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Title: Flight of the Falcons
Authors: Michael Tennesen
Source: KEY PORTER BOOKS; Copyright 1992
Database: D Drive
FLIGHT OF THE FALCON
(The Plight of Falcons Wordwide)
by Michael Tennesen
SAMPLE CHAPTER
CHAPTER 6; Driven out of House and Home
First light ushers in a concert of animal noises in the jungles of Tikal in
Guatemala. Melodious black birds harmonize in flute like melodies celebrating
the dawn. Aztec parakeets, white-crowned and red lored parrots, and scarlet
macaws play their own vocal instruments, while a lineated woodpecker pounds
out the back beat on a jungle palm. The crescendo continues to rise until day
break when the principal sopranos, the howler monkeys joins the cacophony
bursting out with lion like voices that can be heard for miles.
I am sitting in the ruins of the Plaza Mayor, what was once the ceremonial
gathering point of this 1400 year old old Mayan City now the center piece of
Guatemala's largest jungle park. Tikal is to this small Central American
country what Banff National Park is to Canada, or Yellowstone is to the United
States. Long protected, the wildlife within the park's boundaries is both
plentiful and oblivious to human intruders.
On the jungle covered trail that runs like a green tunnel up to the ruins,
the spider monkeys rustle in the trees overhead as they crawl from limb to
limb. At one point I stop for a troop of about 50 coatimundis, members of the
raccoon family with banded snouts and tails, crossing the trail. In the
morning the small gray foxes forage around your cabin as the oscillated
turkeys spread their resplendent rainbow colors to the morning sun.
Tikal has 5 temples which rise up over the jungle canopy giving you a
commanding view of the surrounding wildlife. The Plaza Major has two of these
high pyramid like temples at either end, with a number of smaller bleacher
like structures surrounding the ceremonial alters where ancient Mayans
sacrificed both animal and man to win favor from the gods. Tikal has a
number of falcons, including the barred forest-falcon, the collared forest
falcon, and the laughing falcon, but perhaps the most visible is the bat
falcon. A pair of bat falcons nest at the south end of the Plaza atop the
Temple of the Jaguar.
The bat falcon is a smaller falcon, males averaging from 128 g (4.5 oz) and
females 209 (7 oz). The size ratio is one of the widest of the falcon
species, males averaging only about 61% of the weight of the female. Still
the male is a tremendously quick and agile hunter. Again, though the
peregrine may be faster in the stoop or dive, the bat falcon along with the
merlin, the teita falcon, and the hobby may be the fastest in direct
flapping flight.
The male on top of the Temple of the Jaguar is intently hunting: jerking
his head up and down and from side to side, looking for prey to fly into
a vulnerable position in the jungle air away from cover. Suddenly he spots
something and takes a dive off his perch. A few powerful beats from his
wings and he is almost supersonic, flying over my head, and leaving in his
wake a loud "wooosh" that both surprises and amazes me.
Bat falcons are dedicated aerial hunters almost never hunting from the
ground but taking small birds, bats, and flying insects exclusively from the
air. The birds are regal looking with dark wings, cap, and vest, chestnut
pantaloons, and a whitish collar tinged with rust.
The bat falcon returns to the top of the temple, empty handed, and so
continues the hunt. Suddenly his cry pierces the jungle morning "ke-ke-ke-ke"
as two large black vultures join him on top of the temple. He continues the
commotion for a few minutes, but when the much larger carrion eaters refuse
to move, the bat falcon deserts his perch and flies to the top of a nearby
dead tree stump.
The vultures are a serious problem at Tikal. The park used to have a nesting
pair of orange breasted falcons, a larger, rarer bird that looks much like a
bat falcon. It was a matter of park pride since fewer than ten nesting sights
have been recorded in the world.
But the vultures chased them from their nest. Park biologists feel the
vultures are attracted to the garbage put out by the hotels and restaurants
inside the the park. They've tried to encourage these people to be more
sanitary with their rubbish, but the idea of ecology is new in Guatemala,
even in Tikal.
