http://www.fresnobee.com/2012/07/28/2927254/valley-farmers-help-save-tricolored.html

Shortly before harvest this spring, thousands of rare birds suddenly flocked to a Tulare County wheat field and nested — setting the stage for a vast killing field with baby birds.

But the dairy farmer who was growing the wheat as feed for his cows delayed long enough to save thousands of tricolored blackbirds, averting a wildlife disaster.

He was one of four dairy farmers in the San Joaquin Valley who held off harvests this year to protect more than 20% of the tricolored blackbird’s global population. The federal government spent $100,000 helping the farmers replace the feed.

It’s a success story that seems as rare as the tricolored blackbird. In an era when regulation and lawsuits drive environmental reform, this voluntary collaboration saves birds, keeps dairy farms in business and leaves out lawyers.

“Dairy farmers see this as a win-win,” said Michael Marsh, chief executive officer of Western United Dairymen, a Modesto-based industry group representing 900 dairies.

Western United works with Audubon California and government agencies to save the remaining blackbirds, which once numbered in the millions. There are 260,000 left in the world, and more than 95% of them are in California.

For dairy owners, the partnership makes sense because it is a major influence in keeping the bird off the protection list for the federal Endangered Species Act, which can be stifling to business and industry.

But nature also plays a part. The tricolored birds gather in huge breeding colonies — they are the most colonial birds in North America. It’s not unusual to see 30,000 in a single farm field.

Decades ago, they nested in the coastal wetlands and inland marshes of Central California. But their historic breeding grounds have disappeared as development and farming spread during the last century.

The birds still nest wherever they can find freshwater marshes among the cattails in the Valley. But the blackbirds will readily settle for alfalfa, hay and wheat fields where they can easily fill their dietary needs.

It results in a nervous turf conflict with dairy farmers, who need the silage to feed their herds.

The birds are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, as well as being a species of concern for both the state and federal government.

But the powerful Endangered Species Act is not yet involved. An example of its impact: Irrigation water deliveries from Northern California have been slowed or stopped to protect dying fish species.

The Center for Biological Diversity, an Arizona-based nonprofit environmental watchdog, sought the protection of the act several years ago. But federal leaders declined, saying there was not yet enough evidence.

Now nobody is pushing for the act, said Keillor Kyle, an expert with Audubon on the tricolored blackbird. “We are pleased that farmers are willing to help protect this native California bird,” he said. “Everybody is onboard with pushing up the numbers of this bird.”

The challenge is spotting the birds and reacting quickly enough to save them in spring. The birds arrive at farm fields in March and April, just before silage crops are harvested.

Everyone — from Audubon volunteers to staffers on government wildlife refuges — is on the lookout for possible nesting sites throughout the Valley. Everyone involved does a lot of driving and looking in spring.

When farmers spot a breeding colony, they can notify the Natural Resources Conservation Service, part of the Agriculture Department, which has field biologists who help track the birds. The agency also provides financial assistance so farmers can delay the harvest.

The Tulare County dairy farmer who saved thousands of birds this year worked with federal biologist Jesse Bahm. He and other dairy farmers involved chose not to be interviewed.

“We try to sign up as many willing farmers as we can find,” said Alan Forkey, the service’s assistant state conservationist, based in Davis. “We’re reaching out to let people know our program is here.”

But Forkey and others say it’s not enough to simply avert massive losses in silage fields. They want to develop alternatives for blackbirds to nest in natural habitat, rather than in farm fields.

The remaining wetlands in the Valley could be flooded in spring to attract the blackbirds, said Kyle of Audubon. He said private land as well as state and federal wetland refuges could play a role. Kyle is looking for help from any agency or individual who is willing.

“California had one of the biggest wetlands systems in the world at one time,” Kyle said. “Spring flood events were natural. If we could provide the natural habitat, the birds would move away from dairies.”

Genetically modified Bt crops get a pretty bad rap. The pest-killing Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) bacteria protein these plants are bioengineered to make has been accused of harming monarch butterflies, honey bees, rats, and showing up in the blood of pregnant women.

