The boreal forests of Alberta are known to birders as the nursery for millions of US song birds. However, the stripping of huge tracts (an area about the size of Florida) of these important forests, and the noisy, noxious mining of the tar sands has resulted in the deaths of thousands of birds according to a new report by The National Wildlife Foundation and Natural Resources Council.
http://www.nrcm.org/...
Not only are the forests razed completely but the mining produces a left over..a highly toxic mix of water laced with deadly chemicals and oil. This chemical soup is spewed into hastily prepared "lakes" or tailings ponds. These ponds are nothing more than flat, low-lying lands with sand bulldozed up around them to contain the liquid waste. They leak..but that's a subject for another diary. The ponds cover roughly an area of 50 square miles and use cannons and scarecrows to ward off birds that try to land on them. They don't always work.
In 2008, 1600 ducks died in a Syncrude tailings pond. October, 2010, a storm resulted in hundreds of ducks landing in a Suncor pond-550 were too oiled up to save. As of 2010, 43 species of protected birds have died as a result of exposure to tailings ponds
http://ecowatch.com/...
Follow me over the rusty squiggldydoo for more
130 species of North America's internationally protected migratory birds nest and breed in the Canada's boreal forests in the summer. One of these protected species is the Whooping Crane. In the 1940s there were only 16 birds. Today, there are more than 600. Others include the American goldfinch, the Great Blue Heron, the Wood Duck and the Trumpeter Swan.
National Wildlife Federation Senior Counsel, Jim Murphy states,"Many of the birds Americans watch, enjoy and hunt fly to and rely on this area. The Canadian Government has vowed to protect these birds, but is turning a blind eye."
The US Department of Interior is under legal obligation, via the Pelly Amendment, to determine if tar sands mining in Canada is undermining a hundred year old treaty designed to protect North America's shared songbirds and waterfowl.
Aside from the legal ramifications, the loss of so many birds (possibly a reduction of 70 million hatchlings over a 40 year period), will seriously unbalance the delicate ecosystem of North America. Birds, like bees, are one of the main underpinnings of diversity. They eat a huge variety of insects, thus keeping the population of bugs in check. They are also responsible for the spread of many seeds. Some plants rely on the birds to propagate them. The birds eat the fruit, and poop the seeds out somewhere else.
But above all else...our world would be poorer for the loss of songbirds who make our world a joy to live in.