Though within the boundaries of the park the forest is 99.5% undisturbed,
outside the park things are quite different. In a survey of a typical area
just south of Tikal, only 28.6% of the tract was forested and, of that, only
4.3% undisturbed forest, the rest being second growth. With clearcutting
continuing at a rate of 3 % per year, survey biologists predict that the
total forested area could disappear within 10 years.
But now the Guatemalan government in cooperation with the United Nation's Man
and Biosphere Program has established the Maya Biosphere Reserve that will
protect an area of 1.5 million hectares (3.45 million acres) including Tikal
and all the land north to the Mexican border. With Mexico and Belize creating
adjoining biospheres in their own countries, the total area will represent
the largest contiguous protected area in all of Central America.
In many ways Guatemala is a microcosm of what is happening in other tropical
third world nations in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Virgin
rainforest originally covered 11 million km2 of the tropics, but now only 1
million km2 remain.
It is a critical wildlife concern. Fifty percent of the animals on the planet
live in the tropics yet the tropics constitute only 10% of the land mass of
the planet. And we know little of that area's raptor community. There are a
number of tropical raptor species for which the first nest has yet to be
found.
And tropical species don't share the same reprieve from DDT and dieldrin that
their northern cousins do. Though the bat falcon is one of the most common
falcons in all the lowland tropical forests of Mexico, Central and South
America; in the coastal Pacific farming communities of Guatemala it has
become a rarity. On the eastern coastal plains of Mexico north of Veracruz,
biologists have been unable to locate any nesting bat falcons at historical
nesting sights.
In both places nearly all the lowland forest has been cut for wood or to
create agricultural fields. Eggshells of bat falcons in Northeastern Mexico
collected in the 60's and 70's showed 18 % thinning, the same level that
was so deadly to peregrine populations. And the use of DDT continues. Tikal
is located in the northern lowlands of Guatemala, in the province of Peten.
Peten is typical of agriculturally developed tropical jungles. Though the
jungle is a vital rich biosystem, the soils beneath it are practically
sterile. "You scrape away the leaf litter," says Dave Whitacre, head of
Project Maya studying the raptor community in the Peten for the Peregrin
Fund, "and you'll see there is a thin layer of leaf litter and essentially
no humus. You get down to mineral soil almost immediately."
The leaf litter is rapidly decomposed by the incredible biomass of jungle
insects. Leaf cutter ants cut long 6 or 7 inch wide clean paths through the
leaf litter in Tikal. And nitrogen and potassium are leached out of the soils
by the heavy rains. The nutrients in the tropics are essentially held within
the trees--in the “life.” Thus when you take away the forest, the land is
poor for agriculture. On the road from the Flores airport in Peten to Tikal,
we stop the car at a section of patchwork jungle that exposes the series of
successions that typically occur with the slash and burn type of agriculture.
In a tree overlooking the mosaic, perches a laughing falcon. Laughing falcons
are closely related to falcons though not of the genus falco. They appear to
be able to hunt in both the virgin canopy within Tikal and within the modified
forest. They get their name from their call which sounds much like a human
laughing. While at rest, they utter a low chuckle. While defending their nests
they have a high pitched hysterical cackle.
Laughing falcons eat snakes, which they pull from the forest canopy. Megin
Parker, a University of Idaho biologist who studies the laughing falcon for the
Maya Project, has seen laughing falcons eating 21 different species of snakes
including some poisonous snakes. The birds have specially cupped scales on
their legs to shield them from bites. During the nesting season, the male will
often bring live snakes to incubating females, even 2 1/2 meter long tree
snakes, which the birds "suck down like spaghetti."
The laughing falcon, a light golden collared bird with a dark brown mask,
wings, and striped tail has made a pact with the farmers because it eats
snakes. Not so well negotiated is the relationship that the Guatemalan farmer
has with the tropical forest.
In slash and burn style agriculture, farmers take a tract of forest and cut
it down during the dry season. They let the wood dry for a month or so and
then they torch it before the rainy season. Thus the nutrients in the trees
are released in the form of ash. The farmer tills the soil and plants his
crop just before the rains.
