Date: 5/18/25 2:22 pm From: John Nelson <jnelson...> Subject: [MASSBIRD] Protect Birds, Protect People
I sent the message below to Senators Markey and Warren and my congressman,
Seth Moulton, on behalf of the Association of Mass Bird Clubs and Brookline
Bird Club. I urge all birders to contact members of Congress to protect the
Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the EPA. Please
feel free to use any or all of my message, but keep in mind that I include
a personal anecdote toward the end.
John Nelson
Gloucester
Chair, Association of Mass Bird Clubs
Chair, Brookline Bird Club Conservation & Education Committee
*Protect Birds, Protect People*
I write on behalf of the Brookline Bird Club--the largest bird club in
Massachusetts with around 1100 members--and the Association of
Massachusetts Bird Clubs, an alliance of 24 clubs representing more than
7000 birders from across the state. Our concerns are widely shared by many
thousands of birders around Massachusetts who are not club members but care
deeply about birds and other wildlife. We are alarmed by the proposed
gutting of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the undermining of the Endangered
Species Act, and the weakening and proposed elimination of the EPA, all of
which were established by Congress to protect birds and wildlife as well as
people.
The Migratory Bird Treaty Act, passed by Congress in 1918 in conjunction
with other nations, protects our native birds from being killed or harmed
by individuals and by businesses that could once harm birds with impunity
through willful neglect and indifference toward the lives of birds and
their habitats. The Endangered Species Act was enacted by Congress in 1973
to protect imperiled species and preserve the biodiversity necessary to
maintain the health of ecological systems that sustain people along with
animals and plants. The intent of this Act would be undermined by changes
proposed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that would redefine what
constitutes “harm” to endangered species. The EPA was proposed by President
Nixon and ratified by Congress in 1970 to ensure that all Americans could
breathe clean air, drink clean water, and use waterways for fishing or
recreation without being sickened by pollutants generated mainly by use of
fossil fuels. Massachusetts Audubon has documented how climate change
disrupts the lives of many bird species whose populations are already
shrinking.
What is bad for birds is almost always bad for people. Americans remember
images of pelicans covered with oil after the massive 2010 oil spill in the
Gulf of Mexico, but we should also remember that the oil spill devastated
the commercial shrimp business and tourism along the Gulf Coast, which
brought far more income to Louisiana than fossil fuel industries.
Prosperity through increased American manufacturing has been used as the
pretext for eliminating all protections of our environment and birds, but
this “prosperity” will be an illusion if we are breathing poisoned air and
drinking or swimming in contaminated waters, while birds, with no
protection, are no longer able to thrive on American lands or in American
waters.
In the late 1960s, just before the EPA was created, I worked summers on
U.S. Steel ships carrying ore iron across the Great Lakes. My crewmates and
I witnessed all the foul pollutants that infiltrated the air, were dumped
into the waters, and caused Lake Erie—bigger than all of Massachusetts—to
be pronounced a “dead lake” unable to sustain life. In 1969 we chugged up
the oil-slicked Cuyahoga River, named after native Americans, just weeks
before the river caught fire--a nightmare scene out of Dante’s *Inferno*.
No reasonable American would want to return to a time when, without any
government oversight, a great lake could die, a river could catch fire, and
birds around us might vanish through neglect. We urge you and other members
of Congress to do everything in your power to enforce the Migratory Bird
Treaty Act, save the Endangered Species Act, and return the EPA to the
purpose Congress intended—protecting our environment.
