The Most Endangered Bird in the Continental U.S.
The fight to save the Florida grasshopper sparrow inspires all who love wildlife.
By Ted Williams
Published: March-April 2013
Predawn, April 8, 2012:
Cold and stiff, I crawl out of my tent in Kissimmee Prairie Preserve
State Park—a wilderness island in the sea of asphalt, cement, and
drained agricultural land that is south-central Florida. The
International Space Station, brighter than the morning star, sweeps
across the Milky Way. And far to the west a ragged line of cabbage palms
and live oaks is backlit by the nearly full moon. The birds we’re after
sing in the early morning, so we need to get moving.
Three hours later, what birders who
aren’t fast enough with their field glasses would call an LBJ (little
brown job) is in my right hand. Instructed by biologists Paul Miller of
the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and Sandra
Sneckenberger of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, I have him in the
“photographer’s grip”—his legs between my middle finger and pointer, my
thumb against his bent knees. His tail is short, his breast buff, his
back dark gray and streaked with brown. There’s a splash of yellow at
the wing joint, ochre stripes over his eyes. From a distance he hadn’t
looked like much. Now I can see that he’s gorgeous.
I’m holding one of the last Florida grasshopper sparrows. Despite
extensive habitat restoration, they’re on a toboggan run to oblivion.
And unless managers can figure out and reverse what’s wrong in the next
year or two, this bird will almost surely be gone—the first known bird
extinction in the continental United States since the loss, in 1987, of
the dusky seaside sparrow, once native to the marshes of Florida’s
Merritt Island and St. John River Valley.
The Florida grasshopper sparrow is one of 12 subspecies, though evidence suggests that the other 11 grasshopper sparrows evolved from it.
The Florida grasshopper sparrow is one of 12 subspecies, though evidence suggests that the other 11 grasshopper sparrows evolved from it.
There are probably fewer than 200 Florida grasshopper sparrows left ...
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