The first season the crop is good, the insect pests and weeds are at a
minimum and the soil is rich. But with each successive crop, the soil gets
poorer, the insects and the weeds build up, and the output grows weaker. In
some areas they can get 5 to 10 crop rotations but in most areas after 2 or
3 rotations the field is abandoned and the farmer moves on to cut down
another section of the jungle.
Slash and burn is not all bad. After a field has been abandoned it begins
to move back toward forest. Leave it along long enough, and it will return
to mature forest. If farmers are doing rotation over a large enough area it
creates a mosaic of habitat of all different successional states. It may
maintain the maximum biodiversity of any agricultural system as long as
their are large enough chunks of primary forest so that their are still
primary animals like jaguars and forest falcons.
In the pristine aboriginal system when the human population densities are
low, slash and burn is a fine system. But when the population densities
get too high, the forest is cut before it matures. The soils grow
increasingly infertile. Species disappear. "Ninety percent of the stuff
that lives in the forest in Tikal," says Whitacre gesturing to the
patchwork jungle before us, "is not in these successional patches."
Biologists use the falcon as an indicator species. Just the presence of
certain raptors is proof of the existence of a healthy ecosystem. And since
falcons live at the top of the food chain, if you protect them, you are
protecting all the species beneath them. In this way they also function as an
umbrella--if you have falcons, you have healthy wildlife populations and
healthy habitat as well. Public relations wize, the falcon appeals to the
macho ethic of Latin America and is thus a useful tool in the war to save
the jungle.
Guatemala's environmental problems extend beyond its borders. On a 2 hour
walk through the jungle in Tikal with Whitacre, we spotted 27 species of
birds, 12 of which were migrants from North America. The problems of
pesticides and deforestation that Latin American birds face are also shared
by birds who only come here in the winter.
Conversely problems shared by Africa's birds are also shared by the migrants
from Eurasia who travel there during the northern winter. And the falcons
who feed on these birds get a biomagnified dose of those problems.
In the afternoon I follow Miguel Angel Vasquez, a 28 year old native
Guatemalan, into the jungle. Miguel is using a radio receiver to track a
signal from a barred forest falcon which was fitted with a radio transmitter
by biologist Russel Thorstrom during the last nesting season. It has been
Miguel's job to track the daily activities of this falcon to determine how
much territory it requires.
The signal is growing stronger and Miguel whispers to me that the falcon
could be only meters away. The barred forest falcon is also closely related
to other falcons though not of the genus falco. It hunts birds, reptiles, and
small mammals in short sudden surprise attacks flying through the trees,
though biologists have also seen it literally run after its prey on the
ground or on tree limbs. The birds is slatey backed with gray barring on its
underside.
Miguel tells me to watch the forest for movement. We freeze in anticipation
of a sighting, but are rewarded only with the buzzing of the mosquitoes on a
hunt themselves for some soft uncovered human skin.
Miguel holds two jobs: as a researcher for the Maya Project, and as a park
guard in Tikal. As a guard he is paid $200 quetzales a month, as a falcon
researcher he makes another $240 quetzales. The total, $440 quetzales, is the
equivalent of $171 American, $198 Canadian, $255 German, or $87 British, low
wages in any language.
The country is so poor that many of the researchers do not have bird books,
let alone binoculars. Guatemalan universities don't have the funds to
subscribe to the major biological journals.
Guatemala sends some of its most promising young biologists to universities
in Canada and the United States but most often these people return to the
country and are put on desk jobs in the capital, never to see the jungle
again. The Maya Project is trying to counteract this by training bright young
men like Miguel who may lack certain schooling but have lived in the forest
and possess a lot of common sence about it. By teaching ecology to people like
Miguel, it is hoped that the message will get out to the common man.
"Ultimately if there is to be effective long term conservation in any
country," says Whitacre, "it has to come from within."
