Gratitude for This Bird

There are no holidays celebrating the Marbled Murrelet, unless you count my recent attempt to start “Nest Discovery Day” to honor the date of August 7, 1974, when the nest of this unique seabird was first discovered and documented by scientists. My celebration was just really a “whoohoo!” on social media and silly video involving a friend in a chicken suit, but that’s because I didn’t think to consult anyone at Hallmark, Inc.

The traditional Thanksgiving holiday is mostly about turkey, but the much much smaller and seriously endangered Marbled Murrelet has been the focus of my attention these days and I’m grateful for that. This little wisp of a bird is in the middle of a fight for its life and for the future of the forests where it nests in the Pacific Northwest. The forests murrelets need are described with various terms: old-growth, older, late seral, late successional, mature. The murrelet needs these trees not because of the age or size of the tree itself, but because of the size of the upper branches of these trees. A murrelet doesn’t build a nest but lays its one egg directly on the branch (usually moss covered, but sometimes bare) and so it needs a wide branch where its chicken-sized egg can be safely nestled. And it needs these branches to be at least 50 feet off the ground to keep the nest safe from ground-based predators. Such branches are found in big old trees—coastal redwood, Douglas fir, western hemlock, western red-cedar, Sitka spruce, and other varieties (including the rare occurrence in a big-leaf maple and red alder).

These trees are vanishing and so are the murrelets. Since 2001, we have lost 44% of the murrelet population in Washington state alone. The population continues to decline at the rate of about 4% every year. That might not sound like much, but if you lose 4 of every 100 murrelets every year, it doesn’t take long to get to zero. Zero is not acceptable. This is why, nearly 20 years since I first met the Marbled Murrelet in a photo on the Internet (teehee), 12 years since my book, Rare Bird: Pursuing the Mystery of the Marbled Murrelet was published, and 5 years since it was reissued in paperback…I am still talking about this bird.

I am not talking about Marbled Murrelets to sell copies of Rare Bird. I am talking about this bird because I cannot bear the thought of “losing my marbled”—of having this bird vanish from our oceans and coastal forests. By talking about the Marbled Murrelet I mean I am speaking out for it—to forest management agencies, conservation organizations, library patrons, bookshop audiences, nature-writing workshop attendees, interested friends, and tolerant family members who know I have a difficult time stopping once I start talking about this crazy little bird.

I am grateful to everyone who listens and to everyone who talks about this bird themselves. The most difficult conversations being had right now are the ones between the many people who manage the forests where the murrelet nests, the people who must generate revenue by logging these forests, and those intent on protecting these forest for murrelets. Not that opinions break cleanly along these lines. The subject of how to manage murrelets makes for complex, messy, fraught, long, interrupted, and frustrating conversations. I have been part of many of these conversations. Everyone feels trapped between a rock and hard place, facing a binary choice between saving the murrelets from extinction (possibly in our lifetime) or merely slowing down the decline to a rate we define as tolerable—the rate that will keep our children or grandchildren from cursing us.

I am grateful for the Marbled Murrelet itself for luring me to the west coast, into the deep forests where it nests and into these conversations about others about biodiversity, old-growth ecosystems, the Endangered Species Act, why birds matter, and the subtle and serious impacts of climate change on murrelets and our forest. The murrelet has given me the opportunity to think long and hard about my role as a steward and advocate, about how to walk the talk, how to resist “slacktivism” and eco-burnout, and how to let my heart go “zing” whenever I see this rare bird in the wild or in a photograph.

Who ever you are and how ever long your “life list,” let a bird into your heart. Let it live there a while. Soon it will let you know what it needs from you to survive. And what it needs is likely to be exactly what we need to survive. Listen. And give thanks.

What Murrelets Need

What tree surgeon Hoyt Foster discovered in 1974--a Marbled Murrelet chick hunkered down on a branch 148 up a Douglas-fir--provided critical clues to the nesting habitat of this federally threatened little seabird. 

Marbled Murrelets need a wide branch, preferably covered in moss, at least 50 feet up a tree that is >150 years old and no more than 55 miles from salt water. This kind of habitat was once amply available along the Pacific Northwest coast. Now, that habitat has been reduced to patches and fragments and the murrelet population has been steadily crashing.

In Washington state, the population has dropped 44% between 2001 and 2015 and continues to decline at the rate of 4% a year. This means, based on the 2016 population in our state, that we will losing 284 murrelets a year. The primary cause is the historic and ongoing logging of our old-growth and mature coastal forests.

