Habitat and the Tipping Point

BirdNote^®

Habitat and the Tipping Point

Rick Potvin – interviewed by Chris Peterson

This is BirdNote!
[Strong waves and wind throughout -- G14T1 Oct 10]
Today we’re on a windy island in Long Island Sound, with Rick Potvin. As Manager of the McKinney National Wildlife Refuge, Rick oversees coastal and low-lying habitat for wildlife. Rick says he’d about had it attending meetings predicting what will happen to those areas as the climate changes.    

Then, Rick saw a positive way forward.  G13 T2
 “What we need to do is to get our habitats in the most robust condition we can – because there will be a tipping point and [the animals that …or] the species that… get on the other side of the tipping point in global climate change, they will probably survive… and it will be us doing the work before this tipping point – in order to allow the animals as much time to acclimate to this tip.

[Call of Black-crowned Night-heron]

G13 T2 1:00 An example of that would be up in the Norwalk Islands... we own two of the largest islands in that island chain, so as other islands begin to be drowned out by the change, we’ll hold these islands, have ‘em as best we can ... to allow the wildlife to acclimate and move to new areas.”

[Calls from a colony of Great Egrets] 
Birds like Great and Snowy Egrets that nest on these islands could benefit from such foresight. For BirdNote, I’m Michael Stein.  Today’s show brought to you by the Lufkin Family Foundation.
[Return of Black-crowned Night-heron]
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Sounds of the birds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Black-crowned Night-heron recorded by D.S. Herr; colony of Great Egrets by T.A. Parker III.
Ambient recorded by C. Peterson
Producer: John Kessler
Executive Producer: Chris Peterson
© 2011 Tune In to Nature.org       February 2011   Narrator: Michael Stein

ID# SotB-habitatpreservation-01-2011-02-04