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Protecting Rivers and Eagles from Invasive Plants
Eagles are linked to waterways through what they eat
© U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Buffalo District
In the 1990s, eagles in the Southeastern U.S. began dying of a mysterious brain disease. Many years of research identified the culprit: a cyanobacteria that grows on an invasive aquatic plant called Hydrilla — also known as waterthyme. Fish ingested the cyanobacteria, and eagles ate the affected fish. Biologists are now working to contain Hydrilla to prevent more harm to ecosystems. Learn more about invasive plants and their effect on birds, waterways and more on this special season of the Bring Birds Back podcast.
BirdNote®
Protecting Rivers and Eagles from Invasive Plants
Adapted by Conor Gearin
Adé Ben-Salahuddin: This is BirdNote.
[Bald Eagle calls]
Adé Ben-Salahuddin: Bald Eagles are primarily fish-eaters, and that means whatever fish ingest in the water ultimately affects eagles, too. In the 1990s, eagles in the Southeastern U.S. began dying of a mysterious brain disease. But there was a clue: they died near water bodies that had an invasive plant called Hydrilla, also known as waterthyme.
Greg Bugbee: After a lot of research, took years and years, they were able to determine that there's what's called a cyanobacteria that grows on the Hydrilla leaves that when ingested by birds of prey particularly, causes brain damage and the birds will die.
Adé Ben-Salahuddin: This is Greg Bugbee, an invasive plant expert for the state of Connecticut, where Hydrilla has expanded rapidly. While Greg and his colleagues haven’t seen birds dying this way in Connecticut, they’re working to find ways to stop the spread of Hydrilla — to protect the state’s waterways and all the species that depend on them.
Greg Bugbee: So this is the Connecticut River. It's an estuary, a river system, that has a lot of ecological value. They feel it could affect fish, birds, mammals. That possibility is there. There is certainly a lot of concern that some sort of control measure needs to be done now or quickly.
Adé Ben-Salahuddin: Learn more about invasive plants and their effect on birds, waterways and more on this special season of the Bring Birds Back podcast. Listen in your favorite podcast app or at BirdNote dot org. I’m Adé Ben-Salahuddin.
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Senior Producer: John Kessler
Producer: Mark Bramhill
Managing Editor: Jazzi Johnson
Managing Producer: Conor Gearin
Content Director: Jonese Franklin
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Bald Eagle ML200948 recorded by Gerrit Vyn.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2024 BirdNote January 2024
Narrator: Adé Ben-Salahuddin
ID# PodBBB-29-2024-01-17 PodBBB-29
Adé Ben-Salahuddin
NarratorSights & Sounds
