Florida Scrub-Jays, Part 1
One of the most curious and family-oriented of all birds is literally, if not legally, endangered.
(Listen to the radio version here.)
Back in early 2001, when I visited my beloved Aunt Ann in central Florida, she invited me to come along on her daily morning walk with her “lady friends” to “feed the birds.” She had no idea what kind of birds they were, but I figured they must be Boat-tailed Grackles, a species that mooches for food wherever people picnic in Florida.
As we passed the houses along the cul-de-sac in Ann’s brand-new development, other women joined us, all eagerly joining the conversation about the “improvements” they were making to their yards: cutting down those ugly old scrub oaks and nasty weeds to put in lawns and flowers and swimming pools. Then they started talking about a new shopping center that was going up within walking distance of their housing development, and how convenient it would be to not have to drive all the way to Lake Wales or Winter Haven for groceries, gas, and restaurants. This endangered scrub habitat was extraordinarily sensitive and critical for the survival of rapidly declining species, but nothing I said could make them change their minds about the scrub oaks and weeds.
When we got just beyond the houses, in flew a Florida Scrub-Jay straight for us, quickly followed by two more. By the time we reached the end of a little undeveloped stretch between my aunt’s cul-de-sac and the next one, the delighted ladies had hand-fed peanuts to at least six of these lovely, curious birds. Not one of them had realized that the birds were Florida Scrub-Jays, a dangerously threatened species found only in the very scrub habitat their neighborhood and so many more new developments were obliterating.
Florida Scrub-Jays take the concept of “approachable” to extremes. Many times when I’ve been in good scrub habitat in Florida, they’ve approached me before I even noticed them. Family units stick together year-round, and individuals take turns serving as “sentinels” as the rest of the family forages or loafs. The sentinels watch not only for snakes, hawks, and other dangers but also for unexpected feeding opportunities, paying particular attention to large mammals, whose feet can stir up insects and small lizards, and who may be sloppy eaters, dropping or scattering nutritious chunks of food. When the sentinel notices something interesting, that bird alerts the others and soon the whole family flies in.
It's intriguing that the jays have virtually no inhibitions about approaching people considering that we are the very reason the species has declined so dramatically since European settlement. In 1996, their population was a mere 10 percent or less than it had been in pre-settlement times. The species declined a full 25 percent in just the decade between 1983 and ‘93, and since then, Florida’s human growth has continued to mushroom, taking an ever-continuing toll on these splendid birds.
Scientists recently studied which sounds arouse the most fear in mammals visiting waterholes during the dry season in Greater Kruger National Park in South Africa. They used speakers to broadcast playbacks of human voices, lions, dogs and gunshots, and non-predator birds, and found that throughout the savanna mammalian community, fully 95 percent of species ran away and abandoned waterholes faster when they heard sounds associated with humans than lions. Indeed, they were twice as likely to run away, and 40 percent faster to abandon waterholes, when hearing recordings of human voices than either lions or gunshots and dogs. (This study was published in Science Direct .)
It’s lucky that, unlike African mammals, Florida Scrub-Jays aren’t fearful of the voices of the species responsible for their decline, because the many hormone changes and behaviors associated with fear have horrible effects on health and reproduction. Humans encroach virtually everywhere Florida Scrub-Jays remain. My eBird map of my October 16 walk at the Helen and Allan Cruickshank Sanctuary shows just how sandwiched in this tiny refuge is by housing developments.
As popular as Florida Scrub-Jays are with birders and well-meaning if uninformed retirees, developers and right-wing anti-environmentalists seem to hate these friendly, inoffensive birds. The Florida Scrub-Jay is the only species endemic to the state—that is, found nowhere else on the planet except Florida. Over the years, there have been many popular movements to make it Florida’s state bird, but well-funded opposition always puts the kibosh on that. (The current state bird, the mockingbird, is splendid, of course, but has a wide range outside Florida and serves as the state bird for four other states.)
Attempts to list this critically imperiled bird as endangered have also been thwarted even as its numbers continue to dwindle with no evidence of reversal anywhere. The stated purpose of the Endangered Species Act is to protect endangered plants and animals and the ecosystems upon which they depend, and protection of them is supposed to override economic interests, but the Florida scrub ecosystem, so critical for scrub jays, gopher tortoises, and other vulnerable species, continues to shrink into tinier and tinier, more separated remnants.
We who understand the problem and care must do more than just grieve. We have a responsibility to educate people about the natural treasures near them and how to minimize their own impact by landscaping with locally native plants and encouraging their homeowners’ associations and local and county governing boards to protect more natural habitat.
The Florida Scrub-Jay Trail organization has worked tirelessly to do exactly this, modeling excellent land stewardship on their own land and working to help other landowners, large and small, create corridors to connect scrub habitat. They’ve worked especially hard with citrus growers to surround and connect cultivated groves with natural scrub plants. This little organization deserves our support.
Tragically, selling land for development has become far more lucrative than growing citrus. Citrus greening, a dire disease spread by the invasive Asian citrus psyllid in the insect order Hemiptera, destroys every tree it infects even as waves of destructive weather associated with climate change (a term forbidden on Florida’s state websites), halt production in even healthy trees. So many citrus growers are selling their land to developers now that the area of Florida devoted to cultivating oranges is down to 303,300 acres, barely 46 percent of the 658,400 acres of orange groves just 25 years ago.
All this development makes me despair. But the Florida Scrub-Jay is just too wonderful and dear to disappear without an outcry. Attention must be paid.
