from Santa Cruz Sentinal September 28, 2011

1. Census of Coastal Bird Brings Good News - Santa Cruz News Page 1
Home News Hotels Restaurants Attractions Real Estate Nightlife Events Directory
Santa Cruz News » News Opinion Environment Business Community Obituaries In association with
Census of Coastal Bird Brings Good News Subscribe Follow Us Become a Fan
Survey says the rare black oystercatcher is faring better than previously thought
Read More: Environment, birds
By Mat Weir Wed, Sep 28, 2011 A A A 0 Comments Email Share 4 1
In June, the California Audubon
Society set out to do something
no other organization has. With
clipboards, binoculars and GPS
devices, volunteers hit the rocky
coastlines to survey the native
black oystercatcher. “Although
it’s a focal species for the Fish & www.huddle.com
Wildlife Service and you see its
picture everywhere, very little is Most Discussed
known about the bird,” says
Book Expo’s Sorry Turn
Anna Weinstein, Audubon
Smoking Ban Enacted in Santa Cruz
California’s Seabird
Conservation Coordinator and Reform Needed in the Court System Regarding
Child Custody
head of the survey.
Why I’m Voting ‘No’ on Prop 19
With its black plumage, vibrant Anti-Semitism At UCSC?
orange-red bill and fiery eyes, Controversial Santa Cruz Priest Charged By
the black oystercatcher is a Church
The black oystercatcher likes rocky intertidal zones. showy sight on the coast Raft of Rules for Group’s Santa Cruz
Apartments
Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons. between Southern California
Santa Cruz Poets, Santa Cruz Inspiration:
and Canada. Despite the
Maria Teutsch
misleading name, it only lives near oyster beds—it doesn’t feed on them. Instead, it snacks on a broad diet
Junkie Town: Santa Cruz’s Heroin Problem
of other marine invertebrates like limpets, making it a great indicator for the success of intertidal zones,
Bungled Shark Tagging Leads to Infighting
which have a great impact on the ecosystem as a whole.
Previously, there was only a global estimate of about 11,000 individual oystercatchers, with approximately Ads by Google
1,000 living in California. The census revealed good news. Download Google Chrome
A free browser that lets you do more of
“The survey results were quite surprising,” Weinstein says. Volunteers from Orange County to the Oregon what you like on the web
border covered an estimated 9 percent of California’s coastline (about 20 percent of the oystercatcher’s www.google.com/chrome
habitat) and spotted 1,346 individuals and 175 nests. “The nesting success was shocking,” says Crossover Pictures
Weinstein. “Perfect nests of a certain size and shape were discovered.” Off-Road ABS And an Optimized Rock
Crawling Engine. Check Out The Pics
This fledgling success is due to the oystercatcher’s habitat preference. Unlike marine birds that nest on www.Jeep.com/Patriot
beaches, where predators or humans can disturb them, the oystercatcher’s love of rocky cliffs and Youth Triathlon Team
intertidal geography allows for perfect camouflage. Because of this, the Audubon Society thinks the
Nor-Cal Juniors Multisport Triathlon
Training & Racing
species could be doing even better than the survey suggests.
www.norcaljuniors.org
However, this doesn’t mean that the black oystercatcher has flown from danger. Natural predators like
raccoons and possums brave the rocks to feast upon eggs, and while Weinstein doesn’t believe that
humans are the biggest threat to the bird, she does acknowledge that seaweed harvesters and abalone
divers can cause problems by disturbing nests and depleting food supplies. Oystercatchers are also
extremely vulnerable to climate change, with rising sea levels and ocean acidification having already
pushed them farther north than expected. “They’re tough and they know how to make it in the world,”
Weinstein concludes, “but their world is changing fast.”
A A A 0 Comments Email Share 4 1
Comments (0)
Post a comment
www.santacruz.org
There are no comments for this entry yet.
Post a comment
Name: *