Notes From The End of the Line
Well, time for your Friday feature, Table of Major Bummers (c'mon, we gave you the Happy Hummingbird table mid-week, it ain't all free candy and costumes y'know.) As a special Bonus If you click on the tiny sub-title you'll get to watch a music video with George Harrison in it.
Today we present the Top 20 retracting species. These are the species which, if you could sit down and have a nice cuppa with them, would tell you, in their best teenage angst-ridden voice, that all their compatriots are either gone from or leaving Massachusetts during the breeding season.
Sadly, unlike the angst-ridden teenager you faced this morning across the breakfast table (But Mom, nobody wears brown Uggs anymore!!!), the birds would be right.
Ready for the kicker? Only a few of the 20 critters following are on any sort of watch list or state list.
Ah righty, lets get started....
As you glance at the table note that:
- Only Golden-winged Warbler, Arctic Tern, Short-eared Owl, Vesper Sparrow, Henslow's Sparrow and Long-eared Owl have any special state protection.
- Golden-winged is likely extirpated as a breeder from Massachusetts.
- None of these species have any extra Federal Protection.
- Four species are hunted.
- One species is introduced.
- Nine use some type of grassland or scrub-shrub habitats.
- Three are dependent on undisturbed freshwater wetlands.
- 11 of these species are very rare - they occupy fewer than 1% (7) of the blocks we surveyed.
- 3 of these species are still fairly broadly distributed, and occupied 10+% (70+) of the blocks we surveyed
