[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Comments on trends - re Jordan Lake CBC



Though I am swayed by Clyde's comments, I am generally never content to 
ascribe population issues to one factor.  My own (very limited) experience 
indicates that in my area of the piedmont, the decline in Bobwhites was 
quite precipitous, almost sudden.  Did agricultural changes happen that 
quickly?  (I'm being vague on time scale here because, quite honestly, I 
have no data!)

I do wonder about disease.  Commercial chicken production has been feeding 
chickens antibiotics for many years.  This could easily result in resistant 
strains of diseases.  Since nobody has been feeding the Bobwhites any 
antibiotics, and since they are reasonably closely related gallinaceous 
birds (fowl), might they be especially susceptible?  Diseases certainly can 
cause precipitous declines (note the local House Finches).  Then the 
habitat effects could keep the population from coming back.

I'm just arm-waving here, folks.  As I said, I have no data.  And I haven't 
been reading the literature.

And while I'm on a roll. . . . I have friend who farms fish near 
Wilmington, NC.  He is especially unsympathetic to the Hooded Mergansers 
that visit his ponds.  Fish farming has grown tremendously in recent 
years.  Are the Mergs enjoying the fruits of this bountiful harvest?

Norm
***********************************************
Norman Budnitz         919-684-3592 (day)
nbudnitz@duke.edu      919-383-0553 (eve)
                        919-660-7293 (fax)

(work)	Department of Biology, Duke University
	Box 90338, Durham NC 27708-0338
(home)	4115 Garrett Drive, Durham NC 27705-8005

PROGRESS: the victory of laughter over dogma.
(Tom Robbins, Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas)