Sanctuary Magazine Spring 2012

S NCTUARYSPRING 2012

THE JOURNAL OF THE MASSACHUSETTS AUDUBON SOCIETY

And No Birds SingFifty Years Since Silent Spring

Lynn HarveyElizabeth HeideTerilyn A. Henderson*Chris HeyeVirginia S. HibbardMaria HigginsDeborah V. Howard*James Hoyte Richard JohnsonJared KeyesJohn KricherEdwin F. Leach II James Levitt *Ann LewisThomas S. Litwin George Cabot Lodge Jr.Allegra LowittDavid LubinLeiha MacauleyWilliam F. MacauleyMary McFaddenKevin McLellanVirginia L. NicholasAl NierenbergCharles NimsSheila NuttJ. David Officer* Ronald P. O’HanleyMichael J. PapponeGeorge PendergastGeorge Putnam III*Mary Lou RobertsWalter Rosenfeld*James SaalfieldDoug SacraJudy A. Samelson*Jackie Jenkins ScottDedee ShattuckDavid SibleyPhyllis Solomon Andy SolowNancy SouletteLee Spelke*Marcus SpringerLisa StandleyAlexander L. ThorndikePatricia Thornton*Marian Thornton*Elizabeth Valentine*Rosamond B. Vaule Anna S. WhitcombJay WickershamAlan Wilson*Bryan Windmiller Julia Yoshida

* = Honorary Director

HONORARY DIRECTORSKathleen S. AndersonRobert C. BaronAnne BrookeBrian BrooksHamilton CoolidgeLewis S. DabneyEugene B. DoggettMrs. Alexander Ellis Charles H. FargoJohn C. FullerHenry LeeShirley M. JenkinsMrs. George M. Lovejoy Jr.Merloyd L. LudingtonDeborah W. MosesJohn F. O’ConnorHerbert W. PrattEdward H. RaymondDavid StarrJeffrey SwopeJohn L. ThorndikeMrs. Jeptha H. WadeSimon (Chip) WalkerDavid WalshThomas T. WarrenNancy WeissDudley H. WillisLaurence W. Zuelke

Long before I became the president ofMass Audubon, I was a loyal mem-ber who appreciated the organiza-

tion’s impressive history of conservationachievement. So, in 1999, I was proud andhumbled to be named the seventh presi-dent of Mass Audubon. And now, thirteenaction-packed years later, I have decidedto step down by the end of 2012.

Deciding to leave Mass Audubon was a hard choice, but aftermuch thought I concluded that both organizations and peopleneed occasional repotting, and that this is a time for MassAudubon and me to undergo that transition. Leading MassAudubon has been an extraordinary privilege, and I havelearned so much here. Now I look forward to applying thatknowledge and experience to new endeavors, and I believethat Mass Audubon will benefit from the energy and ideas ofa new leader. Rest assured that Mass Audubon is on solidground as it moves forward in its search for a new president.

As I reflect on the many accomplishments during my tenure,what stands out for me are the people I have been privileged towork with—members, staff, volunteers, partners, and col-leagues. Together we have achieved great things, and we havemoved toward an even more impressive record of success. Mostgratifying are themes spelled out in our strategic plan.

Connecting people and nature. Long a hallmark ofMass Audubon, our programs and sanctuaries provide fun,safe, and educational—indeed transformative—opportuni-ties for everyone to enjoy and understand nature. We haveplaced significant emphasis and effort on reaching new audi-ences, launching urban nature centers and programs, andseeking new partnerships.

Protecting and stewarding habitats. Our outstandingsanctuary system helps safeguard the rich biodiversity of thestate, and we have protected more than 6,000 additionalacres during my time as president. We continue to aspire tothe highest standard of land stewardship, including invasivespecies management and ecological restoration on our sanc-tuaries. Our bird conservation work, ranging from theCoastal Waterbird Program to our recently published State ofthe Birds, has had an enormous impact.

Responding to climate change. This past decade, we havebeen forced to grapple with this looming threat and decide whatMass Audubon can and should do. We have responded by reduc-ing our own carbon footprint by more than 40 percent, seekingto educate ourselves and others about climate change, and advo-cating for a renewable and clean energy future.

It will be many months before I officially step down, andwhen I do I will remain a proud member. In the meantime, Ipromise that we will continue to move ahead together withour ambitious agenda of conservation, education, and advo-cacy. Please accept my personal thanks to each of you foryour generous support through the years.

Laura Johnson, President

CHAIRJonathan Panek

VICE CHAIRSJared ChaseNora F. Huvelle

PRESIDENTLaura A. Johnson

CORPORATE SECRETARYKristin M. Barr

ASSISTANT CORPORATESECRETARYElaine Kile

TREASURERJeffrey F. Peters

ASSISTANT TREASURERSGary R. ClaytonBancroft R. PoorJan O’Neil

DIRECTORSJulian AgyemanRobert BallWalter (Jerry) BirdCatherine CampbellJared ChaseRichard ChuteDonald CooperPaula CortesNicholas d’ArbeloffNina DoggettScott EdwardsNora F. HuvelleChristopher KlemErik KnutzenBeth Kressley GoldsteinVirginia LawrenceWilliam MadarDeborah MillerJonathan PanekJeffrey F. PetersHelen PoundsJohn RiehlAnne SnyderJames SperlingDavid Straus

COUNCIL CO-CHAIRSDonald CooperBeth Kressley Goldstein

COUNCILDennis ArseneauPriscilla BaileyJames BairdMarygrace BarberPeter Barber Carl BeattyRobert BertinJoseph BrevardSara BrydgesGeorge Butterworth III*Charles C. Cabot III Dix CampbellShawn CareyElliott CarrAlfred D. Chandler III*Jennifer CharlesJohn W. CobbJeffrey M. CollinsFranz Colloredo-Mansfeld*Donna CooperPaula CortesSarah CreightonThomas A. DeMarco III Alexander Ellis IIIKathleen EmrichBarbara E. Fargo*Jennifer FirthRichard T. T. FormanBruce FulfordAyla GavinsThaddeus GillespieH. David GoldJohn Green*John Hammond

BOARD OF DIRECTORSA Personal Thank You to Our Members

SANCTUARY SPRING 2012 1

Printed on recycled paperwith soy-based ink.

Mass Audubon works to protect the nature of Massachusetts for people and wildlife. Together with morethan 100,000 members, we care for 34,000 acres of conservation land, provide educational programs for225,000 children and adults annually, and advocate for sound environmental policies at local, state, and fed-eral levels. Mass Audubon’s mission and actions have expanded since our beginning in 1896 when our

founders set out to stop the slaughter of birds for use on women’s fashions. Today we are the largest conservation orga-nization in New England. Our statewide network of wildlife sanctuaries, in 90 Massachusetts communities, welcomes vis-itors of all ages and serves as the base for our work. To support these important efforts, call 800-AUDUBON (283-8266)or visit www.massaudubon.org.

SANCTUARYSPRING 2012Volume 50 Number 2

S TAFF

Editor:John Hanson Mitchell

Associate Editor:Ann Prince

Production Editor:Rose M. Murphy

Field Editors:Thomas Conuel Gayle Goddard-Taylor

Poetry Editor:Susan Richmond

Designer:Lynne Foy

Cover: Picture This photocontest Grand PrizeWinner— Robin by LeeFortier

Sanctuary (ISSN 0272-8966), South Great Rd., Lincoln, MA 01773. Published three times a year.Memberships are $750 guardian; $500 patron; $250 sponsor; $150 protector; $100 contributor;$80 family plus; $70 supporter; $65 family; and $48 individual. Reprints of this issue are avail-able. Write or call the publications office at Mass Audubon, Lincoln, MA 01773, 781-259-2167; oremail Sanctuary at [email protected]. Printed in the U.S.A.

Sanctuary is a journal about natural history and the environment that is published byMass Audubon three times a year. Opinions expressed herein are those of the authors andnot necessarily those of the Massachusetts Audubon Society. To respond to stories in thisissue, email us at [email protected].

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DEPARTMENTS

The Political Landscape 22

by Jennifer Ryan

Poetry 23

edited by Susan Richmond

Curious Naturalist 29

by Gordon Morrison

FEATURES

Earth Shakers 2

by John Hanson Mitchell

A Fable for Tomorrow 3

by Rachel Carson

The Trailblazer 4

by Gayle Goddard-Taylor

Silent No More 7

by Ann Prince

Of Kestrels, Meadowlarks, 10

and Polybrominated

Diphenyl Ethers

by Chris Leahy

Aftershocks 14

by Thomas Conuel

The Way They Were 17

by Wayne Petersen

2 MASSACHUSETTS AUDUBON SOCIETY

And yet, Carson was above all a nat-uralist, an aficionado of all things wildand free, and after some fifteen yearsof research she had come to under-stand that unless the onslaught ofchemicals aimed at the destruction ofagricultural pests was curtailed every-thing she loved—including the 97 per-cent of beneficial or harmless insectsand some of the brightest and bestsongsters of the bird world—would besadly diminished, even driven toextinction.

She had attempted to publish mag-azine articles about the pesticide prob-lem, but none of the journals she orher agent approached would dare totake on the subject. Paul Brooks wasthe only book publisher who saw theimportance of the endeavor andencouraged her to carry on.

Houghton Mifflin had already published The Edge ofthe Sea, which had become, along with The Sea AroundUs, a best seller, and Brooks, knowing Carson to be notonly a fluid writer but also a tireless and accurateresearcher, encouraged her all along the way andworked closely with her on drafts.

Silent Spring was published in 1962, after four yearsof writing. It appeared first in serial form in The NewYorker in June and was published in book form inSeptember.

Everyone involved in the project expected trouble, butperhaps not the extreme reaction the book received. AsPaul Brooks wrote in his own book about Rachel Carson,The House of Life, except perhaps for Darwin’s TheOrigin of the Species, no single book garnered as muchvitriol as Silent Spring. Carson was immediately mar-ginalized by some as a “little old lady in tennis shoes”—as all women conservationists of that era were termed.She was denounced as a “hysterical women,” and, afterthe corporation stiffs couldn’t dig out any juicy moraldepravity with which to discredit her, she was termed “a nun of nature.”

Be that as it may, she and the book endured.In the end, Paul Brooks suggested that the anger that

pesticide companies, the Department of Agriculture,and the food industry leveled against her went far deep-er. She had in effect struck at the arrogance of Westerntechnological society, the ultimate hubris of the beliefthat human beings can control nature.

JHM

At the exact moment of the 1989San Francisco earthquake, some-one here on the other side of the

North American continent smashed intothe rear end of my car as I was headedto an event in Boston. The car wasrammed off the road into a ditch, but,resolute, after the requisite exchange ofpapers, I decided to forge on. I didn’twant to miss the occasion.

The event was an aftershock of anoth-er sort of earthquake. It was a celebra-tion of the 80th birthday of Paul Brooks,who had been the editor in chief atHoughton Mifflin for twenty-five years.Many members of the old guard of the1960s publishing and environmentalmovement were there that night, andthere were many honoring speeches,and much raising of glasses, and jokes,and banter, and not a little seriousness.

Brooks himself had published a number of naturalhistory and environmental books and essays. But per-haps his best work was behind-the-scenes. It was hewho, against the odds, accepted a book idea for a fieldguide to birds by a virtually unknown bird painternamed Roger Tory Peterson. It was also Paul Brookswho encouraged a modest peaceful nature lover andbiologist named Rachel Carson, who had publishedthree successful books on sea life, to jump into whatturned out to be the forefront of the emerging environ-mental movement at the dawn of the sixties.

The book was Silent Spring and, as both Brooks andCarson expected, the work lit a veritable firestorm ofcriticism from the affected corporations. It also sparkedthe fire—more than any other single publication—of ahost of activist environmental groups and governmentalagencies, including some such as the EnvironmentalProtection Agency that even today are under attack bycorporate entities and politicians.

Carson knew all too well that she would be personal-ly criticized, and even ridiculed and labeled incompetentas a result of the publication. Even though she hadassembled a vast amount of scientifically irrefutableevidence on the poisoning of the earth, she was at firstreluctant to write a full-length book. Not only that, con-centrating on environmental destruction was the oppo-site of what she had done with her other books. The SeaAround Us, The Edge of the Sea, and Under the Sea-Wind were celebrations of life. Silent Spring was to be adiatribe against the indiscriminate application of chem-icals of death.

Earth Shakers

Rachel Carson

There was once a town in the heart of Americawhere all life seemed to live in harmony withits surroundings. The town lay in the midst

of a checkerboard of prosperous farms, with fieldsof grain and hillsides of orchards where, in spring,white clouds of bloom drifted above the greenfields. In autumn, oak and maple and birch set upa blaze of color that flamed and flickered across abackdrop of pines. Then foxes barked in the hillsand deer silently crossed the fields, half hidden inthe mists of the fall mornings.

Along the roads, laurel, viburnum and alder,great ferns and wildflowers delighted the travel-er’s eye through much of the year. Even in win-ter the roadsides were places of beauty, wherecountless birds came to feed on the berries andon the seed heads of the dried weeds rising abovethe snow. The countryside was, in fact, famousfor the abundance and variety of its bird life, andwhen the flood of migrants was pouring inthrough spring and fall people traveled greatdistances to observe them. Others came to fishthe streams, which flowed clear and cold out ofthe hills and contained shady pools where troutlay. So it had been from the days many years ago whenthe first settlers raised their houses, sank their wells,and built their barns.

Then a strange blight crept over the area and every-thing began to change. Some evil spell had settled on thecommunity: mysterious maladies swept the flocks ofchickens; the cattle and sheep sickened and died.Everywhere was a shadow of death. The farmers spoke ofmuch illness among their families. In the town the doctorshad become more and more puzzled by new kinds of sick-ness appearing among their patients. There had been sev-eral sudden and unexplained deaths, not only amongadults but even among children, who would be strickensuddenly while at play and die within a few hours.

There was a strange stillness. The birds, for exam-ple—where had they gone? Many people spoke of them,puzzled and disturbed. The feeding stations in the back-yards were deserted. The few birds seen anywhere weremoribund; they trembled violently and could not fly. Itwas a spring without voices. On the mornings that hadonce throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds,doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird voices therewas now no sound; only silence lay over the fields andwoods and marsh.

On the farms the hens brooded, but no chicks hatched.The farmers complained that they were unable to raiseany pigs—the litters were small and the young survivedonly a few days. The apple trees were coming into bloom


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A Fable for Tomorrow

but no bees droned among the blossoms, so there was nopollination and there would be no fruit.

The roadsides, once so attractive, were now lined withbrowned and withered vegetation as though swept byfire. These, too, were silent, deserted by all living things.Even the streams were now lifeless. Anglers no longervisited them, for all the fish had died.

In the gutters under the eaves and between the shin-gles of the roofs, a white granular powder still showed afew patches; some weeks before it had fallen like snowupon the roofs and the lawns, the fields and streams.

No witchcraft, no enemy action had silenced the birthof new life in this stricken world. The people had done itthemselves.

This town does not actually exist, but it might easilyhave a thousand counterparts in America or elsewherein the world. I know of no community that has experi-enced all the misfortunes I describe. Yet every one ofthese disasters has actually happened somewhere, andmany real communities have already suffered a sub-stantial number of them. A grim specter has crept uponus almost unnoticed, and this imagined tragedy mayeasily become a stark reality we all shall know.

What has already silenced the voices of spring incountless towns in America? This book is an attempt toexplain.

Excerpted from Silent Spring by Rachel Carson.

for her later success as a writer. In fact, the essay greatlyimpressed two giants of the literary world. Quincy Howe,then editor at Simon & Schuster, urged her to write abook—and to discuss it with him if she did. HendrikWillem van Loon, author of the best-selling The Story ofMankind, arranged for Carson and Howe to meet.

Encouraged by their interest, Carson set to work onwhat would become her first book, Under the Sea-Wind,published in November 1941. Carson described this firstbook project as “a series of descriptive narrativesunfolding successively the life of the shore, the open sea,and the sea bottom.”

In this inaugural work, Carson the biologist andCarson the writer came together in eloquent synergy.Departing from the tradition of dense scientific writing,Carson evoked images that she saw in the natural worldin the mind of the reader. In one chapter, Carson writeslyrically about the death and subsequent regenerationof a species of jellyfish.

“Now the southwest storm, kneading the watersdeeply, had found the moon jellies. Rough waters seizedthem and hurried them shoreward…. Here their bat-tered bodies became once more a part of the sea, but notuntil the larvae held within their arms had been liber-ated into the shallow waters…settling down for the win-ter on the stones and shells, so that in the spring a newswarm of tiny bells might rise and float away.”

But all of Carson’s writing skills were not sufficient tocounter the ill-timed release of Under the Sea-Wind in1941, the eve of America’s entry into World War II.Lackluster book sales and small compensation for hereffort might have discouraged Carson but for an enthu-siastic response from the scientific community. In fact,excerpts from the book were used later by explorerWilliam Beebe in his anthology The Book of Naturalists.

During the war years, Carson’s role evolved in whathad become the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service fromassistant aquatic biologist to ultimately biologist andchief editor for the service’s various publications. Witheach advancement came increased duties, leavingCarson little time for her own writing. According toBrooks, she complained to a friend, “…if I could choosewhat seems to me the ideal existence, it would be just tolive by writing.”

Despite her increased workload and the responsibilityof caring for her mother and two nieces, Carson was, asalways, able to detach from these pressures whenevershe found herself out in nature—even if that happenedto be in her own backyard. In a passage that would laterbe included in The Sense of Wonder, she wrote: “After an


“Only within the 20th Century has biological thoughtbeen focused on ecology, or the relation of the living crea-ture to its environment…. So delicately interwoven arethe relationships that when we disturb one thread of thecommunity fabric we alter it all—perhaps almost imper-ceptibly, perhaps so drastically that destruction follows.”

Rachel CarsonEssay on the Biological Sciences in Good Reading (1958)

R achel Carson understood that all that she saw,and much that she didn’t, functioned as a bal-anced whole. It was something she gleaned from

spending many solitary hours contemplating tidal poolsteeming with life and the world of insects that camealive in her backyard at night. Physically fragile and bynature private, Carson seems hardly the candidate toface off a powerful chemical industry. Yet she did justthat.

Although her most widely known book, Silent Spring,published fifty years ago, stirred a sea change in theway people look at pesticides, insecticides, and othertoxins, Carson had long been inspiring readers of herearlier writings to look with new eyes at the naturalworld and see the intertwined relationships within. Andwhile she didn’t seek celebrity, neither did she shrinkfrom it when her books generated enormous interest.

In his biography of Carson, The House of Life, her lateeditor and friend Paul Brooks recalls that she neithertook success for granted nor gave short shrift to the let-ters it generated from her readers. “She would drive toher cottage in Maine with a carload of fan mail, deter-mined to answer as many letters personally as her timeand strength allowed,” he wrote.

Born in 1907 in Springvale, Pennsylvania, RachelLouise Carson grew up on a small farm, where she lovednothing more than to explore the rural landscape—encouraged by a mother who shared her interest in thenatural world. As a high school student, a bookish Carsonseemed to be charting an early plan to become a writer: atthe age of 10, she penned a story that was published in St. Nicholas, a children’s magazine.

She continued to pursue writing in college, although acourse in biology so fascinated her that she switched hermajor to zoology. Ultimately, she combined both inter-ests into one career when she took a job as a biologistwith the Bureau of Fisheries in Washington, D.C., whichinvolved her in the bureau’s publications.

Brooks credits Carson’s essay, Undersea—publishedin 1937 by the Atlantic Monthly—as the launching pad

The TrailblazerThe life and times of Rachel Carson

by Gayle Goddard-Taylor


hour of exploring by flashlight, you realize as neverbefore how alive the night is. It is alive with a thousandwatchful eyes. It is filled with the tenseness of the weakwho must be swift to evade their stronger enemies. It isvibrant with the stealth and cunning of those who muststalk their prey to live.”

In 1946, Carson rented a cabin on the SheepscotRiver near Boothbay, Maine, and spent her daysabsorbed in the flora and fauna of the river’s edge andthe seashore. It became her dream to buy her own placethere one day, a dream she realized several years later.The success of her second book, The Sea Around Us,allowed her to buy land along the river in WestSouthport, and there she built a summer cottage.