On September 7, 2018, the Department of Natural Resources released a long-term conservation strategy that will help determine the fate the of the Marbled Murrelet on the 576,000 acres of land it manages for these birds and other wildlife. Much this acreage is habitat, but not all of it. An estimated 154,000 acres consist of murecelt nesting habitat. As you might imagine, the management of this habitat is hotly contested. The mature and old-growth forests provide both valuable revenue to our state when horizontal; they provide critical habitat to murrelets for nesting when left vertical. 

What Marbled Murrelets do not need is Jaime Herrera Beutler, the U.S. Congressperson representing Washington's 3rd district in southwest Washington. Though she believes she is doing the right thing to protect family-wage jobs in her district, her efforts in the murrelet arena are misguided (which is to say guided by the timber industry and misinformation) and will surely backfire if she continues to refuse to understand the basic habitat needs of the murrelet. Her constituents have more to lose than gain by supporting her position on managing our state forest lands.

Rep. Herrera Beutler introduced an amendment to the House Appropriations Bill for Interior & Environment that would essentially result in the logging of everything but the bare essentials for nesting murrelets. Here is the text of her short-sighted bill.

This stingy bill should not be supported. It proposes to protect only the highest-quality forest stands. It will create silos of habitat for the murrelet and other species that benefit from contiguous blocks of forest. It will not contribute to the recovery of this imperiled species. It will not meet the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Services criteria required of the Department of Natural Resources to continue legally harvesting their state trust lands.  

Jaime Herrera Beutler's amendment offers a bulldozer at a time when we need are well-honed axes, sharpened pencils, and sharp minds.

In its recently revised Draft Environmental Impact Statement, the Department of Natural Resources has offered several options for protecting forest lands that will eventually grow into murrelet nesting habitat. While it may irk some to set aside younger forests for future murrelet habitat, this is what is needed to give this bird a fighting chance. 

Murrelet chick ready to fledge. (Photo courtesy Hamer Environmental).

Help for the Murrelet

After several years of work, the Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released in December the draft Environmental Impact Statement (dEIS)  for six alternative Long-Term Conservation Strategies for the endangered Marbled Murrelet. The dEIS is now available for public review and input. Once the preferred strategy is selected, it will replace the interim strategy that has been in place since 1997. 

But wait.

After so much time and effort, it turns out that not one of the alternatives actually does anything to save the murrelets nesting in our forested state lands. In fact, under scientific analysis, each Alternative--even the most conservative Alternative F--is associated with a downward population trajectory over the next fifty years.

Fortunately, a coalition of conservation organizations has developed a Conservation Alternative and now the coalition needs your support to encourage the DNR and USFWS to consider this alternative. 

You don't need to be a policy expert to support the Conservation Alternative. If you support the work of your local Audubon chapter, Washington Audubon, the Seattle Audubon Society, the Washington Environmental Council, Conservation Northwest, Defenders of Wildlife, the Olympic Forest Coalition, the Washington Forest Law Center, or the Sierra Club--the organizations that together developed a Conservation Alternative you can feel good about supporting this.

In a nutshell...

Conservation Alternative aims to achieve the following biological goals for the marbled murrelet population in Washington State (adapted from the 2008 Science Team Report and 1997 Recovery Plan:

1.  a stable or increasing population for at least a 10-year period 

2.  an increasing geographic distribution

3.  a population that is resilient to disturbances (stochastic events such as wind throw, wildfire, and insect outbreak)

The Conservation Alternative is based on Alternative F, but recommends the following additional protections:

 1. All current and future habitat within the next 50 years and/or

 2. All Emphasis Areas and Special Habitat Areas from Alt. E (collectively “Conservation Areas” when combined with Marbled Murrelet Management Areas)

3. No-touch 150 m buffers around all occupied sites and old forest in the Olympic Experimental State Forest planning unit as mapped by the 2008 Science Team.

Now what?

Please take a moment to send a letter or e-mail by Thursday March 9 at 5 p.m. (Only written comment is being accepted in this process).  Submit your comments online at sepacenter@dnr.wa.gov or SEPA Center, PO Box 47015, Olympia, WA 98504-7015. 

Please include the file number "12-042001" on letters and postcards and in the subject line of comments send by e-mail. 

If you are short on time...simply write this: 

Please request that Board of Natural Resources analyze a Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS before they selected a preferred alternative.  

If you have another few minutes and would like to add more, here are some suggestions: 

Predicted population decline: All six of the current strategies being considered by the DNR show a declining population trend for the next 50 years. None of the alternatives contribute to Marbled Murrelet survival and recovery. This is demonstrated by the DNR's own population modeling. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS.

Recent uplisting to “endangered.” In December 2016, the Marbled Murrelet’s status was uplisted from a “threatened” to the more serious “endangered” by the Washington Fish & Wildlife Commission. The dEIS Alternatives do not properly reflect this imperiled state, as evidenced by the ongoing population decline in the dEIS population viability analysis and by the 44% smaller population size (from 2001-2015) documented in the 2016 status review. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS.

