Liberating Wings

Examination

Weighing wild chicks in La Mosquita - Photo by Hector Portillo Reyes

Being in La Mosquitia, Honduras one cannot but help examine the state of one’s inner life and the state of the world. As biologists, conservationists, and people of the land (Los Misquitos) much of our time is spent examining the ecology around us which centers on the Guara (Macaw) nests and chicks.  We seek to know the health of this species by collecting all the data we can and then looking at the relationships within the whole.

What we found, with only a handful of nests active with chicks, is that the chicks are thin, many of the nests still have eggs (which appears late in the season to those who know the land), and much human activity around the nests showing how they chop into the trees to extract the chicks.

 

Piscacio high in pine tree examining macaw nest with machete/hatchet cuts

We also spent time learning about the health of the human communities.  What are the forces causing the violent conflicts and death threats, land stolen, forests leveled, and people and parrots displaced? The list of causes is long.  Thinking of the powerful influences here, including international petroleum extraction companies and narco drug lords, we cannot fathom what stratagies will best work together to keep parrots and people in their homes, but we can witness, testify, and stand in solidarity with those who have been  torn from their way of life.

Interviewing Tomas Manzanares under a macaw nest - photo by Hector Portillo Reyes

Last year´s confiscated birds now permanantely housed at zoo in Tegucigalpa

How exactly does one stand or fly with other beings as one?  For my part it comes from examining my own life in relationship to the whole, in concrete situations such as here in Honduras.  I find my identity and way of life slipping away into the flow of such beauty and tragedy, and then I listen to the call of my wild heart, and listen to the call to union with others.   As we hold one another, and lift one another up on wings of hopes, I hear the whispered dream and cry to freedom - we are Seres Unidos – Beings United.  Is it such a wild dream to think that we can welcome all beings home to this planet?

 

This year´s surviving confiscated birds, babies who will never know a wild home

Sunday Morning Coming Down (from Rus Rus, La Mosqutia, Honduras)

(Scarlet Macaw Flying By A Carribean Pine in La Mosquitia)

 

On Sunday, April 18, we came down the long road out of Rus Rus into Puerto Lempira. We had been staying overnight in the abandoned home of Tomas Manzanares and Alicia Lacuth  for the last several days  as we journeyed out each day to study wild Scarlet Macaws. 

(Road out of Rus Rus - my feet showing my comfortable position riding in the pick up truck with the soldier)

 Rus Rus is a small pueblo in the area known as La Mosquitia and has indigenous people, los Misquitos, who have their own language and their own culture.  Their lands and way of life is severely threatened, as are their very lives.  Tomas, as the leader of his community, tried to stop some “invaders” from taking over their land.  These men waited in ambush for him one day in December, 2009 and he was shot 4 times.  

(Tomas showing me the scars of his 4 bullet wounds) 

Today he has mostly recovered and his biggest regret seems to be that his camera was broken during the shooting.  Against advice, Tomas journeyed with us back to his town of Rus Rus, where most of the people had to flee for fear of their lives after the incident with Tomas.  He told me, as did several of the Misquitos, that they are willing to risk their lives to keep their wondrous pine savannah and forests from further destruction, and to protect their Guara Rojas (Scarlet Macaws). But already the rivers are beginning to dry up and most macaw nests that we saw have evidence of chicks being poached.

Half way back to Puerto Lempira we stopped at the army base to return the soldiers we had hired to protect us while we researched macaws.  There the commander of the base gathered his men and then I was invited to give a talk to the soliders.  Before I began, a prayer was said, asking God to help the men listen to me so that we could all work together for the people and the parrots.  With such honor and respect, offered to me, I thought that I could only return the same to them.   I told them  of how I had been moved by their people, the Misquitos, who had courage, strength, passion, and heart to love their land and to protect it.  I told them of the power they had in their relationship with the land and with each other.  I told them that it would take everything they’ve got to keep their land and Guaras from being “ desaparecidos” (disappeared). I then asked them how I could stand in solidarity with them and what they might say to the world. One solider stood up and told you, my one wild and precious world, to help them do what they must do to keep their land safe, and to keep it beautiful.