As her duties at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Servicecontinued to expand, Carson embarked on a series ofbooklets that described the ever-growing number ofwildlife refuges. The project gave her the opportunity tostress the importance of looking at nature as it func-tioned as a whole—ecologically.

In one booklet, she wrote, “Wildlife, water, forests,grasslands—all are parts of man’s essential environ-ment; the conservation and effective use of one is impos-sible except as the others also are conserved.”

It would be a full decade after Carson’s Underseaessay appeared in Atlantic Monthly before The SeaAround Us was published. It was an ambitious under-taking, but by this time Carson had acquired not only avast understanding of the subject but also extensivecontacts within the oceanographic community.

Her aim in The Sea Around Us was to incorporate thelatest oceanographic research and newest scientific con-cepts developed during the war years. As always, though,she wrote this book with the lay person in mind. It tookher three years of working late at night and stealing timehere and there to complete the book.

After the dismal performance of her first book, Carsondecided this time to enlist a literary agent. At the sug-gestion of friends, she chose Marie Rodell, a decisionthat resulted not only in a successful literary partner-ship but also an enduring friendship. While their firstattempt to find a publisher failed, it prompted Carson toflesh out the rejected outline with more chapters. Armedwith a rough draft that was nearly a third of the pro-posed book, Carson this time landed a contract withOxford University Press.

The manuscript for The Sea Around Us was complet-ed in July 1950, but initial attempts to publish some ofits chapters met with a tepid response. Fifteen promi-nent publications rejected the advance chapters, buteventually the Yale Review and later Science Digest didpublish some of the advance work. Then, when The NewYorker decided to condense about half of the book into athree-part series, Profile of the Sea, the success of TheSea Around Us was virtually ensured. The response tothe series was enormous and the magazine was delugedwith reader mail.

By the time the book was released in July 1951,

Carson had become a celebrity. The Saturday Reviewran a cover story about her and Oxford University Pressstruggled to keep the book in stock. By early September,the book topped The New York Times best-seller list.

In The Sea Around Us, Carson continued to drum awarning about humankind’s abuse of the planet it calledhome. In a chapter on islands, she tells not only of thebirth and death of oceanic islands, but also the extinc-tions of many species within these fragile ecosystems,events precipitated by human activities.

“The tragedy of oceanic islands lies in the uniqueness,the irreplaceability of the species they have developedby the slow processes of the ages. In a reasonable worldmen would have treated these islands as precious pos-sessions, as natural museums filled with beautiful andcurious works of creation, valuable beyond pricebecause nowhere in the world are they duplicated.”

In the wake of the book’s release, Carson received theJohn Burroughs Medal, awarded for a natural historybook of outstanding literary quality. She also was hon-ored with the National Book Award, which brought withit an automatic boost in sales. The enormous success ofthe book gave Carson enough financial security to leaveher government job and focus on writing.

Her dream of owning a home on the Maine coast nowfulfilled, she began traveling the Eastern Shore to gath-er material for a third book, The Edge of the Sea. It was

Rachel Carson the birdwatcher

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S ilent Spring, Rachel Carson’s seminal work, catalogues the effects ofsynthetic pesticides on wildlife and human health and stands as a callto action to protect the earth—and ourselves—from the indiscriminate

use of chemicals that were not well understood 50 years ago but were deemedto represent progress in humankind’s battle against the insect world.

While Carson plainly treasured all living things, this is not a Thoreau-inspired plea for wild nature. Rather Carson, the accomplished biologistand established writer, began Silent Spring with a clear history of thedevelopment of synthetic pesticides post-World War II and then carriedon with comprehensive documentation of the impacts of chemicals on

the environment—and on insects, birds, mammals, and people.Carson made clear that broad application of relatively untested

and little-understood chemicals caused harm—often death—to manyliving things that were not targeted by the pesticides. She argued thatthere were other methods to control pest species of insects and thatthose techniques should be tested and deployed first.

Silent Spring made the forceful case that all things are inter-connected—chemicals intended to eradicate bothersome gnats inCalifornia made their way up the food chain to wipe out westerngrebes, which ate fish with concentrated residual chemicals fromlake waters. And this could also harm people eating the fish.

Silent Spring and Rachel Carson were aggressively attacked bythe chemical industry and by anyone who did not want the argumentsand evidence documented in the book to stand in the way of progressand profits. Today we watch with varying degrees of concern as sci-

ence is denied or ignored with regard to issues such as climate change.While all of us are concerned about our economy and about jobs and

people out of work, why aren’t we equally concerned about public health, clean air and water, and the interre-lationships among all things? Have we not learned the lessons of Silent Spring?

Laura Johnson


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a labor of love. For Carson, losing herself along theocean’s edge never lost its magic.

When The Edge of the Sea was released, it securedfor Carson two more awards: the Achievement Awardof the American Association of University Women andthe citation for outstanding book of the year from theNational Council of Women of the United States. Buther greatest achievement was still to come—and itwould be a radical departure from her previousworks.

Carson had long been worried about reports of birds,fish, and insect life being killed following the spraying oftoxic chemicals for insect control, such as DDT, dieldrin,and parathion. Armed with scientific expertise and dri-ven by her deep emotional bond to nature, Carson firsttried interesting magazines in an article about the dan-gers of these chemicals. It soon became apparent, how-ever, that she’d have to write a book.

In her four years of research, Carson tapped numer-ous experts in a variety of fields. Among others wereHarold S. Peters, field biologist for the National

Audubon Society, and George J. Wallace, professor ofzoology at Michigan State University, both authoritieson the disastrous effect of pesticides on birds andwildlife. She also confirmed through Dr. Wilhelm C.Hueper of the National Cancer Institute that DDT wasindeed, “a chemical carcinogen.”

A book so packed with complex scientific informationmight have failed to interest the average person, butCarson’s convictions and considerable writing skillstransformed it into an exultation of nature and a com-pelling call to action in Silent Spring.

Carson’s writings opened a window on the workings ofnature and, at the same time, educated her readers onwhat was at stake. It is ironic that her first failedattempts to become published took the form of poetry.But her poetry did find its outlet in her books about thenatural world and that poetry continues to inspire newgenerations.

Gayle Goddard-Taylor is a field editor for Sanctuarymagazine.

White-breasted nuthatch

The Lessons of Silent Spring


“Olga Owens Huckins told me of her own bitterexperience of a small world made lifeless,” Carsonwrote in the Silent Spring acknowledgments. “I thenrealized I must write this book.”

T hat small world was Stuart and Olga Huckins’two-acre bird sanctuary on a small peninsulacalled Powder Point in the coastal town of

Duxbury. The Huckins were intimately aware oftheir avian neighbors, for which they maintained aspecial section of wildland on their property. A pond,wetlands, and woodland on the site—so close to theshore—made it a desirable haven for birds to reside,nest, feed, and rest during migration.

Carson and Huckins became acquainted in 1951when Huckins, a literary editor, wrote a complimen-tary review of Carson’s The Sea Around Us in TheBoston Post. When Carson received the NationalBook Award for that acclaimed best seller, theystayed in the same New York City hotel to attend theceremony. After that event, not only did the twowomen begin to correspond but they welcomed eachother to their respective homes. “We found that wehad much in common,” Huckins reported regardingher friendship with Carson in the Duxbury ClipperGarden Club Notes [July 1963]. “She visited us inDuxbury, and we have often been at her home, alovely and quiet place outside a big city.”

According to former Mass Audubon South ShoreSanctuaries Director David Clapp, Rachel Carsonfully appreciated her time in Duxbury with Stuartand Olga Huckins: “She would visit and enjoy thetown, the beach, the outdoors, the birds, and theremoteness of the small house in the center ofPowder Point,” he said. Both women were writers andbirdwatchers so it only made sense that they wouldappreciate the camaraderie.

As is true with birders today, the Huckins wereattuned to the avifauna of the area, and their love fortheir backyard birds was evident to Carson. Accordingto Bob Hale, author and bookseller, who lived inDuxbury for many years and knew the Huckins well,the couple was “very aware of the local birds,” particu-larly those of their own sanctuary. They knew the dailyactivities of the neighborhood birds and their habitsfrom year to year. As a result, they were the first tonotice if anything changed.

So it had to have been devastating when, in the sum-

mer of 1957, small planes flew over Powder Point spray-ing a deadly mixture of fuel oil and DDT in the name ofmosquito control, killing birds outright and annihilatingbeneficial and harmless insects including bees andgrasshoppers. Olga Huckins sent a letter to The BostonHerald and also one to Carson. “It was natural that Itold her about the Duxbury spraying incident,”explained Huckins after Silent Spring was published,“because we knew she would understand our grief, andthat she was steadily accumulating data.”

In her letters to The Boston Herald and to RachelCarson, Huckins expressed her belief that spraying poi-son over private land was a “serious intrusion.” She

Silent No MoreThanks to a friend in Massachusetts, Rachel Carson concluded that she could no longer keep

quiet about the heedless use of pesticides and its danger to wildlife.

by Ann Prince

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Aerial spraying over the Huckins’ bird sanctuary inDuxbury and the death of their birds spurred the

writing of Silent Spring.


went on to describe the awful scene in the Herald piece.“The ‘harmless’ shower bath killed seven of our lovely

songbirds outright. We picked up three dead bodies thenext morning right by the door. They were birds thathad lived close to us, trusted us, and built their nests inour trees year after year. The next day three were scat-tered around the bird bath. On the following day one

robin dropped suddenlyfrom a branch in our woods.We were too heartsick tohunt for corpses. All of thesebirds died horribly, and inthe same way.”

Huckins concluded her let-ter by imploring that spray-ing poisons from the airshould stop until all evi-dence of the impacts on bothwildlife and humans wereknown. “Air spraying whereit is not needed or wanted isinhuman, undemocratic, andprobably unconstitutional,”she stated. “For those of uswho stand helplessly on thetortured earth, it is intolera-ble.”

Broader mass sprayingwas being planned next, soHuckins’ letter to Carsonwas not only an informativedescription of the lethalspraying in her own back-yard but also an appeal forhelp. In October 1962, justone month after the releaseof Silent Spring, RachelCarson wrote to OlgaHuckins, referring to an arti-cle in The New York Timesthat featured an interviewwith Stuart and OlgaHuckins.

