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On November 28 2007, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) added a new bird to the growing list of species at risk in Canada, the Olive-sided Flycatcher.
The Olive-sided Flycatcher is the largest member of the Wood Pewee genus. Its ringing and distinctively Canadian “Quick-three-beers” song that drifts across expansive bogs, riparian zones and burns, has endeared it to birders across Canada. Unique in many ways, this species captures all of its meals in flight, specializing in bees, wasps, large flies, beetles and dragonflies.
Breeding only in North America, the Olive-sided Flycatcher breeds in every Canadian province and territory, in the boreal forest and in treed portions of the Hudson Bay lowlands, south along the Canadian shield, and into the United States in higher elevations, south to California. Its remarkably long migration, longest of any flycatcher in the Americas, takes it to South America where it winters primarily in the Andes from Panama to Bolivia.
According to the most recent Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) data analysis for all of Canada, this species has declined an average of 4% per year between 1966 and 2006, meaning that the population is about 18 percent of what it was 40 year ago! In Ontario, the decline has been an astounding 9.5 % per year, meaning that if there were 1,000 birds in 1966, only 18 are left now! In all regions, BBS data indicate an increase in the rate of decline since 1980.
The precipitous declines have prompted many US agencies to provide special status for the species. For example, the US Fish and Wildlife Service lists it as a Species of Concern nationally. It is also listed as a species of management concern in 6 of 7 USFWS regions. Partners in Flight consider Olive-sided Flycatcher a priority species for conservation on their National Watch list (Carter et. al., 1996).
When a wildlife species is identified as threatened, it is a warning that the species is likely to become endangered if nothing is done to reverse the factors leading to its decline. That’s why it is important that the federal government listen to its scientists and move quickly to add the olive-sided flycatcher to the legal Species at Risk List, where the bird can receive the protections available under the Species at Risk Act.
As is often the case, revealing the causes of a species’ dizzying decline is difficult. Many characteristics unique to this species render it highly vulnerable to catastrophe, including its small brood size, long migration, and short breeding season. While breeding ground threats may include logging practices, weather, and factors related to climate change that impact on prey populations and habitat conditions, they do not adequately account for why this species is declining across all of its range.
Problems may also lie in its wintering grounds in South America where widespread deforestation of Andean slopes likely is removing habitat for this species and others. These unanswered questions make it all the more important to maintain the Canadian Wildlife Service’s capacity to monitor this species.
This species plight underlines the importance of international work to build conservation relationships between countries in the north and south. Here is a real example of one species whose future depends on this type of co-operative conservation work. Nature Canada has been a leader in international bird conservation work linking Canada to partners in Latin America as BirdLife International’s Canadian partner for Canada, along with Bird Studies Canada.
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