Only a year ago Guatemala created CONAP (Consejo Nacional de Areas
Protegidos/National Council on Protected Areas) to administer both the Maya
Biosphere and another 1/2 million hectare reserve known as Sierra Las Minas
in the south central part of the country.
Being new, CONAP's first problem has been simply making itself known. Maria
Jose Gonzales, a dark haired Guatemalan biologist sits in her office in
Guatemala city. She is in charge of the flora and fauna section of CONAP and
has been trying to get researchers in the country to register with the
agency.
"There has been lots of excellent research done in Guatemala but mostly by
foreign researchers who take their information out of the country, publish,
and we never know what was done."
Research is not the only problem in Guatamala, there are social ills, too,
that affect the environment. In his plush offices in Guatemala city, Jay
Vannini, an American born Guatemalan citizen, shows me photos of a bat falcon
he released to his coffee plantation on the Pacific Coast of that country.
Besides being a successful coffee merchant, Vannini is president of the
Fundacion Interamerican de Investigacion Tropical.
Vannini feels that the land owners in Guatemala, most of which are of European
extraction, are becoming more environmentally aware and that that awareness
is reaching down to the plantation workers as well. "From our experience we
notices a very fast trickle down. The workers on our plantation have gotten
very excited about the bat falcon release."
But Vannini feels that the real problem is not managing species but managing
the people. "Guatemala has a population that is growing at 3.5% annually.
We've had enormous advances in the last 5 years in conservation, but until
the population issue is handled, there can be no real hope in Guatemala."
Still Vannini, blond and successful, is part of the landed gentry in
Guatemala. Though these people may indeed becoming more environmentally aware,
the lower classes are more concerned with the day to day needs of feeding and
clothing their families. In Guatemala there is a definite schism between the
mestizo population, those born of Indian and European descent, and those born
of pure Indian extraction.
Guatemala has a history of human rights abuses of the Indians, from the day
the Spanish first came in and burned their Mayan lords at the stake. While I
was visiting the country, 23 Indians were killed in a clash with government
soldiers at Lago Atitlan in the Southern Highlands a few hours outside the
capital. In Peten rebels stopped 18 truck loads of gasoline and poured the
gas out on the ground. Biologists worried that the gasoline would eventually
seep into the lakes, rivers and ground water of Peten and wreck environmental
havoc.
Guatemala shares many of the same problems as third world nations like
Madagascar, a country about the size of Texas, which lies 400 km off the
coast of southeast Africa. Madagascar was once completely covered with forest
but has now only 20% left, of which only 4% is undisturbed. Since its
independence in the early 70's, the environment has gone rapidly down hill.
Silt run-off due to deforestation has begun to choke its rivers and rice
paddies. Silt has even clogged the western port of Najunga where ships must
now unload their cargo offshore. Silt is even destroying the surrounding coral
reefs, vital habitat for offshore marine life.
But Western nations including Germany, France, the United States and Canada,
as well as world wide organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund and
the World Bank have committed billions of dollars in aid to rescue
Madagascar's fragile ecosystem.
Madagascar split from Africa 165 million years when dinosaurs still ruled
the world and so evolution there has taken its own direction. According to
biologist Rich Watson who was born in South Africa, educated in England,
and now works in Madagascar for the World Center for Birds of Prey,
"Because of its isolation there are species found in Madagascar that exist
no where else in the world."
Madagascar is the wintering grounds for Eleonora's falcon and the sooty
falcon. The sooty falcon with an average wingspan of 97 cm (38 1/2 in) is
smaller than Eleonora's falcon with an average wingsapn of 120 cm (47 in).
Still both species have uniform slate grey backs and crowns, some of the same
habits, and possibly a common ancestor, making them difficult to tell apart
in the field.
Sooty falcons breed in the Middle Eastern Desert and the offshore islands of
the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. Both
falcons feed on the enormous insect populations produced during the tropical
rainy season in Madagascar. But the landscape now in that country is vastly
different than the one these falcons have been migrating to for thousands of
years.
