This is a video of a Caspian tern in Huizen in the Netherlands.
From Oregon State University in the USA:
Project succeeding to relocate Caspian ternsPacific humpback salmon recorded in River Tweed in Scotland: here.CORVALLIS, Ore. – A major initiative to create alternative nesting sites for the largest colony of Caspian terns in the world – and to help protect juvenile salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River – is finding early success.
A recent survey of a new nesting site at Crump Lake in southern Oregon, which was just constructed in February by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, found more than 135 nesting pairs of Caspian terns, as well as more than a thousand pairs of gulls and two nesting pairs of double-crested cormorants.
Redistributing the terns is critical because research by Oregon State University scientists found that terns and cormorants annually consume more than 10 million juvenile salmon and steelhead migrating through the Columbia River estuary en route to the Pacific Ocean. OSU researchers helped lure the Caspian terns to Crump Lake, which is northeast of Lakeview, with decoys and recorded sounds of nesting terns that they had recorded in the Columbia estuary.
“It is amazing that more than 520 Caspian terns have found the new island, which was only constructed five months ago – and that some have decided to nest there,” said Dan Roby, an OSU professor of fisheries and wildlife and principal investigator in the study. “There is a history of nesting at Crump Lake and clearly the birds have some kind of ‘populational’ memory of the place. That is a real key to the success.”
The joint effort between the Corps, OSU, Real Time Research, Inc., and the U.S. Geological Survey’s Oregon Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit is being funded by a $2.1 million grant to OSU from the Corps and Bonneville Power Administration.
The Corps’ avian predation program aims to reduce the number of young salmon consumed by terns in the estuary and “substantially improve the survival of fish listed as threatened or endangered” under the Endangered Species Act, said Geoff Dorsey, a wildlife biologist with the Corps’ Portland District.
The initiative seeks to redistribute a portion of what researchers say is the largest Caspian tern colony in the world. Last year, OSU researchers counted 9,900 pairs of nesting terns on East Sand Island near the mouth of the Columbia River – which accounts for an estimated 70 percent of all Caspian terns nesting in the Pacific Coast region from Alaska to Baja California.
Plastics help protect Shetland birds 16/06/2008
By Katie Coyne
Recycled boardwalk to protect delicate Scottish habitat for rare birds.
16 June 2008 - Recycled plastics are being used to help protect a threatened habitat and home to rare breeding birds at a nature reserve in Scotland.
Hermaness National Nature Reserve on Unst, Shetland - the most northerly part of the British Isles – is home to thousands of birds.
These include bonxies (sometimes known as great skuas), red throated divers, snipe, dunlin, golden plover and arctic skua.
But as visitor numbers grow the paths across the blanket bog, which is a threatened habitat and has a delicate surface, are being eroded and widened.
Scottish Natural Heritage appointed Upland Contracts – who have been working with Fusion Marine - to build a walkway across the reserve to protect the habitat.
Boyd Henderson off Upland Contracts said: “This contract has been an excellent example of how a supplier’s ongoing input into a project can greatly increase the efficiency of site work and the end product.
“To that end Fusion Marine and Upland Contracts shall continue to work closely together on this project through to completion.”
An example of a Fusion Marine recycled plastic walkway
Making the boardwalk out of recycled plastic has been described as a “highly sustainable solution” for the project for several reasons.
The walkway can be put together off-site, which minimises disturbance and damage to the habitat and the ph of the bog also won’t be affected by the recycled plastic.
Fixings used are stainless steel and the project will use around 5,000 decking boards and 1,500 rails for the walkways (that will look similar to that shown here).
http://www.prw.com/homePBP_NADetail_UP.aspx?ID_Site=818&ID_Article=24841&mode=1
Comment by Administrator — June 16, 2008 @ 10:30 pm