“I am happy to have thisaccount of the origins ofSilent Spring told,” Carsonwrote, “not only because youdeserve the credit (or blameaccording to your point ofview) for having broughtback to my attention thisproblem. I think even youhave forgotten, however,that it was not just the copyof your letter to the newspa-per but your personal letterto me that started it all. Init you told what had hap-

pened and your feeling about the prospect of a new andbigger spraying and begged me to find someone inWashington who could help.”

Huckins was grateful that the “someone” turned out tobe Rachel Carson herself. And much of what the authorreported in the chapter “And No Birds Sing” mirroredHuckins’ alarming observations. For example, after aer-

Judi and Terry Vose have preserved and are working on ecological restoration of the Huckins’ bird sanctuary in Duxbury.

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However, as is so often the case, a new threat to theHuckins’ former property came in the form of develop-ment pressure. The value of the land from a real-estateperspective skyrocketed in recent years, and a sectionof the property came up for sale. Fortunately, recogniz-ing the sites’ historical, aesthetic, and ecological value,a conservation-minded couple, Judi and Terry Vose,purchased 1.1 acres of the original sanctuary, includ-ing the pond and wetlands, and a cottage that theynamed The Spring House. If not for the Vose’s resolve,the paradise for wildlife on Powder Point might havebeen obliterated and become a sterile suburban “land-scape.”

“Olga Huckins referred to the property as her birdsanctuary,” says Judi Vose. “I feel grateful that we aregoing to be stewards of this parcel that inspired RachelCarson. We want to keep it as natural as possible andbring back more native plants.”

The Voses are preserving the site as a sanctuary tohonor Rachel Carson, as well as her friend OlgaHuckins. “I admire them because they fought for natureand cared for our one and only home,” says Judi Vose.The “secret spot” is indeed still beautiful, with maturecedars and oaks as well as wet areas that are a draw forbirds. A recent list of migrants and summer residentsincluded the magnolia warbler, blackpoll warbler, com-mon yellowthroat, red-eyed vireo, and great crested fly-catcher, to name a few.

On Rachel Carson’s birthday May 27, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.— the Voses have an event planned at The SpringHouse and bird sanctuary. A Tribute to Silent Spring onits 50th Anniversary is free and open to the public. All arewelcome to attend, enjoy bird walks at the site, and listento a distinguished panel of speakers. For more informa-tion, email: [email protected]. In conjunction withthis event, the Cinema at Plimoth Plantation will presentA Sense of Wonder, an hour-long film about Rachel

Carson, her love for the natural world,and her fight to protect it. “You cannotwalk away unmoved,” says Bill Moyers.Go to www.plimouth.org for details.

As with the rest of the nation, at thetime of the publishing of Silent Spring,which was considered controversial bysome, there apparently was some neg-ative reaction in Duxbury. OlgaHuckins had to respond: “Where isthere a better place to achieve a rarebalance of nature, except in a gardenthat is not poisoned by lead arsenates,DDT and all the horrors of the age?”

she wrote in the Duxbury Clipper. “In our garden,skunks and starlings eat all the larvae and grubs ofpredators; ladybugs remove the aphids from roses; allbirds sing, with thrushes making the evening and earlymorning golden with their songs.”

Ann Prince is associate editor of Sanctuary.

ial DDT spraying a woman in Michigan reported “12 robins lying dead in her lawn as she spoke.” In manystates the sentiment was the same. A woman inWisconsin inquired, “Can anyone imagine anything socheerless and dreary as a springtime without a robin’ssong?”

Thanks to the success of Carson’sbook and the widespread education itprovided, sweeping changes occurredthat benefited the whole country aswell as the Huckins’ beloved little bas-tion for birds in a small town inMassachusetts.

For many years the peaceful worldon Powder Point remained much as ithad been, a destination for birds aswell as birders. It was in keeping withthe spirit of the Huckins, who, accord-ing to Bob Hale, “were perfectly willingto let people birdwatch on the proper-ty.” David Clapp, who frequented the “secret spot” withhis weekly birding group, says “the pond often hadnight-herons, green herons, and occasionally spottedsandpipers in its trees and along the shore.” Other com-mon sightings were songbirds such as Carolina wrens,red-winged blackbirds, white-throated sparrows, andAmerican goldfinches.

Common yellowthroat

The “secret spot” is

indeed still beautiful,

with mature cedars and

oaks as well as wet

areas that are a draw

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It’s not so much the unpleasant certainties that wakeus at 3 a.m. but rather the dark mysteries—inexplic-able bad things the causes of which seem likely to be

even more disturbing.For me, the most haunting revelations in the State of

the Birds report that Mass Audubon published last fallare those phenomena for which we could offer little or

no conclusive explanation. The tale of those species wetermed the “whisperers,” for example, is bound to makeany thoughtful person a little uneasy. These are birds—northern flicker, eastern phoebe, and Baltimore oriole,for example—that are still fairly common and wide-spread but have declined gradually, steadily, and evermore steeply over the last 45 years.

Yet, troubling also areinstances in which a sudden andsteep decline in a commonspecies’ distribution and abun-dance seems to yield to a readilyavailable explanation that oncloser inspection proves to beinadequate. Two cases in point:American kestrel and easternmeadowlark. All but taken forgranted as common roadsidebirds as late as the 1980s, thekestrel and meadowlark havepopulations that plummetedalarmingly within just a fewdecades throughout much oftheir range. Initially an obviouscause presented itself. These arebirds of agricultural habitats,and everyone knows that farm-land in New England is fastbecoming part of a historicallandscape; surely these birdswere classic victims of habitatloss. But birdwatchers who payclose attention to their localpatches of habitat noted thatkestrels and meadowlarks arenow absent from places wherethey were recently common—even though the critical ele-ments of their habitat were stillamply present.

Could it be that some perva-sive environmental factor is dec-imating broad segments of theavifauna by, say, depressinginsect populations? An estimat-ed 74 percent of the diet of bothkestrels and meadowlarks con-

Of Kestrels, Meadowlarks, and Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers

What Would Rachel Do?

by Chris Leahy

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American kestrel


sists of insects. Most of the whisperers feed mainly oninsects. A dearth of insects would also explain thedecline in the so-called “aerial insectivores”—swifts,nightjars, swallows, and flycatchers—almost all ofwhich are becoming both less numerous and morerestricted in distribution. What might such a broad-spectrum factor be?

Rachel Carson might have had an educated guess.The great triumph of Carson’s Silent Spring—the

awakening of the public mind to the potentially devas-tating effects of pesticides on birdlife and by extensionon people and the consequent banning of DDT in the USin 1972—can be seen in retrospect as giving cover to thevery problem that it so eloquently exposed.

Many Americans today assume that Rachel Carsonand the wise legislators of the Nixon administrationsolved the problem. DDT disappeared from our gardencenter shelves, our agricultural practices, and our pest-control programs. Never again would the public be atrisk of poisoning from toxic chemicals in their air, food,

and water supply. Surely chemical manufacturers werenow restrained by the most rigorous government stan-dards from producing such dangerous substances andselling them to a trusting public. In actuality, all of thisis a monumental delusion. Consider the followingannals of environmental toxicology since 1972.

Naming Our Poisons. Far from reducing the quantitiesof pesticides we use following the wake-up call of SilentSpring, we now use far more of these chemicals than in1972. We apply an estimated 5 billion pounds of pesti-cides a year on our agricultural fields, golf courses, andyards; 20 percent of this total (1.2 billion pounds) is usedin the US.

Anticipating the banning of the organochlorine family of synthetic pesticides, the chemical industry set about developing alternatives. The resulting organophosphateand carbonate pesticides had the advantage of beingless persistent in the environment than their predeces-sors but proved to be far more toxic in very small

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Wood thrush


amounts. The US Fish and Wildlife Service estimatesthat 672 million birds are exposed to these substancesannually in the US in farmland alone, killing at least 10 percent (67 million) outright. Because many deathsof small songbirds go undetected, some scientistsbelieve that this mortality estimate may be significant-ly lower than the actual number.

The lawn care industry, which depends heavily on pes-ticides, has boomed in recent decades. This means thatorganophosphates that are acutely toxic to people as wellas birds and other wildlife are increasingly prevalent indomestic settings. For example, 10 million pounds of thelawn care pesticide diazinon is used annually in the US,and it is responsible for more than 150 documented birdkill incidents (doubtless a fraction of the real total), claim-ing the lives of as many as 70 birds in one episode.

Arguably the scariest of the humanmade noxious sub-stances we’ve let loose upon the planet are the perfluo-rochemicals, or PFCs. These are chains of carbon atomsto which fluorine atoms are strongly bonded, makingthem essentially indestructible. Used in products suchas Scotchgard and Teflon, they are now detectableworldwide in air, water, food, and animal tissues. Oncethought to be biologically inert, PFCs are now known to

be highly toxic and because of their persistence havebeen characterized as the most notorious contaminantsever produced.

Unfortunately, that is not all.Space limitations permit only a passing mention of

varieties of organobromines, such as PBDEs and deca-BDE, developed as flame retardants and used in, well,everything: electronics, cars, furnishings, plastics, tex-tiles, etc. Then there are PPCPs (Pharmaceuticals andPersonal Care Products), including many over-the-counter drugs, synthetic hormones, and otherendocrine-disrupting chemicals that survive sewagetreatment and are discharged into water bodies wherethey have been shown to adversely affect reproductionin fish. Possible impacts on human health are underinvestigation.

What Poisons Do to Birds—and Us. We are still tryingto understand the full implications for ecosystems andhuman health of the near-universal presence of many ofthese synthetic chemical compounds. We know that atleast 40 active ingredients in readily available pesti-cides are lethal to birds even when used as recommend-ed on the label. Scientists have also documented “sub-

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lethal” effects of chemical poisoning in birds such as aninability to form hard eggshells, deformed embryos,weight loss, hormonal dysfunction, disorientation dur-ing migration, nerve damage, and decreases in energymanifested in reduced parental attentiveness and criti-cal behaviors such as feeding and flying.

The term “sublethal” to describe these effects is some-what misleading since all may eventually lead to deathand/or the decline of a species’ population. Of course,birds are not people, and we still have much to learnabout atmospheric toxins, but it would be irresponsiblenot to apply the canary in the coal mine analogy andwonder how much of the striking recent spikes inhuman health issues such as cancers, sterility, hormon-al disruptions, and immune system disorders might berelated to playing with chemical fire.

