Open letter: Does Audubon Society advocate for birds or birders?

Our family was a member of the Audubon Society for decades because we love birds and birding all over the world is our primary hobby.  So, it was painful to give up that membership a few years ago when we were unable to convince the Bay Area chapter of Audubon (Golden Gate Audubon Society (GGAS)) that its support for the projects that are destroying hundreds of thousands of trees, are harmful to birds.  We didn’t give up easily.  We tried for many years to convince GGAS that their policy is harmful to birds.  Since leaving Audubon, the GGAS has become progressively more aggressive in its support for these projects.  Here are a few recent examples of policy decisions they have made:

• GGAS signed a letter of support for the planned project that proposes to aerial bomb 1.3 metric tons of rodenticide on the Farallon Islands to kill mice.  You can read about that horrible project HERE.
• GGAS is also supporting the US Fish & Wildlife project that is shooting barred owls based on the belief that another native bird will benefit.  Read about that project HERE.
• Recently they sent a letter to University of California, San Francisco, asking them to proceed with their original plans to destroy approximately 30,000 trees on Mount Sutro.  These plans are presently on hold in response to the objections of the public.

Today, we are going to take a closer look at Audubon’s support for the destruction of most trees on Mount Sutro.  Jack Dumbacher, member of the GGAS Board of Directors and Chairman of the GGAS “Conservation” Committee, has written an article for the GGAS blog about that project, which gives us this opportunity.

Who are “WE?”

Mr. Dumbacher’s article begins with a litany of “what WE want:”

•  “We understand that just seeing birds is not enough – we want diversity. It is not enough to have a life list of one species that you’ve seen really well.
• “We want a long life list with many species. We want to count as many species as we can on each field trip.
• “We want to see birds doing a variety of interesting things.
• “We want reasons to visit a variety of habitats and regions. And we love seeing that occasional rare, out-of-place species.”

Many birders and Audubon members have tried unsuccessfully to engage Mr. Dumbacher in a dialogue, so we are resorting to this “open letter” venue to ask these questions:

• Who are “WE” in this list of what Mr. Dumbacher claims “WE want?”  Does he speak for you?  Does he speak for the birds?  If not, is he speaking for himself?  Is he speaking for all Audubon members?  If you are an Audubon member, is he speaking for you?
• If this isn’t a list that speaks for you, what do YOU want?  Do you want to be able to walk in a forest in which many birds live now?  Or do you prefer grassland and dune scrub, which is what the forest in San Francisco is being converted to by native plant advocates?
• If Mr. Dumbacher’s wish list doesn’t speak for the birds, what do you think the birds want?  Where do you think the owls and raptors will nest if all the tall trees are destroyed?  Where do you think the bats will live if the tall trees are destroyed?  What do you think the hummingbirds will eat in the winter if all the eucalypts that flower in the winter are destroyed?

We are too ignorant to understand what THEY want

Mr. Dumbacher wonders how those who share his opinions regarding nature can convince us to want what they want:  “…how do we make the case for diversity?”  Then he proceeds to try to make the case, by looking back on his childhood experiences in nature and passing judgment on them: 

“My father spent much of his spare time in open green spaces. Sometimes I would go with him, and we heard birds and saw squirrels and geese, and we believed that we loved and understood nature. After spending many more years of my life studying biology, I realized that we were just golfers on a relatively impoverished golf course landscape.”

It struck us as unspeakably sad that he would look back on his childhood experience in nature with such condescension.  It seems that each of us should have the right to enter nature with whatever level of knowledge we can bring to that experience.  Mr. Dumbacher has a Ph.D. degree.  Does he think a Ph.D. degree is required to appreciate nature?  Such a prerequisite would leave most of us out.  Don’t we have a right to enjoy nature too?

