If You Don't See Your Members Listed Below, Please Call The Appropriations Committee Chair, Bob Livingston, 202-225-2771.
Key House Targets
Bunn (R-OR-5th), 202-225-5711
Neathercutt (R-WA-5th), 202-225-2006
Dicks (D-WA-6th), 202-225-5916
McDade (R-PA-10th), 202-225-3731
Kolbe (R-AZ-5th), 202-225-2542
Key Senate Targets
Gorton (R-WA), 202-224-3441
Murray (D-WA), 202-224-2621
Stevens (R-AK), 202-224-3004
Bennett (R-UT), 202-224-5444
Mack (R-FL), 202-224-5274
Cochran (R-MS), 202-224-5054
Domenici (NM), 202-224-6621
Hatfield (OR), 202-224-3753
Thank You,
Susan Murray phone: 202-547-9009
National Audubon Society fax: 202-547-9022
666 Pennsylvania Avenue, S.E. e-mail: smurray@audubon.org
Washington, D.C. 20003
--
Elizabeth Donnelly
Internet: edonnelly@jriver.com or
jnorth@jriver.com
Journey North
125 North First Street
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55401
Phone: (612)339-6959