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Posted by Stuart Pimm on 17:05:19 12/20/06
In Reply to: Seaside Sparrow Newspaper Article posted by Vince Lucas
The newspaper piece should be treated with appropriate caution. In particular, we have no evidence that Hurricane Andrew caused the precipitous decline in the population of birds that live on the west side of Shark River Slough. In contrast, a considerable amount of evidence published in international journals, confirms that deliberate actions by water managers flooded this western population in 1993, 1994, 1995, and 1996, eliminating most of the breeding habitat. Those actions formed the basis of the Biological Jeopardy Opinion which requires the managers not to flood the southern Everglades during the dry season.
The western population has not recovered since changes in water management were implimented in 1999.
Copies of the book on the sparrow and associated reprints are available on my web site.
In brief, water managers caused this bird to decline. Hurricane Andrew was not a factor.
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