(Talking with the Soldiers at the Base) 

Though I was not back in my home congregation on this Sunday morning, I got to preach and in turn, am being saved by the gathered. My deepest thanks to these Hondurans who are helping me savor and save the world.

 

(Field Research Group Showing Their "Fly Free" Macaw Wrist Bands) 

Compassionate Conservation in Central America

 

 (Yellow-naped Parrot)

Studies confirm that caregivers play host to a high level of compassion fatigue. Day in, day out, workers struggle to function in care giving environments that constantly present heart wrenching, emotional challenges. Affecting positive change in society, a mission so vital to those passionate about caring for others, is perceived as elusive, if not impossible. This painful reality, coupled with first-hand knowledge of society's flagrant disregard for the safety and well being of the feeble and frail, takes its toll on everyone from full time employees to part time volunteers. Eventually, negative attitudes prevail.

Compassion Fatigue symptoms are normal displays of chronic stress resulting from the care giving work we choose to do. Leading traumatologist Eric Gentry suggests that people who are attracted to care giving often enter the field already compassion fatigued. A strong identification with helpless, suffering, or traumatized people or animals is possibly the motive. It is common for such people to hail from a tradition of what Gentry labels: other-directed care giving. Simply put, these are people who were taught at an early age to care for the needs of others before caring for their own needs. Authentic, ongoing self-care practices are absent from their lives. (more on Compassion Fatigue)

 

Easily recognizable in others and perhaps ourselves, Compassion Fatigue surfaces repeatedly in conservation.   By experiencing compassion, that is, deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it, conservation team members may find themselves unable to contribute and communicate as efficiently and with as much satisfaction as they would like. By combining compassion and communication as an intentional practice tool in conservation medicine, and drawing heavy on social and emotional intelligence, our medical kit becomes like Mary Poppin's magical bag, a seemingly endless reservoir of methods to attend to the multiple beings in our circles of care, including ourselves.

 

I will be leaving soon for Honduras and Guatemala on a Compassionate Conservation trip.  My back bedroom is strewn with gear of all kinds to comprise my field kit for studying and supporting conservation projects in Central America.  The projects in which I will be partaking are:

 

Lecturing at University in Tegucigalpa

Lecturing and consulting at Tegucigalpa Metropolitan Zoo

Consulting, pilot study and  survey of wild psittacine chicks in La Moskitia, Honduras

Consulting wild psittacine conservation, El Petén Guatemala

Lecturing at University of San Carlos, Guatemala

Ethno-ornithological/Integral Ecology Study

Writer/reporter/witness regarding the lives of people and parrots in Central America

 

I go as an independent consultant, Director of Lafeber Conservation (thank you very much for the grants Lafeber Company!), and as myself.  Having experienced the burn out and overwhelming challenges of front line conservation in Guatemala, I know how important it is to have support.  I have worked hard over the last decade acquiring the social and emotional intelligence skills necessary for conservation, lightening my load by letting go of some unnecessary baggage. So though my current toolkit is packed full of medicines, cameras, and outdoor equipment, probably the most important tools I can bring are those that deal with the human dimensions of conservation and wildlife management.  These I carry in my heart and mind (thank goodness as the airlines won't charge me for extra baggage!).

 

I will do my best to text/twitter from the field, so come here for updates (either as an update or as a twitter entry on the sidebar).