How Bad Is It? Hard to say. Due tothe difficulty of counting the numberof birds that drop dead in a forest orfield or over the ocean and the prob-lem of making a direct link between abird’s demise and the toxic sub-stances it may have consumed onyour lawn or elsewhere, it is difficultto estimate how big a mess we’ve got-ten ourselves into. But a 2007 studyby the Biodiversity ResearchInstitute in Gorham, Maine, certain-ly provides cause for concern. Theinstitute analyzed samples from theeggs of 23 species of birds in manydifferent families and from many dif-ferent habitats and detected the pres-ence of over 100 potentially toxic sub-stances, in some cases at levelsjudged to be harmful to the birds’organs, nervous and immune sys-tems, and their ability to reproduce.

What Can Be Done? The Internet isreplete with suggestions for homeown-ers on reducing pesticides in the envi-ronment. But, while it is true thatAmerican households spend millionson pesticides and use them promiscu-ously (in amounts averaging 10 timesmore per acre than farmers use ontheir fields), most of the “remedies”(plant native species, attract insect-eat-ing birds to your yard, choose the safestchemicals), though wholesome in theirown right, do not begin to address thescope of the problem. The truth is thatproduction and sale of the atmosphericpoisons described above should be farmore strictly regulated by federal lawand the resources to enforce the regula-tions increased significantly. But pres-

sure from chemical industry lobbyists and the currentwidespread animosity toward government regulation andenvironmental protection effectively inhibit the EPA andother relevant agencies from doing their jobs.

Rachel Carson’s great achievement was to sound awake-up call that rang more loudly of truth in the pub-lic’s ears than the prevarications of the industries thatmake and sell these substances and their political sup-porters. The threat—to birds and people—from human-made atmospheric pollutants is far greater than it wasin Rachel Carson’s time. But there will be no changeuntil an awakened public demands it.

Chris Leahy holds the Gerard A. Bertrand Chair ofNatural History and Field Ornithology at MassAudubon.

Savannah sparrow


Rachel Carson backed her findings with carefulresearch distilled from multiple sources. A detailed “Listof Principal Sources” (54 pages in the third edition ofSilent Spring, 1962) cites all manner of scientific data,expert opinions, and research papers (i.e., “Liver Flukesin Cattle,” U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Leaflet No. 493) asbuilding blocks supporting her premise. But no matter.As with today’s climate change deniers, the opposition

Outraged voices; sneering challenges; condescend-ing nicknames; a refusal to believe scientific evi-dence gathered and researched over years point-

ing to dangerous trends damaging the natural worldand threatening human populations. The findings areaccepted by the scientific community with alarm, butothers, mostly big industries backed by well-oiled publicrelations firms, react with high-decibel opposition. Theyquestion the validity of the over-whelming scientific evidencethat supports the claims. Theyfire off barrages of personalaspersions against the messen-gers delivering the bad news.

No, the above is not the cur-rent crop of political candidatesand naysayers prowling the landwho deny the validity of climatechange and question thepainstaking science behind theconclusions that greenhousegases are warming the planet toa dangerous degree. Instead, theoutcry was part of the reactionand attacks directed against a quiet scientist who fifty yearsago, after meticulous research,warned that we were poisoningour environment with dangerouschemicals and we must stop orface grave consequences.

In nature nothing exists alone.We are all part of the great chainof life, and poisons in the envi-ronment will eventually findtheir way into ecosystems andeventually our own bodies. Thatwas the simple core messagethat Rachel Carson delivered inthe book Silent Spring, a publi-cation that many consider themost important book of thetwentieth century. But in spite ofthe classic’s popularity, a belli-cose minority scoffed at its scien-tific findings and to this daycurse the author for helping tojump-start the environmentalmovement.

AftershocksThe Reaction to Silent Spring

by Thomas Conuel

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to Silent Spring came mostly from industry-backedmouthpieces who refused to acknowledge scientific fact.

As Paul Brooks detailed in The House of Life, his lit-erary biography of Rachel Carson, the opening salvosagainst Silent Spring came almost immediately after itsserialization in The New Yorker beginning June 16,1962, from “a relatively small (though very rich) seg-ment of society, the chemical and related industries(such as food-processing), and—in the federal govern-ment—the immensely powerful Department ofAgriculture.” At the heart of the bitter attacks againstRachel Carson, Brooks wrote, was this: “She was ques-tioning not only the indiscriminate use of poisons butthe basic irresponsibility of an industrialized, techno-logical society toward the natural world. She refused toaccept the premise that damage to nature was theinevitable cost of ‘progress.’”

Her opponents launched a two-pronged attack againsther. First came the attempts to intimidate her publish-er and suppress sales of the book. Since its serializationin The New Yorker, Silent Spring had been the subject ofover 70 newspaper editorials and commentaries, manylaudatory but shocked. The Velsicol ChemicalCorporation launched the fight to suppress the book byclaiming that it contained inaccurate accusationsagainst one of its products, chlordane, a now-bannedpesticide. They threatened to sue the publisher, butwhen Houghton Mifflin refused to back down thethreatened lawsuit vaporized.

Silent Spring became an immediate bestseller,spending 31 weeks on The New York Times list andconfounding the initial strategy launched by its oppo-nents to prevent publication and widespread discus-

sion of its shocking conclusions. So quick-ly did the book become a central topicthat The New York Times ran a headlineabove a story: “Silent Spring is NowNoisy Summer.”

Discrediting the book and its author, herresearch and findings, and her motivesbecame the next strategy. As John HansonMitchell points out in his introductoryessay here in Sanctuary, Rachel Carsonwas subjected to a torrent of abuse, conde-scension, and name-calling intended tomisrepresent her diamond-hard scientificfacts as misty hysterical speculation from“the nun of nature.” Though Carson was ahighly trained scientist and well-knownauthor, critics focused on spreading innu-endo regarding her personal life—she wasan unmarried woman, a spinster, a birdlover, a cat lover, an odd duck. But thattype of belittlement didn’t work either,proving the old adage from Shakespeare’sThe Merchant of Venice, “but at the lengthtruth will out.”

The next salvo against the book camefrom the National Agricultural Chemicals Association,which got right to work producing a booklet, “Fact andFancy,” which attempted to refute Rachel Carson’sresearch and analysis. Monsanto ChemicalCorporation, a giant in the industry, tried a stab atparody with a lame publication, The Desolate Year,describing a world without pesticides, dominated byhyperactive predatory insects and raising the specterof malaria, yellow fever, sleeping sickness, and typhusrampant across the land.

Brooks noted that many of the most virulent attacksagainst Rachel Carson came from agricultural jour-nals and state institutions whose research was heavi-ly funded by the chemical industry. In one particular-ly blatant distortion, a fable for the future in theAmerican Agriculturist presented a grandfather and ayoung boy desolate and alone and reduced to eatingacorns in the woods. The rest of the family had diedfrom malaria caused by mosquitoes or had starveddue to swarms of grasshoppers and other insects eat-ing the crops—all because a book called QuietSummer led some fools to believe that no chemicalsshould be used in agriculture (a total misreading ofSilent Spring).

TIME magazine joined in condemning the book, call-ing it emotional and inaccurate. Reader’s Digest piledon, canceling a planned condensation of Silent Spring.The Saturday Evening Post labeled the book alarmistand assured readers that their world was not being poi-soned. There were organized letter-writing campaignsflailing Rachel Carson with invective-filled comments.The New Yorker took numerous broadsides for the sin offirst publishing her findings.

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As one, only slightly extremist, letterread:

“Miss Rachel Carson’s reference to theselfishness of insecticide manufacturersprobably reflects her Communist sympa-thies like a lot of our writers these days.

“We can live without birds and animals,but, as the current market slump shows,we cannot live without business.

“As for insects, isn’t it just like a womanto be scared to death of a few little bugs!As long as we have the H-bomb everythingwill be O.K.”

H. Davidson—San Francisco

But for all the wrong-headed opposition,Silent Spring brought a flood of positiveresponses as well as awareness andchange. President Kennedy ordered astudy of the DDT controversy caused bythe book, and the report that followedfrom the President’s Science AdvisoryCommittee validated and thanked RachelCarson for raising awareness of the toxici-ty of pesticides. “No one could any longerdeny that the problem existed; the ques-tion now was what we were willing to doabout it,” noted Paul Brooks.

Rachel Carson appeared before a Senate Committee onenvironmental hazards in June 1963, and two days latershe testified before the Senate Committee on Commerce.Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall quickly became apowerful ally in the fight to regulate pesticides.

Silent Spring caused controversy and discussion over-seas. In England, members of Parliament wrangled overits findings and how to protect the English countryside.The book was published in France, Germany, Italy,Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Holland, Spain,Brazil, Japan, Iceland, Portugal, and Israel and galvanizednations into action against indiscriminate use of pesti-cides.

When Rachel Carson died at age 56 on April 14, 1964,two years after the publication of Silent Spring, reactionto her death mirrored the emotions unleashed by thebook. In the final years of her life, Rachel Carsonreceived numerous letters of support from readers,which she treasured, as well as a slew of honors andawards. The Isaak Walton League of America cited herwork; she received the Conservationist of the Yearaward from the National Wildlife Federation, and theAudubon Medal from the National Audubon Society; shewas elected into the prestigious American Academy ofArts and Letters; and, perhaps for her the best awardwas the Schweitzer Medal of the Animal WelfareInstitute, named after Albert Schweitzer, the humani-tarian, missionary, and doctor whose philosophy of rev-erence for life inspired Rachel Carson and to whomSilent Spring is dedicated.

Silent Spring generated local and national organi-zations dedicated to a clean environment includingthe Natural Resources Defense Council, theWilderness Society, and the Environmental DefenseFund—all influenced, at least partially, by RachelCarson. The Environmental Protection Agency, creat-ed in 1970, sprang from concerns raised by SilentSpring in 1962.

When she died of complications from breast cancer ather home in Silver Spring, Maryland, after a long strug-gle against the illness, opponents put forth the storythat the only reason she had written about chemicalsdamaging the natural world was because of her ownhealth problems, which was yet another untruth. RachelCarson began work on Silent Spring in 1958, two yearsbefore her cancer diagnosis. She was a writer not afraidto take on a difficult and troubling subject, and in theend delivered a message that changed the world for thebetter.

