Jonata seventh graders learned about raptors
Earlier this month, a class at Jonata Middle School, taught by
Rick Mexico, played host to Tim Mathews, a Pacific Gas & Electric Company
lineman working in the company’s avian protection program.
One of California’s main power suppliers, PG&E operates huge
electrical structures that birds of prey sometimes fly into with fatal results,
but the company is working to prevent the carnage.
PG&E sponsors an avian protection program to help keep wild
birds from tangling with power lines, and also to assist in keeping the birds’
habitat safe for them.
Mexico said his seventh grade Life Science class was fascinated by
Mathews and his presentation.
Mathews brought to the classroom a game bird taxidermy collection
so the children could learn to identify them.
“He went on to tell about the program and why it was important,
not only to himself but to all living things, especially the youth of this
state,” Mexico said.
Mathews taught the children games, including one where they used
field guides to identify the stuffed birds.
According to the teacher, the class session was so impressive that
the school will ask PG&E to permit Mathews to return next school year.
“You can never teach enough about wildlife conservation in this
day and age,” Mexico said.
The teacher was especially pleased with PG&E’s involvement
with the UC Santa Cruz Predatory Research Group and Audubon California, because
these two groups are “champions of the avian conservation movement in the
state,” he said.
Last week, before leaving on a two-month field trip to Eastern
Nevada, Mexico stopped by the Journal offices to discuss his work with the
raptors.
While in Nevada, “We’ll be studying grouse and bats, and will do
bird counts. We’ll be locating raptor nests, eagles, falcons, hawks,” he said.
PG&E is working with Lee Aulman at UC Santa Cruz and also with
Richard Sanford of Almarosa Winery, who are teaming up to create programs
protecting raptors.
Because raptors are endangered, any losses to wind farms and power
plants are considered grievous, Mexico said. “Wind farms studies show we lose
about a hundred raptors a year, large raptors,” to encounters with power
equipment and other man-made hazards.
“We’re still studying it. What attracts them? Color? The mortality
rate is really high for raptors, for all birds, really.
“It’s a tough world out there,” Mexico said.
Steps that PG&E is taking to not attract the birds include
retrofitting its power poles with bird-safe equipment, and installing in-flight
diverters in hard-to-reach coastal locations like the Central Coast, which is
home to the threatened California condor habitat.
Raptors such as kestrels, owls, hawks, eagles and falcons are
ferocious hunters, but they are also hunted, Mexico said.
“To make it through first year,” is tough; “they are attacked by a
lot including other raptors, and crows and ravens. They defend their territory
fiercely.”
But they are better off than they were, thanks to cleaning up DDT
in this country, and to predator programs like the UC Santa Cruz-PG&E
nexus.
Peregrine falcons offer one example, Mexico said.
“In 1975, there was only one pair in California,” he said.
“Now there are more than 200 pairs.” And if they continue to
thrive, that number will increase.
While raptor-saving programs and the elimination of DDT in the
United States have contributed to the recovery of the raptor species, there are
still threats, Mexico pointed out.
“DDT is still used, in South America and Mexico. Song birds down
there eat bugs that have DDT in them, and fly up here. Raptors eat the
songbirds, and their eggshells become thin,” because of the DDT. “The raptors
sit on the eggs and they break.”
Recovery is a slow, long-term process, but the programs in place
now are gradually making headway, Mexico said.
And what of his seventh graders and their exposure to the
problems?
“The seventh
graders are getting it,” he said. “We’ll have a new class of seventh graders in
September, and we’ll invite PG&E to send a speaker again.”