Wildlife Services, Blackbirds, and European Starlings

Wildlife Services (not to be confused with the US Fish and Wildlife Services) is a branch of the USDA focused on getting rid of animals the public complains about. in 2022 they killed ~1.85 million animals*, a very significant decline from 3.2 million in 2015. one I am tempted to thank environmental and animal rights organizations like Defenders for Wildlife, Center for Biological diversity, and Animal Legal Defense Fund, for their campaigns against Wildlife Services and putting pressure in them. I want to take a moment to appreciate this as a rare example of animal rights progress, especially in the US. which is why it interests me so despite the relatively very small number of animals impacted, it’s seemingly high trackability, we’re making progress!

The press coverage of the Wildlife Services impacts has focused mainly on coyotes, and to a lesser extent other predators killed to protect livestock, and not without reason, coyotes are by far the most heavily persecuted native mammal by the organization, and now the most heavily persecuted native tetrapod, but the decline in the number of animals killed has been mainly due to a different group, the Agelaiinaeids.

the Agelaiinae sub-family, are the new-world blackbirds and their close relatives, like grackles and brown headed cow birds. They represented a large portion of the animals historically killed by wildlife services. around 711 thousand blackbirds were killed in 2015, but 16 thousand in 2022. 476 thousand brown headed cow birds to 20 thousand. 138 thousand grackles down to 3 thousand.

black birds, grackles, and brown headed cow birds are similar in a few keyways, they are associated with marshland (particularly blackbirds), meadow, open woodland, or prairie habitats (particularly cowbirds), (Grassy areas, like where all are most important crops are grown), they are all omnivores but all eat seeds, with them making up most of blackbirds and cowbirds diets especially in winter, and they can gather in gigantic flocks of millions of individual birds. These all makes them a major problem for many interest groups, including airports where they are a collision risk, farmers growing wheat, corn or other crops, and cattle ranchers whose feed can be destroyed by them feeding (and defecating) in it.

Additionally, these birds all have an exemption from the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, allowing members of the public to seek permits for lethal removal, that designate the number, species, and place of removal based on the needs of the citizen.

So, it is convenient that today around over half of animals killed by the wildlife services in 2022, belong to a single bird species. another dark colored omnivorous seed-eating songbird that is associated with meadow habitats and can form flocks of millions of birds, we can just repeat this success and make a huge amount of progress! right?

European Starlings.

European starlings, have a bad rap to say the least. they (and house sparrows) are both nonnative birds introduced from Europe that are extremely common in suburban areas. Both are heavily vilified by birdwatchers and environmentalist groups for supposedly causing a decline in native cavity-nesters (birds that nest in holes in trees or cactuses, or in bird houses) (especially eastern blue birds). They are outside the focus of environmentalist groups like Center for Biological Diversity and Defenders for Wildlife and are birds ’bird-lovers loathe. With the Wildlife service publishing separate Total and Invasive numbers for animals killed, I can see the non-invasive portion shrinking into oblivion into the future while the Invasive and Total death toll continues to rise or stay steady.

in the study “European Starlings and Their Effect on Native Cavity‐Nesting Birds” by Walter. D. Koeing 2003, 27 cavity-nesting bird species were analyzed for a possible negative effect of European Starlings on their populations, of these a negative likely effect was only found in one species* of bird, the yellow-bellied sapsucker. further research on starlings and sapsuckers would be appreciated, but for now I’m cautiously suggesting that with the number of bird species examined this is maybe a false positive. *

Additionally, the European Starling population has actually fallen in half in the past 50 years, from ~166 million to ~85 million, so whatever its effects on native populations historically, it is not a primary driver of any native bird species declines today.

some ideas for other starling pro-propaganda, besides busting the myth they threaten native bird species, maybe some of this presented the right way will help make progress on reducing the number of starlings killed.

• European starlings get their name from the “star” like patterning on their winter coat, like speckles of white light on a black sky, this should inspire people to look at them differently.

• European Starlings have highly distinct winter (black beak but heavily speckled head and body) vs summer (yellow beak, all black head and body) appearances, so we could play around gathering data on which image garners more sympathy.

• Mozart had a pet starling who was his musical muse, people may find this charming.

• Though far from being a threatened species, European starlings are declining in Europe, highlighting this might communicate starlings as precious.

• If you are regularly filling your bird feeder, starling fledglings are highly conspicuous and everywhere in the summer, big grey fluffy babies the size of the parents, waddling around following them everywhere and constantly begging for food. hopefully people find this cute, especially as an animal people can see regularly in their backyards and might feel some guardianship over as provider of birdseed, being taught to notice baby starlings might help them care about starlings killed by the government as pests.

* Underestimate as animals killed while destroying burrows do not seem to be counted, and (especially for raptors and other predators) there is supposedly an unofficial policy of “shoot, shovel, and shut up.”

*Additionally, there is already precedent for not labeling species introduced to the United States as invasive, such as western honeybees or ring neck pheasants (though both of these species generally are agreed to have negative effects on native species, and are “redeemed” by being profitable to exploit)

*The study relied on citizen science data, so the data for the (recently split into multiple species) yellow-bellied sapsucker was lumped together and treated as one species

*

Sources

USDA APHIS | Wildlife Services

European Starlings and Their Effect on Native Cavity‐Nesting Birds

Mozart's Starling - How Starling Influenced Mozart In His Music Pieces - CMUSE

Global invasion history and native decline of the common starling: insights through genetics | Biological Invasions (springer.com)

Edit: things have improved in 2023 compared to 2022. The number of animals killed went from 1.85 million to 1.45 million. For Invasive species it fell from 1.47 million to 1.08 million. the number of native animals killed fell more modestly from 384K to 375K. The number of starlings killed fell bellow 1 million, from about 1.18 million to 0.81 million. This is promising but far cry from the decline seen in native songbirds killed, I optimistically predict this decline to continue. Starlings still represent over half of animals killed, Though the share has fallen from about 64% to 56% . Feral pigs are the second most killed animals and they have also declined from 126K to 137K. It is worth highlighting that these pigs are domestic animals just like stray cats and dogs.

Northern Pike minnows are no longer the most killed native species, there number falling slightly from 60K to 47K. I’m glad to see the fish wasn’t “left behind” by the general decline in animals killed. news is less cheery for the coyote. The number killed rose from about 56K to 69K, making them the most killed native species.

Total: decline 21%

European Starlings: decline 31%. Went from 64 to 56% of the total

Feral Pigs: decline 8%, went from 7.4 to 8.7% of the total

Other Invasives: declined from 155K to 139K, decline 10% , went from 8.4 to 9.6% of the total

Coyote: Increase 22%. went from 3.0 to 4.7% of the total

Northern Pike minnow: Decline 20%, the share of the total has stayed 3%.

Other Non Invasives: increased 267K to 272K, increase 2%, went from 14.5 to 18.7%

My prediction made last time, that the number of invasives killed would stay high or grow while natives continued to fall was wrong, Both native and invasive species are declining, with invasive declining faster. I believe the increase in “Other non Invasives” is random variation and that the 2024 numbers will be lower than the 2022 numbers. I predict the decline in starlings killed will continue, and that next year the total number of animals killed will be under 1.1 million. I predict that next year starlings will still be the most killed species, but will be less than half the total. The increase in coyotes killed is unusual, I do not know the cause of this, but it is large enough that it is highly unlikely to be random variation. Coyotes should stay the face of Wildlife Services activism to keep pressure on the service to stop it’s persecution of coyotes. activism specifically for invasives seems unwise at the moment as it is more controversial, and they seem to be following the natives previous trend anyway for the time being, and falling faster than natives currently.