Perhaps the lesson here is that there will always be acredulous minority who will not accept the validity ofscientific research. But those who struggle on to protectthe environment should consider Rachel Carson’sacknowledgement in Silent Spring “to a host of peo-ple…who are even now fighting the thousands of smallbattles that in the end will bring victory for sanity andcommon sense in our accommodation to the world thatsurrounds us.”

Thomas Conuel is a field editor for Sanctuary magazine.

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In 2009 the U.S. Department of the Interior releaseda comprehensive report called The State of the Birds,United States of America, 2009. This avian report

card offered a continental perspective on the presentstatus and health of North American bird populations.As with many report cards, the document containedboth good and bad news: some bird groups received highmarks and others less so.

Because the report focused on the status of bird popu-lations at the continent and biome level, it was difficultto accurately decipher events on a more local scale.Accordingly, Mass Audubon recently completed its ownState of the Birds report to portray the current status ofbirds in Massachusetts. Because Sanctuary has dedicat-ed this issue to the influence of Rachel Carson’s Silent

Spring on the environmental community at the time itwas released in 1962, one is tempted to contemplatewhat bird populations were like at the time this land-mark book was published.

I can vividly remember as a young person growing upin suburban eastern Massachusetts in the early 1960s,seeing bobolinks in spring and hearing eastern mead-owlarks from my bedroom window. By contrast, and Iam certain, I never saw a tufted titmouse, Carolinawren, or northern cardinal at my bird feeder. To this dayI can recollect the red letter day when I first encoun-tered hooded mergansers on the Charles River, and Irecall the thrill, in 1958, of catching a rare glimpse of ared-bellied woodpecker that was visiting a local birdfeeder. (This was only three years after the publication

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Rose-breasted grosbeak

The Way They WereThe state of the birds, past and present

by Wayne Petersen


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of Ludlow Griscom and Dorothy Snyder’s The Birds ofMassachusetts in which they described this species as a“rare vagrant from the south.”) Few and far betweenwere my sightings of a Cooper’s hawk in those days. Thecommon raven was a species one had to go to Maine tosee, and there were certainly no Canada geese grazingon my community’s athletic fields nor any wild turkeysforaging on lawns anywhere in town.

During my wide-ranging perambulations on foot as ayoung person, I routinely encountered ring-neckedpheasants in local fields, spotting a ruffed grouse wassimply a matter of spending time in appropriate habi-tat, and hearing the buzzy song of a golden-winged war-bler was practically a rite of spring if you knew where tolook. These bird populations were markedly differentwhen Rachael Carson crafted Silent Spring than thosereported in Mass Audubon’s State of the Birds summa-tion in 2011.

For context it is relevant to highlight some of theevents taking place in the aftermath of World War IIwhen a number of things occurred that would foreverimpact bird populations, not just in Massachusetts butin many areas throughout the United States. Althoughthe DDT story has been compellingly related in Silent

Spring, other environmental events have been lessprominently articulated. In the late 1940s and early1950s, following nearly seven years of international con-flict, thousands of American soldiers returned from theEuropean and Pacific campaigns—many in need ofaffordable housing and related services. This realitytranslated to landscape development on a grand scale—a scale that would permanently usurp or fragment vastacreages of previously undisturbed open space inMassachusetts and beyond.

Concurrently, many thousands of acres of abandonedfarmland and early-successional landscapes were grad-ually succeeding to secondary forest, a process still con-tinuing in many areas of rural Massachusetts. Uplandgame bird and waterfowl hunting was more popular inthe 1950s and 1960s than it is today, and the wide-spread and pernicious effects to birds created by a land-scape bristling with towers, turbines, and super-talllighted structures were not as prevalent. But perhapsmost importantly, concern over declining migratory birdpopulations had barely come on to the radar screen ofbird conservationists in the 1960s.

For example, the impact to birds resulting from habi-tat destruction in the Neotropics had not been recog-

Hooded merganser


nized as a concern at the time Rachael Carson was alert-ing the public to the ills created by the pesticide indus-try. In fact, declines in bird populations were hardlyforemost in the minds of ornithologists of the day.Though the Christmas Bird Count (CBC) had been inplace for 62 years when Silent Spring was released, thetotal number of these local annual bird surveys was afraction of what it is today. Wildlife biologist ChandlerRobbins had not conceived of the Breeding Bird Survey(BBS) in 1962, and the first statewide efforts to careful-ly document breeding birds in North America were notattempted until Mass Audubon’s Breeding Bird Atlaswas initiated in 1974. Clearly, there were plenty ofunknowns surrounding the status and trends ofMassachusetts bird populations in the 1960s.

With this background in mind, it is interesting to con-sider how Rachel Carson in her time might have char-acterized the current State of the Birds reports. Becausefew long-term databases existed in the 1950s and 1960s(no BBS or breeding bird atlases), or else were less com-

plete than they are today (e.g., CBC), it would have beenscientifically challenging for her to accurately documentthe status of birds and the changes and variations intheir populations. For some species, however, the taskwould have been straightforward. Many waterfowl werefar less common back then than they are today, largelybecause in the mid-twentieth century a number ofspecies were still recovering from many decades of over-hunting, despite the fact that during the same periodthere was a tremendous effort being made to increasewaterfowl populations by expanding the network ofnational wildlife refuges throughout North America.

Today there is also greater understanding of water-fowl management techniques than was the case prior tothe 1960s. Wood ducks, and those then-scarce handsomehooded mergansers that I first observed nearly half acentury ago, have increased dramatically in the lastfifty years, partly due to the extensive erection of nestboxes, and also because the return of beavers to manyareas has resulted in an increase in suitable wetlands

Black-crowned night-heron

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required by these species for nesting. Now these samebeaver ponds also support a burgeoning population ofgreat blue herons, a species that did not nest inMassachusetts until 1925 and has subsequentlyincreased from 55 to 348 occupied breeding bird atlasblocks in the interval between 1979 and 2011.

Wetland birds would have been unlikely to raise anyalarm in Carson’s era, yet the pied-billed grebe,American bittern, and common moorhen are all cur-rently state listed by the Massachusetts NaturalHeritage and Endangered Species Program. Whilescarcely considered habitats of concern in the 1960s,freshwater wetlands in the Commonwealth have beensignificantly reduced in extent and in many locationsare choked considerably by invasive wetland plants.

The status of the state’s raptors over a half-centuryago is one situation with which populations would havediffered dramatically from the present day. The pesti-cide saga told in Silent Spring offered clear linkagebetween organochlorine pesticides such as DDT and the

precipitous decline of fish-eating species such as theosprey and bald eagle following World War II. Even theiconic peregrine falcon was virtually extirpated as abreeding species in the Northeast at the time thatRachel Carson wrote Silent Spring. During that sameperiod even the widespread red-tailed and Cooper’shawks were far less common than they are presently, inpart due to land use patterns and an increase in foresthabitat since then. These species along with the mag-nificent peregrine falcon have now readily taken to nest-ing in suburban and urban areas.

Shorebirds in Carson’s day were still recovering fromheavy market gunning less than a century earlier, andspecies like the American oystercatcher and willet hadyet to reclaim their historic nesting sites inMassachusetts. The status of gulls and terns was slight-ly different. The herring gull was rapidly approaching apopulation zenith in the 1960s, with the great black-backed gull not far behind. At the same time an esti-mated 7,500 pairs of roseate terns nesting in the

Eastern towhee

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Commonwealth in 1940 hadbeen reduced to about 1,500 pairs by the 1970s, pri-marily in response to theexpanding gull population.Today, the trends for thesespecies indicate a continueddecline in roseate tern num-bers, and BBS data suggestthat the herring gull may alsobe declining on the nationalfront.

Perhaps foremost amongthe birds described in MassAudubon’s current State of theBirds report that would havebeen unlikely to appear in acomparable effort in RachelCarson’s time are manysouthern species with breed-ing ranges that are expandingnorthward, including a num-ber of species of first-timenesters since the 1960s. Thelist is long and varied and the selection that followsreads like a Southern who’s who?: tricolored heron,glossy ibis, turkey vulture, Acadian flycatcher, fish crow,blue-gray gnatcatcher, northern mockingbird, blue-winged warbler, cerulean warbler, hooded warbler, andorchard oriole, to name a few.

During the same time period, most grassland, coastalheathland, and shrubland species declined precipitous-ly. Some such as the short-eared owl, though never trulycommon in Massachusetts, were stable in the areaswhere it nested; however, now there are strong indica-tions that it is declining in winter as well. Other speciessuch as the northern bobwhite, upland sandpiper, east-ern whip-poor-will, horned lark, brown thrasher, golden-winged and chestnut-sided warbler, eastern towhee,eastern meadowlark, and field, vesper, and grasshoppersparrow were once relatively widespread and locallycommon in suitable habitats in Carson’s time. Today, theloss of these specialized habitats due to increased firesuppression, spread of human development, and natur-al forest succession has caused many of these species tobe at greater risk than practically any other group ofbirds in Massachusetts.

In addition to habitat preference, another commonali-ty among these species is that all of them either nest onthe ground or else in close proximity to the ground. MassAudubon’s analysis suggests that species sharing thisbehavior may be especially vulnerable to predation fromdomestic cats, coyotes, foxes, raccoons, and skunks, all ofwhich have increased significantly with the spread ofsuburban development and the associated fragmenta-tion of habitat.

Parallel to this is the increase shown by manyMassachusetts forest breeders such as the eastern

screech-owl, pileated woodpecker, hermit thrush, worm-eating warbler, and ovenbird since the first BreedingBird Atlas was conducted in the 1970s. No doubt theseincreases would be even more profound if they could becompared with their status in the mid-twentieth centu-ry when forest cover was not nearly as extensive as it iscurrently.

A final phenomenon largely unrecognized by RachelCarson, yet now increasingly determined to be responsi-ble for affecting the present and future distribution andabundance of birds in Massachusetts, is climate change.As global temperatures continue to increase, changes inforest composition are projected to change as well. Muchof the future forest cover of Massachusetts is predictedto become oak and pine at the same time that northernhardwood forests and higher elevation spruce and firforests in western Massachusetts gradually shift north-ward. Correspondingly, northern species such as theolive-sided flycatcher, blackpoll warbler, and white-throated sparrow will likely continue to decrease evenas populations of the black vulture, yellow-billed cuckoo,and orchard oriole increase.

