Long absent bird species seen in Whittier Narrows

A recent story in the Whittier Daily News highlighted the apparent return of some sensitive bird species to the Whittier Narrows.

A recent sighting of a yellow-billed cuckoo "has set off biologists and birders around the area and has brought new attention to the Whittier Narrows, and specifically a 4-mile stretch of the Rio Hondo," writes journalist Ben Baeder.

The bird, a relative of the woodpecker, had not been spotted in the San Gabriel Valley since 1952, Baeder writes.

Birders have also spotted larger numbers of other sensitive species in recent years, including the endangered least Bell's vireo (pictured), the yellow-breasted chat and the yellow warbler.

The yellow-billed cuckoo, says the Center for Biological Diversity, "has declined precipitously throughout its range in southern Canada, the United States, and northern Mexico.

"The cause of the cuckoo's demise is the same threat facing most endangered species--habitat loss."

While the Bell's vireo species is declining across its range due to habitat degradation and cowbird parasitism, says the Audubon Society, the least Bell's vireo subspecies "is recovering with aggressive habitat protection and restoration."

The evidence of an apparent turnaround in the Whittier Narrows points to the importance of habitat preservation and restoration--and serves to highlight the threat posed to habitat and wildlife by the proposed San Gabriel River Discovery Center.

Biologist Dan Cooper, who spotted the cuckoo, spoke of the ecological importance of Whittier Narrows, much of which is a county Significant Ecological Area and which forms part of Audubon's Los Angeles Flood Control Basins Important Bird Area.

"Its very much a refuge," Cooper told the newspaper. "It's probably the best chance we have of seeing the cuckoos, turtles and other species that used to be pretty common."

Audubon Society's Owens Lake and Los Angeles Flood Control Basins Important Bird Areas

A recent LA Times article reported on a reborn Owens Lake and its almost overnight impact on birds.

The 100-square-mile lake near Sequoia National Park was turned into a salt flat after LA DWP diverted its waters into the Los Angeles Aqueduct. But since 2001, the utility “has flooded portions of the lake bed to control choking dust pollution.”

The result, Louis Sahagun writes, is “one of environmentalism's unintended successes: tens of thousands of migrating waterfowl and shorebirds roosting on a dust-control project.”

“In fall and spring, [the lake] now attracts about 50,000 birds, including roughly 500 snowy plovers, a shorebird listed as a species of special concern. Breeding on sandbars and in thatches of grass are colonies of yellow-headed blackbirds.”

Owens Lake has turned around so dramatically that Audubon California this year “designated Owens Lake one of the 17 most important bird areas in the state and a globally important wetlands in the making.”

In an earlier LATimes.com Greenspace blog post, Sahagun quotes IBA program director Andrea Jones on the goals of the program:

“Our main goal is to get them into the hands of federal and state wildlife agencies, state parks, land trusts and county planners. We created them to make both the public and agencies officially aware of where the largest numbers of birds are located. This information can help prioritize areas for conservation efforts, and raise awareness when it comes to proposed development projects and other activities."

The sad irony is that much closer to home, an important bird area is already in the hands of public agencies—and they’re putting development well ahead of conservation.

Whittier Narrows Natural Area and Recreation Area form part of the Audubon Society’s Los Angeles Flood Control Basins Important Bird Area. But it’s the Natural Area wildlife sanctuary that agencies and water districts have selected as the location for the San Gabriel River Discovery Center, threatening to tear up wildlife habitat and replace it with a massively increased human footprint.

That so poorly developed and environmentally thoughtless a proposal is even on the table doesn’t come as a surprise when one realizes that, as Sahagun points out, “very little of the sprawling Los Angeles Flood Control Basins area, which remains extremely vulnerable to development for soccer fields and golf courses, is even nominally managed for biodiversity.”

But perhaps we shouldn't lose hope. Perhaps the important bird area program serves best as starting point, a place where concerned citizens can begin conversations with agencies and officials and action toward conserving these important habitats and their wildlife.