Best-available science: Alternative F, which is based on the 2008 Science Team Report, comes closest to reaching Marbled Murrelet recovery goals, but unfortunately this alternative does not include important, more recent scientific findings. For example, a 2015 study identified the regional importance of the Strait of Juan de Fuca as a "hotspot," not previously recognized, of murrelet at-sea density adjacent to high/higher quality nesting habitat. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS.

“Bridge” habitat: DNR-managed lands contain approximately 15% (213,000 acres) of all existing Marbled Murrelet habitat in the state, and this habitat is needed to serve as a temporal "bridge" to support the bird's population over the next 30-50 years while it is most vulnerable to extirpation. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS.

Harvest volumes: Alternatives A-E set harvest volumes between 35,000 and 49,000 acres DNR's best option for protecting Marbled Murrelets, Alternative F, allows the harvest of 25,000 acres of mature forest habitat that is needed for the population to stabilize and recover. The DNR and USFWS should consider a stronger, more effective alternative with considerably lower harvest volumes to prevent the local extinction of the Marbled Murrelet. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS.

Precautionary approach: Without explicit population recovery criteria at the state or federal levels, the adopted LTCS Alternative could preclude murrelet recovery if it does not preserve enough existing and future habitat.  Under these conditions, a precautionary approach—as outlined in the Conservation Alternative—is appropriate. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS.

Mitigation for loss of high-quality habitat: The restoration of low quality habitat over time does not adequately mitigate for the loss of higher-quality habitat that currently exists.  Washington’s murrelet population cannot afford further habitat losses in its imperiled status, or it may become functionally extirpated before future, low quality habitat is restored gradually over time. If murrelets become functionally extirpated from Washington, the lack of genetic flow and genetic variability will become a more significant threat to the persistence of the species at the range-wide scale. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS.

Edge-effects: Not all of the dEIS Alternatives adequately ameliorate the edge effects associated with habitat fragmentation.  For example, Alternatives A and B completely lack contiguous, blocked-up Conservation Areas.  Alternative F stipulates that Marbled Murrelet Management Areas only have a 50% habitat target in the Olympic Experimental State Forest; this insufficient for achieving one of the goals of the Conservation Areas—to minimize edge effects. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS.

Buffers. Buffers on occupied sites of 100 meters or less (Alt. A-F) are too narrow to protect murrelet nests from predators, a suboptimal microclimate, and/or wind throw. Buffers of 150 meters should be part of the preferred alternative. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative, which provides for these buffers, in a Supplemental EIS.

Make the talking points your own. Add information about your experience or or expertise on the marbled murrelet. Thank you for your help. If you are not filled with warm and fuzzy feelings about this bird, please click the chick for more photographs of this unique, endearing, and imperiled seabird. And a photo a literal bottle of marbled merlot. 

Three Keers for Science!

Thank you all Marbled Murreleteers who have been supporting a Science-based conservation strategy for this imperiled species in Washington state. It's been a long haul (at least two years of monthly meetings with the Board of Natural Resources), but today the board approved an expanded range of alternatives including one based on the 2008 Science Team report (officially known as Recommendations and Suporting Analysis of Conservation Opportunities for the Marbled Murrelet Long-Term Conservation Strategy, (Raphael, M.G., S.K. Nelson, P. Swedeen et al). 

Additionally, the board approved adding and amending other alternatives to create a total of six alternatives, one including expanded buffers (from 100 meters to 150 meters) around occupied nest sites. It is unlikely this expanded buffer will be approved, but it is important that buffers with meaningful and documented conservation value be analyzed for comparison to less buffer-generous alternatives.

This is a big victory! Thanks to all the individuals, staff of the Washington Forest Law Center, the Murrelet Survival Project and partners, and many Audubon chapters who have been providing public comment in person or in writing lo these many months. Every voice matters--truly. And we seem to have a board that listens.

Kyle Blum of Department of Natural Resources has done a remarkable job getting all the stakeholders to this point. It's amazing how complex, time-consuming, and fraught the conservation of such a little bird can become. The members of the BNR (with one notable and unnamed exception) should be praised for their engagement in the material presented and for their insightful questions all along the way. This is how we get to a win-win. Maybe even a win-win-win if we are lucky.

Up Next: More analysis by the DNR and USFWS. This is just the end of one phase and the beginning of the intense scrutinizing the environmental impacts of each alternative strategy. We are probably looking at summer/fall for a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) and opportunities for Murreleteers and others to provide comment. Adding and modifying alternatives will extend the time line to reach an approved Long-Term Conservation Strategy--but what's a few months given the interim strategy has been in place since 1997!