Given some of these differences, were Rachel Carsonwith us now, one wonders whether the predictedchanges in global temperature, sea-level rise, and conti-nental forest cover would spark the same reaction asher concerns over the pesticide industry did in the1960s? In fact, as some have suggested, what we need inour time is an earthshaking work such as Silent Spring,establishing once and for all the devastating environ-mental effects of climate change.

Wayne Petersen is director of the Important Bird Areasprogram for Mass Audubon.

Female Canada warbler

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Rachel Carson, through herevocatively entitled bookSilent Spring, is credited

with launching the environmentalmovement. She wrote elegantlyabout the balance of nature and theimpact of pesticides on all species,not just those for which the pesticidewas intended. She wrote about theshortsightedness of humankind,manifested in our desire for an easyfix through pesticides, and sheattempted to move us to action inthe face of a complex challenge.

We now face another worldwideenvironmental issue, and it hasbeen said that we need anotherSilent Spring to face up to it. Theissue is climate change.

Al Gore himself credits RachelCarson with developing his aware-ness of the interdependence of theliving world, and his An InconvenientTruth certainly educated many on the perils of a rapidlychanging climate. But times are different today; AnInconvenient Truth was authored by a politician in anincreasingly polarized political climate, and the evils of gov-ernment are driving the debate. The titles of the two booksspeak volumes: Gore’s says we know the truth but don’twant to step up; Carson’s warns us that we may lose some-thing real while remaining in denial and need to step up.

Fossil fuels, and the destruction and reduction of the nat-ural world by humans for the energy they provide, is anal-ogous to pesticide use—the control of insects for economicgain calculated with simple parameters that leave out thetrue cost of impacts on human and ecological health regard-less of what else might be lost. One of the greatest failingsin our energy policies globally is that we don’t factor in thetrue cost of fossil fuels—the environmental damage frommountaintop coal removal or oil spills, the poverty andhuman rights travesties, the wars for oil. To push back pes-ticide use we had a poster child, the symbol of Americanfreedom, the bald eagle whose population was decimated byDDT contamination of its food source. For climate change,we have the polar bear swimming across the Arctic lookingfor a bit of ice to rest on to escape drowning at sea. It tooktime to reel in pesticide use in the United States, and even

now it is still prevalent. Furthermore,many of the most toxic pesticides, whilenot used in the United States, are stillused in other countries as heavily asever.

What is different is the scale of thethreat—the seas are rising, the bread-baskets of the world are getting hotterand drier, the warmer temperaturesallow disease-bearing insects to movenorth, and over a quarter of theearth’s species may go extinct in thenext 100 years. There are major envi-ronmental, economic, and humanimpacts predicted—and within a fair-ly short time frame.

The real challenge in understandingclimate change is that there isn’t a sin-gle target or suite of targets, eventhough carbon and other heat-trappinggases are the culprits. They are in factemitted from such a vast array ofsources, and their production and regu-

lation are tremendously complex.To scale back Mass Audubon’s carbon emissions, we

have changed lightbulbs, installed solar arrays, updatedour vehicle fleet, winterized our buildings, and switchedto purchasing only clean power. Each of these practicesis directed by its own set of laws and regulations. Thefederal government is trying to incentivize more effi-cient lightbulbs. Automobile gas efficiency is regulatedby Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards.Solar arrays are driven by improved technologies, whichare in part promoted by grants and tax incentives aswell as government programs to fund solar panel instal-lation and allow for selling of excess power to the grid,making financing easier.

But what we need are more people engaged in thesecomplex issues, advocating beyond pesticides andwildlife conservation. We need better science and envi-ronmental science education to ensure that the nextgeneration understands not only the beauty and inter-connectedness of the natural world but also the inter-connectedness of our own political constructs.

Jennifer Ryan is Mass Audubon’s legislative director.She is also a conservation biologist.

The Political Landscape

The True Cost Considered

by Jennifer Ryan


At my open window—the lurching runs

Of mews and whistles, mechanical arias,Whirligigs of a robin’s snatched cheerily, cheerily,cheerily.

Too much, too muchIsn’t music, but this mocking-Bird will not get down from its high perch,

Will not quit calling out, there’s no milk, no milk, no milk;The car needs gas, the car needs gas;Hurry, hurry, hurry; that tie? that tie? that tie?,

Until the bird seems legion,And mockingbirds look downFrom the lilac’s every branch, dismantling me

One moment at a time. Yet afterIt flies off, no more than the briefest incarnation,

I step away from my desk,From the hallway clock ticking off the silence,

And, at the window, sunlight shouts in the grass,Irises guzzle clear blue air down their throats, The lilac’s purple honeycombs buzz with sweetness.

Robert Cording is the Barrett Professor of CreativeWriting at College of the Holy Cross. He has publishedsix poetry collections, most recently Walking WithRuskin (CavanKerry, 2010).

driftwood logs at the base of a small waterfallas it empties into the bay

water or time no matter to me the emanation steadythe inanimate indifferent

to the suffering it sees, a woman beyond weepingher fingers scratching veins

on each opposing hand o where did I first see this?those hands float in the mists

over the falls precarious in the roar white foam gathering under a bridge

a place to stand and admire or as in giving yourself tosome places are just designed

for leaping everyone knows this and there are heights so right and eager to please

the word inviting was invented to name the distance between beginning and end and

top to bottom and here to the color of shade andbrown

water pouring each into each a light that turns me now into a sparrow clinging

to a branch my black bead eyesmissing nothing wanting nothing more than the soundof this

that is all I am, be patient lord O be

Fred Marchant is the author of four books of poetry,including The Looking House (2009). He directs theCreative Writing Program at Suffolk University.

PoetryEdited by Susan Richmond

fter a Mockingbird

A Oby Robert Cording

by Fred Marchant

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Family ProgramsBERKSHIRE SANCTUARIESLenox, 413-637-0320Bat House Making WorkshopMarch 31—1:30-3 p.m.Evening at the Beaver PondsApril 9, May 9—6:30-8 p.m.Bird Banding DemonstrationApril 14—10 a.m.-noonWildflowers and Spring ChangesMay 13—10 a.m.-12:30 p.m.

BLUE HILLSMilton, 617-333-0690Creepy CrawliesMarch 31—1-2 p.m.

BOSTON NATURE CENTERMattapan, 617-983-8500Under a LogApril 1—2-3:30 p.m.

BROAD MEADOW BROOKWorcester, 508-753-6087Mountain Laurels at Burncoat Pond June 9—10 a.m.-noon

BROADMOORSouth Natick, 508-655-2296Wild about Reptiles April 1—1-2:30 p.m.Frogs, Pollywogs, and FairiesApril 29—1-2:30 p.m.Wild about AmphibiansMay 19—1-2:30 p.m.

CONNECTICUT RIVER VALLEYEasthampton, 413-584-3009Big Night March 31—5:30-9 p.m.

DRUMLIN FARMLincoln, 781-259-2206Bringing Up BabyApril 27—3:30-5 p.m.

FELIX NECKEdgartown, 508-627-4850Vineyard Wildlife FestivalMay 19—10 a.m.-2 p.m.

IPSWICH RIVERTopsfield, 978-887-9264It’s Big Night!April 13—6-8 p.m.

Audubon Nature FestivalJune 3—10 a.m.-4 p.m.

JOPPA FLATSNewburyport, 978-462-9998Homeschool ClassesCetaceans Study Session: April 12Peabody Essex Museum Field Trip: April 26A Visit to the Bird Banding Station: May 3For children ages 7-11

VISUAL ARTS CENTERCanton, 781-821-8853Drawing Birds with Barry Van DusenMarch 24—10 a.m.-4 p.m.

WACHUSETT MEADOWPrinceton, 978-464-2712Sheep Shearing Open HouseApril 14—1-4 p.m.Rain date: April 15—1-4 p.m.

WELLFLEET BAYSouth Wellfleet, 508-349-2615Green Eggs & Sand WorkshopsJune 1-3

Call the individual sanctuaries for moreinformation, fees, and to register.

Berkshire Sanctuaries is offering two events in conjunction with Berkshire Museum’s exhibition—

Taking Flight: Audubon and the World of BirdsLecture on the Life of John James Audubonat the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfieldby Mass Audubon Visual Arts Center Director Amy MontagueFriday, March 16, 7 p.m.

The life of iconic artist of American birds John James Audubon is even more dramatic than his volume of work. In Europe, he styled himself as “the Americanwoodsman,” wearing buckskins and bear grease, while in America he gained entryinto drawing rooms of the wealthy through his European sophistication. Free. Call 413-443-7171 x13 for more information.

Members-only Trip to Mass Audubon’s Visual Arts Center in CantonAll-day Excursion on Saturday, March 24

Members of the Berkshire Museum and Mass Audubon are invited to travel by busto the Visual Arts Center for a behind-the-scenes guided tour of one of the finestmuseum collections of American bird art, including engravings, paintings, decoys, andwood carvings. Works are by John James Audubon, Louis Agassiz Fuertes, FrankBenson, Charlie Harper, and Andy Warhol, to name a few. Call 413-443-7171 x13 for departure time, fee, and reservations.


BERKSHIRE SANCTUARIESLenox, 413-637-0320Bird Walks at CanoeMeadowsApril 6, 13, 20, 27—8-10 a.m.May 4, 11, 18, 25—7-9 a.m.

BLUE HILLSMilton, 617-333-0690Early-Morning Birding atFowl MeadowMay 19—8:30-9:30 a.m.

BOSTON NATURE CENTERMattapan, 617-983-8500Birding for BeginnersApril 21—10 a.m.-11:30 a.m.

BROAD MEADOW BROOKWorcester, 508-753-6087Friday-Morning BirdingEvery Friday in April andMay—7-9 a.m.

BROADMOORSouth Natick, 508-655-2296Wacky WoodcocksMarch 30, April 3—7-8 p.m.Mother’s Day Birds and Breakfast WalkMay 13—walks start at 7, 8, 9, or 10 a.m.

CONNECTICUTRIVER VALLEY Easthampton, 413-584-3009Great Blue Herons April 14—3-6 p.m.

