FAMOUS CANADIANS:
BRIDGET STUTCHBURY
• Bridget Stutchbury is one of Canada's foremost ornithologists. She was born in Montreal and raised in Toronto. She is now professor of biology at York University and is affiliated with numerous organizations that seek to preserve bird habitats. • Sutchbury gained a lot of notice after her groundbreaking research into the sexual antics of birds made international headlines. But she is perhaps best known for her book The Silence of the Songbirds. • Many species of migratory songbirds are disappearing at an alarming rate. Surveys in Canada shows that between 1966 and 2007, Canada warblers declined by 2.6% a year and olive-sided flycatchers declined by 3.7% a year. This amounts to a cumulative loss of 50 and 75%, respectively, in a single lifetime. • One of the main problems for migratory songbirds is that they may travel 6,000 miles or more between their summer habitat and southern climates. In between, they need places to stop to rest and feed. Due to steadily declining levels of forested cover, it becomes increasingly difficult for birds to find the sanctuary they need. • Stutchbury explains that the boreal forest is home to 3 billion migratory songbirds and 25% of the world’s intact forests. Almost 1 million hectares are cut each year. Less than 15% of Canada’s boreal forest has been protected and nearly a third has been allocated for logging, mining and development. Clear-cutting forces birds to move elsewhere. • A study comparing the birds of Pukaskwa National Park in Ontario with surrounding logged landscape found the population of ovenbirds and warblers was 50% to 90% lower outside the park.
• At the other end, Latin American countries clear cut about 4 million hectares of tropical forest annually. More rainforest has been cleared since 1950 than during the entire 200 years previous. On the northwestern corner of South America, where many boreal songbirds overwinter, forest loss stands at 70% or more. • Stutchbury maintains that a primary cause of the deforestation of Latin America is coffee. North Americans drink some 300 million cups a day and import over 3.3 billion pounds of beans each year. To meet demand, shade trees in coffee plantations have been cut down to make way for "sun coffee" which turns a quicker profit than coffee grown in the shade. Most commercial coffee farms resemble a cornfield rather than a forest, and farmers cannot grow sun coffee without heavy chemical inputs of fertilizers and pesticides. Only a few migratory songbird species can endure these conditions. • A shade-coffee plantation is a lifeboat for migratory songbirds because it provides a mini-ecosystem with towering tropical trees that shelter the coffee plants below, fertilize the soil, and prevent soil erosion during heavy downpours. Shade coffee farms provide alternative habitat for plants and animals which normally live in tropical forests. • "In the swirling steam that rises from your coffee cup could be the ghosts of warblers flitting among the orchids, orioles sipping nectar from spectacular bouquets in the treetops, and thrushes flipping up leaves on the forest floor," says Stutchbury. She encourages all bird lovers to drink only shadegrown organic fair-trade coffee to give birds a fighting chance in southern regions, and to fight for conservation rights in northern areas so all bird species will always have a place to come home to.
Would You Like Tidbits in Your Restaurant? Call Tidbits @ 772-8239 It’s FREE and your customers will love it!
Tidbits of Grand Forks/ East Grand Forks is Locally Owned and Operated.