What's New ?February 2002The Great Backyard Bird Count is underway! People all over the continent are counting the birds in their backyards and neighborhoods the weekend of February 15-18. Check out the top locations for Monk Parakeets (29 as of Feb. 17th, 8:35 PM EST). Here's some information about the GBBC from their official Web site.Why count backyard birds? Scientists and bird enthusiasts can learn a lot by knowing where the birds are. Now that winter has gripped much of the continent, what are our birds doing? Bird populations are dynamic, they are constantly in flux. We want to take a snapshot of North American bird populations and YOU can help us. Everyone's contribution is important. It doesn't matter whether you identify, count, and report the 5 species coming to your backyard feeder or the 75 species you see during a day's outing to a wildlife refuge. Your data can help us answer many questions:
The data that you collect will be combined with Christmas Bird Count and Project FeederWatch data to give us an immense picture of our winter birds. Each year that these data are collected makes them more important and meaningful. So as we see patterns, discover new questions and insights, we'll update you. And we'll ask for your help again. Not so New News November 2000Welcome Hyde Park Parakeets! Jason South, the creator of the Hyde Park Parakeet Web site based at the University of Chicago graduated last spring and is now in a PhD program in biology at the University of Maryland. I am pleased to announce that he has moved his site to Monkparakeet.com. The old location will be active for a short time, but it will continue to be archived here, at http://monkparakeet.com/jmsouth/. Jason's no longer actively studying Monks, but did a study which is being published in the journal, Condor. The citation is as follows for anyone who would like to look for it. South, J. M., and S. Pruett-Jones. 2000. Patterns of flock size, diet, and vigilance of naturalized Monk Parakeets in Hyde Park, Chicago. Condor 102:848-854. When I obtain and read a copy of the article, I will write a synopsis of it for the Web site, but it will probably be early January, since I'm not sure when this issue of the journal will be published. March 9, 1999 Invasive or not invasive, that is the question When humans invaded North America, they brought with them a host of plants and animals that have become a part of the ecosystem of the continent. While some of those aliens species, such as cattle and wheat, are important as food sources for people, some species have become invasive, spreading into wilderness areas and competing with native plants and wildlife. At the federal level, this past February, President Clinton signed an Executive Order creating the Invasive Species Council that will study the problem of invasive species and propose a plan for preventing future introductions of nonnative species and for managing the species that are already here. While it appears that Monk Parakeets are becoming established (a permanent part of the ecosystem) in some areas of North America, the question is, are they a potentially invasive species? Could their populations explode and become a threat to native wildlife and plants or to agriculture? While we really don't know what impact the Monks might have on the North American ecosystem, should their populations continue to establish, Mark Spreyer offers his insights in his timely and thought-provoking commentary The Monk Parakeet: Guilty until proven Innocent?. Spreyer is the senior author of the life history of the Monk Parakeet, published in 1998 in the Birds of North America series (Vol. 9 No. 322). Personally speaking, as a conservationist, I don't know if it's the best thing to let the Monks establish. It's easy to be enamored of these little parrots and the prospect of regaining something close to what we lost when the Carolina Parakeet was driven into extinction. All I would ask, before our lawmakers and regulators make any decisions, is that we learn as much as we can about these remarkable creatures and that we deal with them humanely should we choose to remove them from the wild
Kathleen Carr |