Chickens in Distress

Remember that "Meet your Meat" film that PETA created a few years ago?  People thought, "It can't be that bad.  I'm sure most places don't treat their animals like that..."  Well, see for yourself. 

I personally took these photos at the Chase St. entrance on the SR10 going into Athens.  These chickens have arrived from Texas and are being delivered to a distributing plant in Athens, GA where they're "processed", divvied up and distributed to grocery stores.

I've been meaning to get some photos of these trucks for some time.  I often find dead chickens on the road that have fallen out.  Many of them on board are squashed and have broken legs.  I personally can't eat something that's suffered like this. 

The chicken at the top left has been crushed.  His feet are dangling out of the wire cage because either he's dead, or so weak he can't sit up.

This truck came all the way from Texas.  Long ride, especially when you're squashed among hundreds of other passengers

Beep.

Beep. 

Beep. 

Beep. 

Beep.

The radio receiver emits a series of steady pulses against a static background.  0.719 is sitting in a large Water Oak among twelve other Rusty Blackbirds.  The oaks surround a man-made pond, in a man-made environment consisting of two houses nestled on an open field, dotted with tall oaks and Loblolly Pines.  The birds sing together and sound like the turning hinges of an old iron gate.  Is their name derived from this sound?  Or is it inspired by the rust-colored feathers the males sport during the winter months?  Perhaps both.

Can you spot the RUBLs? 

Rusties like to be near water.  They largely depend on wetlands for their food during the winter months.  Invertebrates including insect larvae and worms, and vertebrates including minnows and the odd salamander, all high in protein, make up a large part of their diet.  When it gets cold or wet, the Rusties move into residential areas to eat pecans and acorns, which are higher in fat.

Over the last few decades the Rusty Blackbird has seen a marked decline in numbers.  Their population has dwindled since the 1960s and today, biologists are scrambling to determine why.  There are a number of theories that have been developed.  Many believe the problem lies on the wintering grounds.  Pesticides, mercury poisoning, loss of habitat, and an increase in natural predators are some of the factors being looked at.   

My job as a biologist with the Polistes Foundation in conjunction with the University of Georgia is to catch these birds and attach a radio transmitter to each individual so that I can track them in order to determine what they’re doing - where they’re going, what species they’re interacting with, and what they’re eating.  This research can give us insight into their personal lives and help determine what they need during the winter months, and whether or not they're getting it.

 

0.992, a female RUBL we captured after 0.719

The natural world is getting smaller and smaller  as urban environments and agriculture spread like a pernicious virus.  It’s as true here in Athens, Georgia as it is in the Amazon.  Wetlands, like the rainforests, are succumbing to bulldozers and dump trucks.  They are being drained and filled, or choked with silt and invasive plants.  And the species that depend on these habitats are disappearing. 

But we can't simply narrow it down to disappearing wetlands.  Many Icterid species use wetlands, like Red-winged, and Yellow-headed Blackbirds and their numbers (for now) seem to be stable.  So something else is acting on the Rusty Blackbird.  Perhaps it all comes down to flexibility. 

I ponder this as I watch 0.719.  Since 7:45 AM, he has been using the same residential area along with the rest of his flock.  It is now closing in on ten o'clock.  The sky is grey and a steady, misty rain falls.  Occasionally it pours, but it doesn’t last long.  The flock moves from tree to tree, settles to the ground along with Common Grackles, strutting around, picking at nuts, seeds, insects, and worms, before taking off into the trees once more.  Sometimes they’ll sit there for half an hour, preening and singing, before taking off in a ball.  0.719 eventually flies off with his flock, north into the thick of the wetland.  I move with them.

Why don't people take us "hippies" seriously?

At the end of the day, streaked with muck, with raspberry thorns embedded in my skin, and twigs in my hair, I walk back to my car.  I fold up the antenna and drive to the Kangaroo Express to get gas (I know).  At the pump a man pulls up behind me and gets out to fill his own tank.  He gives me a funny look. 

“Playing in the mud?” he asks.   

I look down at my filthy rubber boots and laugh.  I tell him I was tracking blackbirds.  I didn't include the “Rusty” part. Few people have any idea what a Rusty Blackbird is.  Fewer know that North America is home to over 716 species of breeding birds, and nearly twenty of those are Icterids including the traditional blackbirds like Red-winged Blackbirds, grackles, and cowbirds, as well as the orioles and meadowlarks.   

“Why would you bother doing that?” He presses.   Bother?  I silently scoff at his choice of words.   

I tell him they’re declining.  

“Like, endangered?” He asks.   

“Soon,” I reply,  “if nothing is done to help”.  

He laughed.  “Now, why would we want to keep a blackbird around?”  

I honestly didn’t know how to answer this question.  Not for lack of reasons.  I've tried many times to explain to the typical ignoramus who argued that "if you can't eat it, why keep it" that a world rich in biodiversity is a good thing.  There are many reasons why we should work to keep our many neighboring species around, but people on their way home from work don't like to stick around listening to a hippie blather on about why the planet needs saving.  

So, I simply said, “Why not?”

0.719 preparing to roost

Wait... And See.

The sky is gray

Some droplets fall

But fail to dampen our spirits

While every wintering bird

Comes to call

Yet in all this wet and gray

The RUBLs remain MIA

So, the Sapsuckers stick

To their chosen trunks, like paper clips

To a magnet

They scoot and tap their way

Up!

Until there is no bark left to inspect

And off they fly, away from my eye

For I can only see to the four corners

Of this small, car window

The Crows approach now

Closer, drawn by our yellow corn and egg bait

But they know something is awry

They want it so much, but

They keep their black-feathered distance

Shuffling, too smart for their own good

Curious and afraid

Eventually their fear takes them

Away!

Cackling and screeching, one to the other

The Blue Jays harass their nemesis birds

Brilliant and red

One moment perched and the next

Diving into the group of eight scarlet crests

Until the ball scatters among the mistle toe shrubs

The jay stands proudly in the center of the shadow

Of his own making

What do I feel for the shuffling doves

As they bob their small, smooth beige heads forward

Their blue spectacled eyes fall onto nothing

But only those things edible

With only one thing in mind,

The Mourning Doves do not flinch

At every sound

Or movement

Like the crows, blackbirds, and jays

Waddling fervently inside their flock they

Peck and pick and prattle and coo

And then, for no apparent reason at all

Up into the tall pecans

They wait

I hear the sinister ‘dee-dee-dee’s

Of the tiny forest punks

Those small, feathered yobs

Remind me of a roving gang of mischievous children

And as their acronym suggests

They are off caching bits of our bait

To ensure

On warmer winter days

Full bellies on the cold, wet grays

Alas, the brown-headed squeaky toys have arrived

In the late morning light

They brighten the wait

Their upturned bills tip downward

Toward the earth

My gaze snaps up
Into the bare branches

As the wet “chup” of the Myrtle Warbler

Pierces the cool air of this old

Pecan grove

From seven on, I did wait

And at eleven ‘o’ eight, the Starlings bold

They see the bait
But no one told

The Rusty Blackbirds, no

They do not show

Where would they be now?

We simply don’t know