moss
Been here much more than a while
- Location
- Carlisle, Massachusetts, U.S.
For tree workers active bird nests are a tricky situation. The Federal Migratory Bird Act makes it illegal to disturb most species of actively nesting birds in the United States. Enforcement is very low but the law is enforceable by state and federal environmental police. Like a lot of laws on the books enforcement happens only in the most egregious cases or when an onlooker calls in a complaint. It's on the tree worker to assess and be aware of birds nesting in hollows or in branches and limbs before starting and during work.
To say that tree work shouldn't happen during bird nesting seasons is a broad overreach, mainly out of ignorance. It certainly comes from the perspective of caring but is inaccurate. Tree work will happen across the entire bird nesting season and that season is very long in most places.
For example in Massachusetts great horned owls start laying eggs in late February and Cooper's hawks are hatching young in mid-June. Goldfinches and cedar waxwings nest very late, often in mid-summer. Throughout the month of May nesting by many species is widespread and nearly unavoidable in tree work depending on the scale of a job.
The level of expertise required to know what's nesting where and when, in what types of trees, etc etc. is beyond what most of us can determine. Even the experts will have trouble locating a screech owl nest in a mature oak full of hollows and the small openings accessed by these owls. There are obvious cases, many birds will make a lot of noise and show agitation when workers get near nests
The best response from tree services after damaging and active nest site is to contact local animal control and/or state environmental police. No one gets fined if they report craning out a tree part or whole tree and baby hawks spill out on a front lawn when the tree is put on the ground. The point of the law is to encourage responsible behavior. Multiple times the rehabilitators I work with have contacted me to build new nests and put babies back after tree services did the right thing and called for assistance. In several cases federal or state environmental police were involved and no prosecution happened.
It's pretty obvious that generally speaking wildlife and the environment often lose out when money is at stake. If more of us do our part to find a way to do less damage to wildlife it's a good thing.
https://www.fws.gov/law/migratory-bird-treaty-act-1918 (has been updated/modified many times since it was first passed)
-AJ
To say that tree work shouldn't happen during bird nesting seasons is a broad overreach, mainly out of ignorance. It certainly comes from the perspective of caring but is inaccurate. Tree work will happen across the entire bird nesting season and that season is very long in most places.
For example in Massachusetts great horned owls start laying eggs in late February and Cooper's hawks are hatching young in mid-June. Goldfinches and cedar waxwings nest very late, often in mid-summer. Throughout the month of May nesting by many species is widespread and nearly unavoidable in tree work depending on the scale of a job.
The level of expertise required to know what's nesting where and when, in what types of trees, etc etc. is beyond what most of us can determine. Even the experts will have trouble locating a screech owl nest in a mature oak full of hollows and the small openings accessed by these owls. There are obvious cases, many birds will make a lot of noise and show agitation when workers get near nests
The best response from tree services after damaging and active nest site is to contact local animal control and/or state environmental police. No one gets fined if they report craning out a tree part or whole tree and baby hawks spill out on a front lawn when the tree is put on the ground. The point of the law is to encourage responsible behavior. Multiple times the rehabilitators I work with have contacted me to build new nests and put babies back after tree services did the right thing and called for assistance. In several cases federal or state environmental police were involved and no prosecution happened.
It's pretty obvious that generally speaking wildlife and the environment often lose out when money is at stake. If more of us do our part to find a way to do less damage to wildlife it's a good thing.
https://www.fws.gov/law/migratory-bird-treaty-act-1918 (has been updated/modified many times since it was first passed)
-AJ
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