IPSWICH RIVERTopsfield, 978-887-9264Birdwatcher’s Getaway forthe Day SeriesMarch 16, April 20, May 25—times varySpring Migrants at Mt. Auburn CemeteryMay 10—6-11:30 a.m.

JOPPA FLATSNewburyport, 978-462-9998Wednesday-Morning BirdingEvery Wednesday—9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.Bird-a-thon MadnessMay 12—8 a.m.-6 p.m.

SOUTH SHOREMarshfield, 781-837-9400Searching for BobwhitesApril 30—8 a.m.-noon

WACHUSETT MEADOWPrinceton, 978-464-2712Bird-a-thon Birds and BreakfastMay 12—7:30-10:30 a.m.

WELLFLEET BAYSouth Wellfleet, 508-349-2615Spring Coastal Birding Field SchoolMay 18–20Birding North Monomoy & Nauset MarshRegular tours start in June

Birding Programs

Call the individual sanctuaries for more information, fees, and to register.

Waterfront Cottage for Rent

Pierpont Meadow Wildlife Sanctuary in Dudley

Available late May through late September

Call 978-464-2712 for more information and availability.

Visit the Gift Shop at Trailsidea Mass Audubon Store

Thursday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

Blue Hills Trailside Museum

1904 Canton Avenue, Milton

Check out our new backyard birding section

for seed, houses, accessories, and more

Member discount days on select items: May 17-20

For a full listing of Mass Audubon programs and events, visit our online catalog at www.massaudubon.org/programs.


With 18 day camps from the Berkshires to the Cape and Islands,and Wildwood, Mass Audubon’s overnight camp

there’s something for everyone.

MassAudubonsummercamps,engagingcuriousminds forover 60years!

Mass Audubon Camps are accredited by the American Camp Association.

The new Joppa Flats Day Camp and Urban Adventures Day Camp

will be seeking accreditation for summer 2013.

Information on summer 2012 is now available on our website www.massaudubon.org/camps.


BERKSHIRE SANCTUARIESLenox, 413-637-0320Spring StampedeApril 17-20—10 a.m.-3 p.m.For children in grades K-2; preregistration required

BLUE HILLSMilton, 617-333-0690April School Vacation WeekApril 16-20, 9 a.m.-3 p.m.

BOSTON NATURE CENTERMattapan, 617-983-8500Spring SleuthsApril 17-20

BROAD MEADOW BROOKWorcester, 508-753-6087April Vacation WeekApril 16-20—9 a.m.-3 p.m.

BROADMOORSouth Natick, 508-655-2296April School Vacation WeekApril 17-20—9 a.m.-3 p.m.

CONNECTICUT RIVER VALLEY Easthampton, 413-584-3009April Vacation WeekApril 17, 18, 19, 20—9 a.m.-3 p.m.

DRUMLIN FARMLincoln, 781-259-2206April Vacation Week April 16-20Full- and half-day programs for children ingrades K-8; extended-day options available

HABITAT Belmont, 617-489-5050April School Vacation WeekUp, Up and Away: April 17—9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Sowing Seeds: April 18—9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.Rotten and Stinking: April 19—9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Wonderful Water: April 20—9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. For children in grades K-3AdventurersApril 17-20For children in grades 4-6

IPSWICH RIVERTopsfield, 978-887-9264April School Vacation WeekApril 17-20—9 a.m.-3 p.m.For children in grades K-5

JOPPA FLATSNewburyport, 978-462-9998April Vacation Flyby ProgramsPonds and Pools: April 17Backyardology: April 18The River to the Sea: April 19For children ages 2-12 accompanied by an adult

MOOSE HILLSharon, 781-784-5691Science and SignsApril 16-20

VISUAL ARTS CENTERCanton, 781-821-8853Unique WildlifeApril 17-20

WACHUSETT MEADOWPrinceton, 978-464-2712School Vacation WeekApril 17-20, 9 a.m.-3 p.m.For children ages 5-11April Vacation Photography and Computer CampApril 17-20,—9 a.m.-3 p.m.For children ages 10 and up

WELLFLEET BAYSouth Wellfleet, 508-349-2615April Vacation AdventuresApril 16–20

SCHOOL VACATION WEEK PROGRAMS

Members’ special discount of 15%

March 31st-April 10 thA great selection of binoculars, spotting scopes, and accessories

Audubon ShopDrumlin Farm Wildlife Sanctuary

Route 117, Lincoln, MA 01773781-259-2214 Tuesday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

Call the individual sanctuaries for more information, fees, and to register.

For a full listing of Mass Audubon programs and events,

visit our online catalog at www.massaudubon.org/programs.

Bird-a-thon 2012 is coming…May 11-12

Spring 2012 Optics Sale

Join us as we celebrate our 29th annualbirding and fundraising extravaganza!

Thanks to your support and participationlast year, we raised more than $200,000for sanctuaries and programs across thestate in just 24 hours. With your help, we will make 2012 the most successfulBird-a-thon yet!

To join a team, make a pledge, sponsor a birder, or learn more visit us at: www.massaudubon.org/birdathon.

Save the Date

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INTERNATIONAL TOURS

Zambia: November 2012

New Zealand: October 28-November 14, with David Larson

Patagonia: January 2013

Columbia: February 2013

China: April 2013

Bhutan: April 2013

US TOURS

Birding the Rio Grande Valley and the South Texas Coast:March 9-17, with René Laubach and Doug WilliamsFor more information, contact Berkshire Sanctuaries at 413-637-0320

Birding the South Carolina Coastal Lowlands:April 24-29, with Bill Gette and David WeaverFor more information, contact Joppa Flats at 978-462-9998

New Mexico—Rio Grande Lowlands to Rocky Mountain Highlands:April 25-May 3, with René Laubach and Bob SpeareFor more information, contact Berkshire Sanctuaries at 413-637-0320

Sea Turtle Nesting in Florida:May 2012 For more information, call Wellfleet Bay at 508-349-2615

Point Pelee and the Kirtland’s Warbler—Spring Migration Madness:May 16-22For more information, contact Drumlin Farm at 781-259-2206

Pacific Northwest Birding: June 4-15, with Wayne Petersen

Birding the Connecticut Lakes: June 8-10, with Bill Gette,Debra Listernick, and Nancy SouletteFor more information, contact Joppa Flats at 978-462-9998

Puffins and Peatlands: July 12-15, with Carol Decker and John GalluzzoFor more information, contact Ipswich River at 978-887-9264Cosponsored by Ipswich River and South Shore Sanctuaries

Berkshire Blitz: July 25-27For more information, contact Broad Meadow Brook, 508-753-6087

Women’s White Mountains Adventure: July 26-28, with Berkley Cline and Carol Decker For more information, contact Ipswich River at 978-887-9264

…and many more

Travel with Mass Audubon

NaturalistsExplore the world’s most

natural regions with Mass Audubon in 2012

For detailed itineraries: www.massaudubon.org/[email protected] 800-289-9504

Sandhill cranes in Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, New Mexico

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Peregrine Falcon: Also onceendangered. Can now be found

even in cities such as Boston.

Bald Eagle: Formerly on the endangeredspecies list; now flourishing across thenation.

Curious Naturalist

Saved by Silent SpringIllustrated by Gordon Morrison


Huge numbers of various species of birds—ranging from warblers to bald eagles—were seriously threatened bythe indiscriminate use of pesticides that began after the Second World War. Apart from outright poisonings,which affected many species of garden birds, DDT and other chlorinated hydrocarbon insecticides interfered

with calcium production, resulting in thin eggshells that crushed easily. Adults failed to produce successful broods andyear by year species declined. Especially hard-hit were birds at the top of the food chain such as hawks and eagles.

Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was the prime mover in the prohibition of DDT and other dangerous chemicals in the United States.

Brown Pelican: Common, but wereformerly in serious decline from directpoisoning and thinning shells.

Osprey: These once-common fish hawkswere seriously threatened by thinning eggshells. Over the past fifty years, theyhave made a significant comeback.

American Robin: One of the most obvious of the affected birds.Robins died en masse in people’s backyards.

May 15 The height of spring warbler migra-tion; listen for the dawn chorus and watch the treetops and shrubbery at dawn and dusk.

May 20 New moon.

May 21 Painted turtles and snapping turtlesmove onto land to lay their eggs.

May 25 Scarlet tanagers and rose-breastedgrosbeaks return.

May 28 Dogwood blooms.

June 4 Full moon. The Strawberry Moon.

June 9 Listen for the green frog chorus fromfreshwater marshes and ponds.

June 11 Field wildflowers begin to bloomabout this date.

June 16 Sulphur butterflies emerge; firefliesappear in grassy areas.

June 19 New moon.

June 21 Summer solstice, longest day of theyear.

June 23 Gray treefrogs begin singing;bullfrog chorus can be heard at night at nearby ponds.

June 30 Check your garden for robber flies,which hover in midair then zip off.

July 3 Full moon. The Buck Moon.

July 8 Daylilies bloom along roadsides.

July 10 Watch for monarch butterflies onmilkweed blooms.

Outdoor Almanac Spring 2012

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March 20 Vernal equinox, first day of spring.Days and nights are equal length.

March 22 New moon.

March 23 Listen for the trill of song sparrows.

March 26 Phoebes and fox sparrows arriveabout this time.

April 3 Listen for spring peepers.

April 5 Field sparrows return.

April 6 Full moon. The Pink Moon.

April 10 Tree swallows return.

April 16 Look for white shadbush blossomsin woodlands.

April 21 New moon.

April 24 Listen for the trill of toads fromnearby swamps and marshes.

April 29 Brown thrashers, towhees, housewrens, barn swallows, and chimney swiftsreturn.

May 6 Full moon. The Flower Moon.

May 8 Watch for trout lilies, columbine,trillium, and other woodland wildflowersbefore the trees leaf out.

May 10 Spring azure butterflies appear atforest edges and in gardens.

May 2012

June 2012

July 2012

March 2012

April 2012

Non Profit Org.

U.S. Postage

PAIDPermit # 55

Burlington, VT

MassachusettsAudubon SocietySouth Great RoadLincoln, MA 01773

Sanctuary Magazine Spring 2012

Documents

Transcript of Sanctuary Magazine Spring 2012