 

In compassionate hope,

 

LoraKim

Possibilities Through Partnerships

 

 Carolina Parakeets (JJ Audubon)

On Saturday I attended the Florida Audubon Academy in Gainesville Florida and was delighted to deliver a keynote address in the morning.  There were about 100 Auduboners from around the state present.  I wasn't sure what to expect as I was speaking with heart, emotion, and a deep faith in nature interconnection.  My underlying hope in this presentation was to share with these people my hope for conservation work in the midst of heartache and overwhelming challenges, and environmental and species loss.  My hope, or at least my opening to possibility, comes from the tremendous untapped potential of relationships in multispecies communities.  I believe that humans evolved to both save and savor one another and our world, as well as to compete and to collaborate.  In facing who we are, we can then use social intelligence to navigate difficult relationships and grow our intrapersonal and interpersonal skills.  Just because it is hard, does not mean that there won't come a time when  birds will fly free as we too  sense the liberating joy of loving one another.  I ended the presentation with my answer to the question, "what are we for?" I said that for me it is an urgent sense that we must love another or die.

In many ways I was "preaching to the choir." Yes I knew these folks loved birds and probably faced sadness and despair in their work.  What I didn't know was how close they were to the passion of their work that comes from their intense love of this world, and how close they were to their feelings of both joy and loss.  They expressed to me after the presentation how much they wished to reenage with renewed vigor, despite the challenges.  In hearing of their work, and their willingness to risk failure and frustration, I came away strengthened and reaffirmed that we need to think alike to love alike. The force of this love may help us partner with one another in unknown, creative ways that may yet be the saving of this beloved planet.  Thank you Florida Audubon for the depth of your commitment, and to Jacqui Sulek and Joyce King for inviting me and hosting the conference along with Alachua Audubon,  Marion Audubon, Four Rivers Audubon, and Santa Fe Audubon.

Regrets and Egrets

 Snowy Egret, Paine's Prairie March 22, 2010

 

If only

                pondered the solitary hunter

If only I had struck quicker

                If only the fish had not turned

                                If only the humans had not destroyed this prairie

My children might be here in the thousands

                Feeding and food for an abundance I have only heard about

If only the many humans who watch me hunt

                walking this path into the rising waters

                                would  move quicker, turn from desire, and rebuild this water world

                                                loving and loved in a abundance 

you have not just heard about

but fathom when you look at me

If only you would see me

If only

For Birds, For People, For Life, Forever

 

 

The world has moved on.  From my rehabilitation days over 20 years ago, I see a greater shift towards the interconnecting health of human and nonhuman.  We need to take care of ourselves so we can take care of animals.  Here are some examples of what is going on regarding this topic at the National Wildlife Rehabilitiation Association Annual Symposium.

 

One person was toting a bag from the Royal Society of Bird Preservation that said, "For birds, for people, forever." when I asked her about this saying she said that you cannot separate the well being of bird from a person. "Without birds, human souls would die."

 

Jennifer Convoy of PAWS (Progressive Animal Welfare Society) said in the opening remarks, "No one is right, but we may be all right together."  She went on to say that though we like animals, we need to work well with people because this increases our ability to give good quality care to animals.

 

Wendy Fox, the President of NWRA had a seminar during the symposium about conflict between people working in rehabilitation.  She said that human relationships are the biggest problem rehabbers have. If we could get along better, than we could take better care of the animals.

 

We are one world and we share one health.  Amen.

Rehabilitating Beauty

Today I travel to the National Wildlife Rehabilitators Association Annual Symposium in Bellevue, Washington.  It has been a long time since I have worked in avian rehabilitation.  As an avian veterinarian I have always taken in wild birds, or referred them to others.  Somewhere along the line I lost hope in this work as it seemed a band-aid type of approach when the world was suffering such degradation and extinction.  Charitable acts to return injured, young, or ill birds to the wild seemed like a drop in the bucket compared to what outdoor cats, pesticides, habitat destruction, hunting, and poaching did to bird populations the world over.  I strove for changes and the healing of the human heart that could impact social systems so that we could would not just consider the needs of all beings, but act from a biocentric, and not a human centric ethic.  I also wasn’t sure that taking care of individual birds was always n their best interest, given the stress and pain of captive management with many species. 