Just one problem: None of that is true. (Click on any of those links to see a scientific refutation of each claim.) Seven independent experts in genetically modified crops I spoke to all confirmed that the science shows Bt crops to be safer than their alternative: noxious chemical insecticides. In Europe—where suspicions over GM crops run even deeper than in the United States—the European Food Safety Authority just rejected a French ban on Bt corn, saying “there is no specific scientific evidence, in terms of risk to human and animal health or the environment.” A comprehensive report on 10 years of European Union-funded research, comprising 50 research projects, drew the same conclusions about Bt safety.

There are more scientific papers and reports backing the relative safety of Bt than PDF pages your browser can probably handle, which raises this question: How did the gulf between public perception and scientific evidence of Bt safety get so yawningly wide? The answer might be the very people who push GM the hardest—the agricultural industry. Suing a farmer for patent infringement is just one example of how Monsanto bullies its way into crop fields and courtrooms in pursuit of profit. “These crops are driven by large companies pushing practices that benefit their bottom line,” says Doug Gurian-Sherman, senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

But just as we do not blame a murder on, say, a knife, Bt technology is not to blame for the ills of industrial agriculture. After all, knives are pretty handy in the kitchen when we use them properly. Even critics will acknowledge that Bt crops have led to a sharp decrease in insecticide use, which is a huge net positive for the environment. Broad spectrum chemical insecticides kill often and kill widely, wiping out “natural enemies” that are helpful pest-eating critters like spiders. A massive 20-year study just published in the journal Nature found that using Bt cotton in China to control cotton bollworms closely tracked with a rebound in natural enemy populations, which in turn keep out secondary pests like aphids that usually proliferate when chemical insecticides kill the bollworms.

If that last sentence sounds complicated, it is. Integrated pest management is about recognizing the interconnected complexity of these ecosystems of plants and all the insects living on them. The Nature study found that pest control through Bt cotton even had spillover benefits to the non-Bt soybeans growing around them. Natural enemies like ladybugs, spiders, and lacewings keep pests unaffected by Bt at bay. “Maintaining the biological control agents we already have is one of the cornerstones of integrated pest management,” says William Hutchison, an entomologist at the University of Minnesota. In addition, a 2010 study by Hutchison in Science (PDF) showed that American farmers of non-Bt corn actually reaped two-thirds of the economic benefit (read: additional profit) from nearby Bt-related pest suppression.

In a win-win for integrated pest management, non-Bt crops benefit from having Bt crops nearby, but the Bt crops need non-Bt crops around, too, to prevent resistance. Like antibiotics, pervasive use of Bt crops will only lead to resistance in the very bugs it’s supposed to protect against. (This has already happened in certain cases, as Tom Philpott reported in this post.) One important strategy is refuges, or nearby crops that do not contain the Bt gene. In principle, a cotton bollworm that has evolved resistance to Bt can mate with a nearby bollworm feeding on non-Bt soybeans, and their offspring will still be susceptible. That’s why going to 100 percent Bt crops would be a recipe for surefire disaster.

Going to 100 percent Bt crops is a recipe for surefire disaster.

Where scientists disagree over Bt crops is exactly how they should be used. In fact, the levels of 95 percent Bt among cotton in China (even with soybeans and other crops as refuges) may be too high, and University of Arizona professor Bruce Tabashnik recently published a study on emerging resistance among Chinese bollworms. He’s also criticized current EPA refuge standards for corn in the United States as too low, advocating for the refuge size to be increased from 20 to 50 percent for corn with one Bt protein.

Gurian-Sherman from the Union of Concerned Scientists says he thinks sustainable practices like crop rotation and mulching can eliminate the need for both Bt and chemical insecticides. However, there are no large-scale studies proving this, in part because there is so little research money devoted to these practices compared to GM research.

Prevailing scientific opinion does see a role for Bt in sustainable agriculture, if not necessarily one Monsanto would envision for its bottom line. “I like to think of transgenic crops as just one tool in the toolbox,” says Steven Naranjo, director of USDA’s Arid-Land Agricultural Research Center. Charles Benbrook, chief scientist at the Organic Center, said in an email that Bt should be only used at low levels, but not eliminated: “Bt toxins are just as valuable and irreplaceable for farmers as antibiotics are to doctors treating possibly life-threatening infections.” In other words: Like any drug, use responsibly.