Science / Medicine : Sea Bird Feared Endangered

Environmentalists have petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list a robin-sized sea bird, called the marbled murrelet, as a threatened species in Oregon, Washington and California.

The main factor threatening the birds along the Pacific Coast is the loss of old-growth forest, which the marbled murrelets need for nesting, according to the petition. An estimated 2,400 breeding pairs live along the Oregon coast.

“They need old-growth trees, because trees have to be 150 years old before the branches have enough girth to provide a base of support for the egg,” said Wendell Wood of the Oregon Natural Resources Council.

Logging and fires have destroyed most of the virgin forests along the coast, leaving about 2% of the original forests in place, Wood said. Much of the remaining virgin forest is clustered in small, isolated stands.

If granted, the petition filed last week by several National Audubon Society chapters would require evaluating the threat, monitoring the bird’s population and preserving nesting sites.