Indeed it is a complex world. The web of suffering cannot be eliminated, nor can the interweaving of beauty that happens in multispecies encounters.  I no longer feel that I have the answers to how we might live in beauty and have it eternally fly over us.  I journey then to this symposium, knowing that I share with others of my own species a respect, wonder, and care of the beauty around me, though we each make take different paths.  On all these paths, however, there is beauty before us.  We walk in beauty.  We work in beauty. We rehabilitate in beauty.

Going to Walden and the Twin Towers

...Going to Walden is not so easy a thing

As a greet visit.  It is the slow and difficult

Trick of living, and finding it where you are.

 Mary Oliver

 

I'm all about green visits.  I lead Nature Spirituality trips to our local prairie walk of La Chua trail to see Whooping Cranes and every spring I head to Central America to work with endangered parrots.  In these places I fill up, for they are the Mecca of my heart, the hajj where my self blurs into the masses of species and experiences.  Indeed it is a trick to see the glory in urban and devastated areas, for my mind wants to categorize this vision as not possibly  "right" and not part of the whole. 

 

In the summer of 2001 I visited Manhattan and one evening I lay on a bench looking up the lighted trunks of those twin towers.  In that moment a healing took place, for I saw the world of cities, high economy, and a dearth and death of species as integral to whole.  I came to a sense of fondness for the art of humanity that creates blights as well as lights upon the night.  

 

That urban forest is me, and it became in a few months a scene of destruction.  Does the tragedy negate the beauty?  If the world contradicts itself, very well, it does, for it is large, as am I.  I am the world, and I contain multitudes (a la Walt Whitman, acquaintance of Henry David Thoreau, resident of Walden).

 

As I am the world, and I am here to gain faith  that I am whole, then I am the ashes of the Twin Towers, of Treblinka, of sugar cane monoculture killing tropical lands, and the ashes of quake produced fires in Haiti.  I am also the phoenix who rises out of the ashes, me, the world, the universe, here temporarily now as the ashes of old stars.  Would that me, the old, could see the new that is always there beyond apocalyptic nightmares.

 

What in you or the world or you do you reject or resist?  Is there anything you are running from, and in the business, do not see the beauty and the tragedy of this moment?

Austral Patagonian Falcon Project

Today's Guest Author:  Miguel D. Saggese, recently back from a conservation trip to Argentina to study Austral Peregrine Falcons.

(to see complete article with pictures:  Download Austral_Patagonian_Falcon_project LoraKim pictures included1

HEALTH STATUS OF AUSTRAL PEREGRINE FALCONS (FALCO PEREGRINUS CASSINI) IN SOUTHERN PATAGONIA, ARGENTINA

Miguel D. Saggese, DVM, MSc., PhD. College of Veterinary Medicine - Western University of Health Sciences, Pomona, 91767, California msaggese@westernu.edu

 Agustin I. Quaglia, Fundación de Historia Natural Félix de Azara. Departamento de Ciencias Naturales y Antropología. CEBBAD – Universidad Maimonides. Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires. Argentina

 Isabel Caballero, Lic. Cs. Biol, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illinois, USA

 Dr. David Ellis, PhD., Institute for Raptor Studies, Oracle, Arizona, USA

 Dr. Wayne Nelson, PhD. Institute for Raptor Studies, Oracle, Arizona, USA

 This studied is conducted in collaboration with two other ongoing research projects on this species: 1) Evolutionary genetic structure in a widespread avian predator the Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus) – PI: Dr. Isabel Caballero and 2) Phylopatry, breeding success and diet of Austral Peregrine falcons in Southern Argentina – Co-PIs: Drs. David Ellis and Wayne Nelson (Institute for Raptor Studies, Oracle, Arizona, USA).

