By Shelby Stewart-Soldan
ssoldan@mihomepaper.com
Clarkston— The Peregrine Falcon, the fastest animal on earth, topping speeds of more than 200 mph zooming in on hunting dives has returned.
From 6:30-7:55 p.m., on April 30, Danielle Durham will present “Peregrine Falcon Conservation and the Art of Falconry” to the Clarkston Area Backyard Birders club at the Wint Nature Center, 9501 Sashabaw Road, Clarkston.
“If it wasn’t for falconers having stock to reintroduce the Peregrine into the wild, it likely would not have been able to come back,” said Durham, assistant naturalist at the State Nature Center in Troy.
Durham has worked with the Department of Natural Resources in the past with Peregrine Falcon monitoring, and is a master falconer. She now speaks on the conservation of the Peregrine Falcon and the process of bringing the breed back from local extinction.
The leading cause of the decline of the bird was pesticide use, specifically DDT, she said. It was also a factor for the decline in other birds of prey, such as the bald eagle.
“It’s a soluble chemical, so in small doses, it’s maybe not a big deal, but it gets into the bottom part of the food chain, and then it gets into their systems,” she said. “In birds of prey, it was preventing them from reproducing. They would lay eggs, and the shells would become too fragile and break, so no new birds were able to be hatched.”
The decline in the Peregrine Falcon population led to the bird being virtually extinct in the wild, with few or none existing in the wild and only existing in captivity. In the late 1970s, falconers were able to provide chicks to be released into the wild, which would then grow to breeding age and reestablish territories.
“They’re traditionally cliff nesters, which we don’t have a lot of in the Midwest, so they decided to start releasing them in cities where tall buildings would double as that cliff space,” she said. “Not only do they have ample space to nest, but also ample food sources with small birds in the area.”
In the 1980s, the State of Michigan collaborated with the University of Minnesota to do a release in Grand Rapids, then in Detroit.
“They didn’t have a baseline number of pairs that were in the wild prior to DDT use, but since they started to reintroduce them, the number of pairs have more than doubled, if not tripled or quadrupled,” she said.
Peregrine Falcons, as with other birds of prey, remain a key part of the animal food chain and the ecosystem in general as they relate to the environment and other species. They feed on smaller birds, which would grow in number without a predator.
“Take, for example, the wolves,” she said. “When wolves were eradicated from Yellowstone, the elk took over and changed the course of the river.”
The event is free and open to the public. For questions, call 248-688-9708. For events at Stage Nature Center, visit rec.troymi.gov.