The banned Madagascar kestrel is perhaps the most affected by these
differences since it is a purely tropical forest dwelling species. Madagascar
currently has three highly endangered raptors including the Madagascar
serpent eagle and the Madagascar red owl, neither of which have been seen
for 50 years and may already be extinct.
In Mauritius, a country about 1050 km (650 miles) east of Madagascar, the
problems are again repeated. Mauritius is an island about 1840 km2
(720 miles2) but with over a million inhabitants, making it one of the most
densely populated countries in the world.
Mauritius is famous for the dodo bird and about 21 other endemic birds all of
which have become extinct since the island was inhabited in the 17th Century.
Like Madagascar, Mauritius was once covered by tropical forest but now has
fewer than 5,000 hectares of the original 170,000. Those acres are of prime
importance to the Mauritius kestrel, one of the rarest and most endangered
falcons in the world. The bird hunts the remaining forest canopy feeding
mainly on several species of geckos.
After a number of failed attempts to captively breed these birds, biologists
in a joint effort with ICBP, World Wildlife Fund, New York Zoological Society,
the Peregrin Fund, and the Government of Mauritius have finally triumphed.
Through rescue procedures such as incubating the first clutch of eggs,
guarding the nests from predators, and hack site releases, there are now 20
to 25 nesting Mauritius kestrels. And from a population that once numbered 9
individuals, there are now more than 100 in the wild. Still with the
Mauritius kestrel remaining so reliant on the remnant forest stands, further
progress had seemed impossible until biologists began hacking the birds in
sugar cane fields. These fields still have some remnant stands of trees along
water causeways from which the kestrels could hunt.
The most remarkable thing is that by this method, the falcon seems to have
lost its reliance on the day geckos and is now eating a wide variety of
birds and lizards found in the sugar cane.
Sugar cane may rate with politics as third world impediments to the
environment. In the Zambezi Gorge below Victoria falls in Zimbabwe, North
American biologists and members of the Zimbabwe Falconers Club have been
trying to census teita falcons but have been hampered by land mines planted
on the canyon rim during the last revolution. The teita falcon is a smaller
version of the peregrine, and another one of the rarest falcons in the world
with an adult population that may number only a few hundred in the wild. The
teita falcon in the Zambezi gorge is threatened not only by mines but by
Zimbabwe's plans to dam the gorge. And the teita falcon must also contend
with both DDT and dieldrin used in Zimbabwe to control mosquitoes and tsetse
flies, carriers of malaria and sleeping sickness.
These pesticides not only affect the teita falcon but migrant and resident
peregrines in the southern part of Africa. Peregrines there must also face
predation by tawny eagles, wahberg's eagles, and verreaus's eagles which take
young falcons, and Chacma baboons which raid peregrine nests. As habitat,
dwindles falcons come under increasing competition with other native species.
On a tall Mayan temple in the jungle of Tikal I listen for the sounds of
laughing falcons coming from the forest as the sun sets into the thick green
jungle canopy. Suddenly the silhouettes of two bat falcons approach through
the purple twilight.
Though it is difficult to read their silhouettes from afar, I know quickly
these are bat falcons by the tremendous power in their wings and the
incredible speed of their approach. The pair now begin circling the temple
top no more than 30 feet out from me.
With a precision that defies description, they start hawking large tropical
dragonflies out of the air, stooping down below their quarry and swooping
up at the last minute, their legs and talons outstretched...whap!...a bat
falcon plucks a dragonfly out of the sky, and...whap!...another does the
same and...whap!...again. With binoculars I see them raise their dinner to
their beaks and eat all but the legs which fall away like scraps from a
glutinous feast.
I run around the high temple top anxiouly, trying not to trip on the
assembled tourists who have come to this, the highest precipice in Tikal,
to watch the sunset. On top today are several Guatemalans, several Germans,
an American, a Canadian, a French woman, and 2 English. Excitement is the
common language, and all abandon their vigil of the sun and follow the
action of the birds.
Perhaps emotion deserves to be part of the ecological equasion. For if we
can get excited about the falcon, we may still be able to rescue its
environment.
And, in the balance, our own.
-- End --