 The Austral Peregrine Falcon

 The Austral or Patagonian peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus cassini) is one of the less known subspecies of this falcon worldwide. It is found along the Andes Mountains, Patagonian steppes and sea coasts of southern South America. The current conservation status of this falcon in Argentina is completely unknown and studies about its health status are lacking. Many species of raptors, including peregrine falcons, are globally threaten by human persecution, reduction in the availability of prey, use of pesticides, collisions with power lines and illegal commerce. Recently, the roles of macro and microparasites and diseases as an additional cause of demographic changes in some wild raptors populations, including peregrine falcons, have been recognized (Newton 2002). As for other aspects of the Austral peregrine falcon biology and ecology, there is a lack of information about exposure to macro and microparasites and their potential impact on their populations. Understanding the role that diseases may play in its decline in the wild may contribute to its management and conservation. Therefore, during the months of November and December 2009 we planned to conduct field research on this species and investigate its health status in southern Patagonia, Argentina. As veterinarians interested in the role of diseases on wildlife populations, our specific goals were to 1) establish baseline physiological reference values (hematology, serum biochemistry and plasmatic cholinesterases) of free-ranging nestlings’ Austral peregrine falcon; 2) investigate the prevalence of selected avian infectious and parasitic diseases in these birds, and 3) train argentine veterinarians, biologists and students in biomedical sampling of birds of prey.

 

Why investigate the health status of austral peregrine falcons?

 A wide range of macro and microparasites are known to affect free ranging raptors with variable consequences, including reduced breeding success and population decline. The prevalence of bacterial, fungal, viral and parasitic pathogens in free-ranging argentine raptors has been scarcely investigated and no information exists about the exposure of austral peregrine falcons to common avian pathogens. A occurs with other species of birds, including other species of raptors, it is possible that free-ranging austral peregrine falcons may be exposed to a large list of common avian pathogens. The list includes- but not limited to- bacteria (Chlamydophila psittaci, Salmonella sp, Campylobacter sp, Mycoplasma sp., Mycobacterium sp., Pasteurella multocida), viruses (Paramyxovirus 1, Adenovirus, Herpesvirus, Poxvirus, Influenza virus, Arboviruses (such as West Nile virus), Fungi (Aspergillus sp.), protozoos (Thricomonas sp., Plasmodium sp. ), ectoparasites and gastrointestinal and respiratory parasites as well.   

 Hematological and clinical biochemistry reference values have not been reported for austral peregrine falcons. These reference values are considered useful for monitoring bird’s health status, establish prognosis of diseases and responses to therapy, assess physiological and pathological conditions, and evaluate endocrine disruption and immune supression. Pesticide poisoning (organophosphates, organ chlorines, carbamates and pyrethrins) is well known for contributing to the death, decreased reproduction and population declines of several species of birds of prey worldwide. Peregrine falcons worldwide have been severely affected by the use of organochlorines in the past century and exposure to these organ chlorines has been previously reported for austral peregrine falcons by David Ellis in 1986. Peregrine falcons are also particularly susceptible to the use of organophosphates and strychnine. They are widely used by Patagonian ranchers as baits to kill foxes, pumas and other carnivores, including birds of prey.  

 The field trip

 The field trip begun in Mid-November when David Ellis and Wayne Nelson, raptor biologists that have studied peregrine falcons in different parts of the world during more than 30 years, conducted surveys for active eyries (nesting sites) of Austral peregrine falcons. Many of these nest sites were previously surveyed by David Ellis and collaborators 25 years ago, but haven’t been revisited since then. The main goals of this survey were to evaluate nest site fidelity, count the number of active nests and collect samples for population genetic studies. Furthermore, results of this survey allowed us to access nestlings of this species and collect biomedical samples so we can investigate their health status. This constituted a certainly unique opportunity to investigate the prevalence of exposure to selected macro and microparasites, heavy metals and pesticides that could have a negative impact on Austral peregrines. In the first days of December, with Isabel Caballero, we joined David and Wayne in southern Patagonia to focus on the biomedical sampling of these birds.

