Ski Trails Make Way for Bicknell's Thrush

About half of Bicknell?s Thrushes summer in the Adirondack Mountains of New York.

©Garth McElroy www.featheredfotos.com

The rare and threatened Bicknell's Thrush has a new coalition in its corner. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is one of seven government and conservation organizations joining forces in the Bicknell's Thrush Habitat Mitigation and Education Fund.

Biologists estimate that only 21,000 to 52,000 Bicknell's Thrushes remain in North America. About half of them spend the summer in forests of stunted spruce and fir above 2,800 feet in the Adirondack Mountains of New York. Under a new agreement signed by coalition members, state-owned lands above that altitude will be designated as Bird Conservation Areas, with special efforts made to protect the birds' habitat.

The New York State Olympic Regional Development Authority, a member of the coalition, has dropped plans to build a ski lodge and cabins at the top of Whiteface Mountain, and will be relocating proposed ski trails away from sensitive areas. New educational exhibits on Whiteface will inform visitors about Bicknell's Thrush and the conservation effort.

The threat to habitat is even greater at the other end of the migratory route on Hispaniola, where about 90 percent of the Bicknell's Thrush population spends the winter. Mountaintop forests on this Caribbean island are rapidly disappearing. A key element of the coalition agreement is fundraising to help preserve thrush habitat on Hispaniola.

"The Bicknell's Thrush is a wonderful example of how migratory birds can connect distant nations," said Ken Rosenberg, the Lab's director of Conservation Science. "Using funds from this New York initiative to benefit the bird's critical habitat in Hispaniola provides an excellent model for effective bird conservation."

—Pat Leonard

For permission to reprint all or part of this article, please contact Laura Erickson, editor, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, 159 Sapsucker Woods Rd., Ithaca, NY, 14850. Phone: (607) 254-1114. email: lle24@cornell.edu