Animal Of The Month
This story appears as an on-going series in the "Gilroy Dispatch", "Morgan Hill Times" and "Hollister Freelance".
Common Tern
June 2015
By Colleen Grzan
Common Tern
June 2015
By Colleen Grzan
"Common Tern"
Water, water everywhere…if you’re flying over the ocean. But if you’re a water bird migrating over or a resident of central and southern California, where do you get a drop to drink? Our ponds and lakes and reservoirs drying up, with a resulting loss of food and habitat for wildlife. Common terns, for example, forage mostly by gliding over water, hovering, and plunging to catch small fish along rivers, lakes, and oceans and foraging for mollusks (snails, squid) and crustaceans (crabs, shrimp, krill) along shores. California’s current extreme drought has not only caused a dearth of their prey but has forced them (and other wild critters) to travel greater distances in quest of food and water.
This beautiful tern, with bright orange feet and beak, was extremely weak, emaciated, and dehydrated when it was brought recently to the Wildlife Education and Rehabilitation Center in Morgan Hill, where the bird was immediately given fluids. We were hoping this treatment would help revitalize the bird and that we would be able to say that the tern “took a turn for the better”. Alas, it sadly succumbed soon after its arrival.
Native wildlife populations are normally hardy, but natural consequences of drought create harsh environments and can take a drastic toll on them. But there’s good news for wildlife and our environment on the horizon. Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are predicting a 90 percent chance that the El Nino weather phenomenon will be bringing with it desperately needed rain this fall and winter and, giving all living things a respite from California’s drought.
A non-natural trend in the late 19th and early 20th centuries also had an almost dire effect on tern populations. The millinery market used the beautiful plumage (and sometimes even whole bodies) of millions of birds, including terns, to decorate lavish ladies’ hats. Fortunately, avid avian conservationists helped change public perception of such abhorrent practices and these styles went out of fashion before the birds could become extinct. With protection from the international legislation and the United States migratory protection act, tern populations have mostly recovered and the terns are now listed as a “species of least concern”, meaning they have made an amazing comeback.
This beautiful tern, with bright orange feet and beak, was extremely weak, emaciated, and dehydrated when it was brought recently to the Wildlife Education and Rehabilitation Center in Morgan Hill, where the bird was immediately given fluids. We were hoping this treatment would help revitalize the bird and that we would be able to say that the tern “took a turn for the better”. Alas, it sadly succumbed soon after its arrival.
Native wildlife populations are normally hardy, but natural consequences of drought create harsh environments and can take a drastic toll on them. But there’s good news for wildlife and our environment on the horizon. Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are predicting a 90 percent chance that the El Nino weather phenomenon will be bringing with it desperately needed rain this fall and winter and, giving all living things a respite from California’s drought.
A non-natural trend in the late 19th and early 20th centuries also had an almost dire effect on tern populations. The millinery market used the beautiful plumage (and sometimes even whole bodies) of millions of birds, including terns, to decorate lavish ladies’ hats. Fortunately, avid avian conservationists helped change public perception of such abhorrent practices and these styles went out of fashion before the birds could become extinct. With protection from the international legislation and the United States migratory protection act, tern populations have mostly recovered and the terns are now listed as a “species of least concern”, meaning they have made an amazing comeback.