 Our trip took us to remote locations in the middle of the Patagonian steppes, where not only we saw austral peregrine falcons but also we were exposed not only to the rigors of Patagonia (winds can reach 100 miles per hour and temperature can raise up to 120 F!) but also to its beauties. Breathtaking landscapes and amazing wildlife are common sightings for the traveler or researcher visiting this remote and wild area of the world. Guanacos, Culpeo foxes, Maras (Patagonian hares), Choiques (Darwin’s  rheas), Magellanic geese, Andean Condors and Buzzard Eagles are common inhabitants of the steppe. We were very lucky by the large number of these and other wildlife species we saw during our trip. This is an extra benefit that Patagonia gives to the visitors trying to find its secrets. The white morph of the Austral peregrine falcons is one of them, no doubt about it. We were lucky enough to investigate several nesting sites occupied with this little known color morph of this species.  

 What are the white or pallid austral peregrine falcons?

 Austral falcons are the only subspecies of peregrine falcons worldwide that present a white or pallid color morph. This color variation was considered a different species for a long time, since its first description for science in 1920’s. It was originally called Kleinschmidt’s falcon (Falco kreyemborgii), until 1980, when David Ellis (USA) and Cesar P. Garat (Argentina) studied the species in detail and concluded it was just a color morph of the austral peregrine falcon (Falcon peregrines cassini). Still, the biology, distribution and conservation status of these Patagonian white falcons are mostly unknown. We still have so much to learn about them…

 The future

 The study started last year (2009) provided the first ever data available on baseline health parameters and reference values for the austral peregrine falcons in Argentina and South America. Combined with additional biological data and population status obtained simultaneously during this study the expected results will allow us to better assess the health status of these birds and understand the potential impact that macro and microparasites and heavy metals may have on free-ranging populations of Austral Peregrine Falcons in southern Argentina. Furthermore, these results, together with those from the population status, nest site fidelity, breeding success and genetic studies, will contribute to a better understanding of the current conservation status and threats of Austral peregrine falcons in Argentina and will set the grounds for future monitoring of these populations. In November and December of 2010 the whole team will head down south again to visit more nesting sites and continue the work we started at the end of 2009.

  All birds underwent a complete physical examination and blood and other samples were was collected.

 NOTE: Information about the exact locations of the different nests will not be made publicly available to protect the species form human predation, egg and nestling collection, and other forms of human impact.

Acknowledgements

 This project was supported in part by generous funding provided by The Schubot Exotic Bird Health Center and Lafeber Company. Special thanks to Dr. LoraKim Joyner for all her support and encouragement to this project. 

Sortie for Sora

Sora (photo by Mike Baird) 

 

On Saturday I journeyed with some 15 Unitarian Universalists from our congregation to walk the La Chua Trail in Payne's Prairie State Park.  This outing was part of our Nature Spirituality Circle of Life where we gather to support one another in connecting to life and affirming that all beings belong on this planet. Out of this sense of belonging we hope to grow our ability to not just welcome the stranger in our lives, but to work with them in building a be-loving community.

The birds and the people were so beautiful!  We beheld a flock of White Pelicans flying through the blue sky showing off their white grace that could be seen from across the Prairie.  We witnessed a Great  Blue Heron only a few meters away struggling to swallow a fair sized gar (fish with very point jaws).  Then there was the Red-shouldered Hawk pouncing on a snake and snacking in front of us. Far in the distance were two Whooping Cranes, bring out whoops from the people gathered around.  So blessed was the day that when a group of young adults stopped to stare at an American Bittern standing guard nearby, I smiled to hear them struggle to identify it, considering that is was possibly a baby Great Blue Heron.  Some of the other birds we say were Osprey, all the usual herons and egrets, Bald-eagles, Yellow legs, Moorhens, Coots, anhingas, comorants, dowitchers, ducks, hawks of all kinds, and our beloved Turkey and Black Vultures (to name just a few).

The bird that stays in my waking dreams was the Sora.  I can't remember seeing one before. This birds was awkwardly climbing through the trail side vegetation that was near the water's edge.  It seemed so wonderful to see this small rail so close, close enough that I could see that the bird had an injured left leg and was limping. 

In the midst of the beauty, is a deeper truth that is also beauty: where we see the light of sky and companionship, the wings of death and suffering brush by our face too, rising, rising, I pray in joy.