Most recent Issue
Prime Magazine Current Issue
subscribe button
Prime Magazine Back Issues
Shop the Prime Store
Be Featured In Prime
Facebook

Features


State is ‘open for birding’

Image 1 2 3



Published:

Story by John Krerowicz; Photographs by Brian Passino

Audubon and other conservation groups in Wisconsin are helping promote the state as “open for birding” through a new program that advocates for better bird habitat.

Bird City Wisconsin — operating with the Milwaukee Audubon Society in the lead, plus the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology, state Natural Resources Foundation, Wisconsin Audubon Council and larger Audubon chapters and some bird clubs — in December bestowed the Bird City designation on 15 Wisconsin communities.

They are: Ozaukee County, Mequon, Brookfield, Bayside, Chenequa, Hales Corners, Muskego, Stevens Point, Green Bay, Oshkosh, New London, Lake Geneva, Williams Bay, River Falls and Manitowish Waters. In early April the Bird City Wisconsin project announced it was recognizing five additional communities: cities of Racine and Evansville, the village of McFarland, the town of Presque Isle and Brown County.

The designation is given when a location meets seven of 22 requirements, including creating, improving and protecting bird habitat; community forest management, limiting hazards to birds, teaching residents about their avian co-residents and environmental health, and recognizing International Migratory Bird Day, which is May 14 this year.

Communities pay a $50 appli-cation fee, then $50 renewal fees annually. They receive two Bird City street signs, a flag and a plaque.

The Bird City group promotes planting and caring for trees that are natural bird habitat, placing stickers on reflective windows to help prevent birds from smacking into them and keeping cats indoors because their instinct is to hunt for birds.

Bird City was based on the Tree City USA program in which communities receive recognition for advancing urban forestry.

Lake Geneva City Administrator Dennis Jordan said that resort area has been a Tree City member for years, so expanding onto the Bird City Wisconsin list was logical.

“We’re really oriented to those types of things,” such as environmental and conservation causes, said Jordan. “We’ve been raising awareness about our trees in the community, and we felt we might as well do it with birds.”

Carl Schwartz, Bird City Wisconsin coordinator, said the program idea was hatched in about 2002. But it wasn’t until 2009, with an $8,000 planning grant from TogetherGreen and the National Audubon Society and automaker Toyota, that it was established and he was hired.

There was a need to raise awareness in cities about birds, particularly declining species, he said.

“We didn’t want cities reduced to just having house sparrows, pigeons and starlings,” which are considered less desirable or downright not desirable, he said. “We want bird populations that people will enjoy watching, listening to their songs and seeing their beauty and impact on the environment.”

Racine Mayor John Dickert cited birds’ environmental benefits when discussing his support for the Bird City initiative in that city earlier this year when its city council opened the door to applying.

Dickert said one benefit for Racine, also a Tree City, is that birds and other wildlife bring with them a natural solution to pest problems. He recalled that, as a child, he watched bats zoom within feet of him to pick off pesky mosquitoes.

“Now I tell our kids to watch the sparrows eating insects,” he said. “If we engage Mother Nature more, put up bird houses and bat houses and do things that attract birds that naturally take care of these problems, then we don’t have to spray yards with insecticides as much.”

Some officials believed Bird City titles might attract tourists as much as black oil sunflower seeds lure cardinals.

“If you look through bird magazines, you’ll see birding is big business in places like Costa Rica, Florida and Texas,” said Harvey Larson, secretary of the Lakeland Audubon Society in Walworth County. “That’s where they make some of their money.”

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has estimated wildlife watchers spent $1.3 billion for that activity in 2001, the most recent year for which such figures were available.

Larson said birding and enjoying the outdoors offers plenty of benefits, especially for children who spend far too much time indoors with electronics.

“It gets us off our buns and outside doing something in nature,” he said. “Bird City programs help focus people’s thinking on why nature is good and that birds are fun to watch.”

The Bird City program is expected to branch out to other communities soon with a $31,700 TogetherGreen innovation grant awarded last year to the Milwaukee Audubon Society and nine other state conservation groups.

The organization is reviewing the next round of applications, which are accepted through July 1, Nov. 1 and March 1.

Helen Pugh, president of the Hoy Audubon Society, covering eastern Kenosha and Racine counties, said the group plans to bring the city of Kenosha into the Bird City nest this year now that its work in Racine is done. She estimated a third of Hoy members live in Kenosha. The group’s goal was to certify the two largest cities in its jurisdiction.

All this talking, spending, celebrating and organizing just might end up boosting Wisconsin’s bird population, said Schwartz.

“I think that in the long run, if communities continue to do the sorts of things we encourage, you will indeed see a stabilization of bird populations,” he said. “The long-term goal is to stabilize populations that are declining and see the ones just holding their own don’t decline as well.”