Burdened with too much knowledge

We will use our personal experience to present a contrarian viewpoint.  A few years ago we had the opportunity to drive the length of the Blue Ridge Highway from the Shenandoah Valley in northern Virginia to the heart of Tennessee.  Of course, we had many walks in the woods.  It was early spring.  The dogwoods were blooming.  The birds were actively starting their nesting season.  As much as we enjoy a walk in the woods here in California, there was even greater pleasure in those walks in the eastern woods because we have almost no knowledge of what is native or non-native there.  It was a great relief to be able to walk without passing judgment, as we have been taught to do in California.  There was no need to point fingers and declare that something “doesn’t belong there.”  We could accept the beauty of everything we saw on equal terms.  Ignorance was bliss.

We will contrast that experience with a more recent experience in the East Bay Regional Park District Botanical Garden in Tilden Park.  We were taking a course in which several participants in the class were members of the California Native Plant Society.  You might think that a botanical garden in which solely natives are planted, would be a pleasant place for them to walk.  It wasn’t.  They were outraged by the few non-native “weeds” we saw.  They crawled over the plantings to pull the uninvited plants from their roots.  One was a lovely scarlet pimpernel, blooming in its bright coral amongst native plants in their dormant, brown phase.   Their destructive attitude detracted from our enjoyment of the garden.

The “tiny minority” myth

As the “restoration” projects in the Bay Area have become progressively more destructive, the public has become progressively more opposed to them.   Mr. Dumbacher calls us a “vocal minority” in his article.  He is mistaken.  We consistently outnumber native plant advocates (sometimes ten to one) whenever we have an opportunity to express our opinion in a public venue:  in public hearings, on petitions, during written public comment periods.  We are not a minority.

Mr. Dumbacher is also mistaken in his description of the project which he is defending in his article.  He says, “…a Sutro Management Plan was formed that balanced incremental thinning with incremental planting of native species, in order to increase diversity and reduce the fire threat.”  We will give Mr. Dumbacher the benefit of the doubt by assuming that he has not read the Environmental Impact Report of February 2013, in which the project was described in detail.  Within a year five years, that project would have destroyed 90% of the trees (about 30,000 trees) and understory on 75% of the acres of Mount Sutro.  It proposed no planting of native plants, with the exception of a few small areas if money became available to pay for them.   The word “thinning” is used by native plant advocates to describe their plans to destroy the forest because it sounds less destructive.  However, it is not a word that accurately describes the destruction of 90% of the forest.

What happens to the birds that are there now?

Unfortunately, we can’t share with our readers the lovely pictures in Mr. Dumbacher’s article because we don’t have permission, although you can visit the article to see for yourself.  You will see beautiful birds sitting on plants that exist now on Mount Sutro and Mount Davidson.  They are native plants that thrive in the understory of the forest and are unlikely to survive the devastation of the destruction of the trees and understory.  There are also non-native plants in the understory.  Many of them, such as blackberry, are valuable sources of food for birds.  There is no evidence, and no reason to believe, that destroying the Sutro forest will increase the number of bird species in San Francisco. 

One wonders if Mr. Dumbacher isn’t aware of this obvious contradiction:  he illustrates his article with birds that live in the forest now while trying to make the case that the forest must be destroyed so he can see more birds.  Perhaps the answer is that he doesn’t really want more birds, he is only interested in certain birds:  “But If you want migrants to visit your city, if you want rare birds to breed in your local parks, and if you want a county list that exceeds 200 species, then please get involved in local habitat management and restoration, and be ready to speak up for nature in your city.”

Here is another contradiction in Mr. Dumbacher’s appeal for your support for destroying most of the Sutro forest:  “we should try to manage a more natural forest.” In what sense is a “managed” forest also a “more natural” forest?  The Sutro forest is natural now, wild and unmanaged, a delightful mess.  We see no benefit in “managing” it.  Our experience with the managed summit of Mount Sutro is herbicide use (in the past), irrigation, wood chips, and dry weeds populated with colored flags where someone has apparently planted something that didn’t emerge from the wood chips.

Does Mr. Dumbacher speak for you?  Do you share his view of “nature?”

Postscript:  Mr. Dumbacher’s viewpoint is particularly troubling because he is Chair of the Department of Ornithology and Mammalogy at California Academy of Sciences, the Bay Area’s leading institution of science education.    It seems that there is little science in Mr. Dumbacher’s viewpoint as expressed in his article.