Minnesota's Purple Martins need our help

[Louise Chambers]

You can comment in support of Purple Martins, and we hope you will take the time to do so. The facts are well marshaled, read the PMCA's letter and please send a comment of your own:

http://purplemartin.org/main/MNmartins.html

[klcretired]

I will support and comment to help the MN Martins

[Barrowdog]

Louise,
We have snowbird friends who are from northern Wisconsin who are very concerned that they have not had any martins for a few years . I referred them to the Wisconsin group that is listed in the magazine .
Sue

[Louise Chambers]

Thanks, Sue. PMCA has an affiliate org, Eastern Wisconsin Purple Martin Assocation, that would be a good contact for your friends as well.

http://wglbbo.org/purple-martin

MN, WI, and Michigan, plus New England states, all need more focus on restoring Purple Martins, and groups like those in MN and WI are doing a lot to change things.

[Jim Spetzman]

I am in need for some info. I have a neighbor that is not enjoying my martins and is complaining to me that when she is on her dock, they dive-bomb her and make nests under her pontoon. I told her that is Barn swallows but it doesnt matter, my Martins are the problem to her. I saw an article from the Minnesota DNR that was thinking of putting the Martin on a species of special concern? I have tryed to find it or any article so that I can E-mail it to her so I have some ammunition to tell her about the need to help out the Martins. If anybody can find it and e-mail it to me, then I can forward it to her and hope it will make a difference. Thanks, [email protected]

[AllenH]

Jim,
Don't know if this is what you were looking for but is informative about the decline.

http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_18564511

Al

[Louise Chambers]

Here is a copy of a letter sent earlier this year, deals with status of purple martins in MN.

Minnesota Office of Administrative Hearings January 29, 2013
600 N. Robert St.
St. Paul, MN 55164-0620

To Whom It May Concern:

The Purple Martin Conservation Association is a 501 (c) 3 nonprofit, member organization dedicated to the conservation of Purple Martins through research and public education (see www.purplemartin.org). The Association counts numerous Minnesotans among its thousands of members. We write in support of the Proposed Amendment of Minnesota Rules, Chapter 6134: Endangered and Threatened Species Statement of Need and Reasonableness: August 10, 2012. That amendment would officially list the Purple Martin (Progne subis) as a species of Special Concern in Minnesota.

The basis for listing the Purple Martin is the species’ long-term population decline in Minnesota. The decline is well-documented by data from the US Department of Interior’s Breeding Bird Survey( BBS), a reliable survey widely regarded in the scientific community as being the best source of information on bird populations. The BBS data show a population decline of 5.4% per year in Minnesota during the period 2000-2010. If one takes the longer view going back to the inception of the BBS in the late 1960s, the decline is even more dramatic, indicating that Minnesota has lost roughly seven eighths (7/8) of its martin population in less than 50 years. The Minnesota Breeding Bird Atlas, currently in progress, shows Purple Martins to be sparsely distributed in Minnesota, in contrast to earlier works (e.g., T.S. Roberts’1932 Birds of Minnesota) suggesting that they were widely distributed and abundant.

Purple Martins are unique in that they are colonial nesters that depend almost entirely on people, so called Purple Martin landlords, to provide housing for them to nest in. This dependency is both bane and boon for the species; bane when, as has occurred in Minnesota and many other areas, people lose interest in providing housing; and boon when new landlords are recruited to provide housing. Currently groups like the Purple Martin Conservation Association, the Minnesota Purple Martin Working Group, East Central Minnesota Purple Martin Recovery and Audubon Minnesota are working to recruit new landlords to establish colonies in Minnesota, and to help existing landlords improve management of their colonies.

Purple Martins respond well to management, and it is reasonable to expect that with broader support, groups working on their behalf in Minnesota will have demonstrable success in restoring the population. Listing the Purple Martin as a species of Special Concern in Minnesota will elevate its official status, make its plight better known, and hopefully garner additional support for restoring the population.

On behalf of Purple Martins and Purple Martin landlords everywhere, thank you for your consideration.

[Scully]

Purple Martins are unique in that they are colonial nesters that depend almost entirely on people, so called Purple Martin landlords, to provide housing for them to nest in. This dependency is both bane and boon for the species; bane when, as has occurred in Minnesota and many other areas, people lose interest in providing housing;

I am overjoyed that the PMCA is addressing this part of the problem; the decline in available purple martin housing.

I live in an area that still has a healthy martin population, this is undoubtedly due to the availability of housing. A few years back we identified and recorded the location of more than 200 martin housing sites within just a four-mile radius of our school, and for five years have attempted to check at least 100 sites for occupancy in late May.

While the occupancy rate has remained at around 50-60% of available houses occupied, about one third of the housing has disappeared in that time.

Our school lies not too far from a major military installation (Lackland AFB), and most of the people housing around here went in forty or more years ago with a great many Air Force families and retirees moving in. Most of the available martin housing still standing are aluminum Heaths and Trio type housing dating from that era.

I feel as if we are watching a martin train wreck in slow-motion as housing continues to get taken down much faster than it is being replaced.


One matter I would like the PMCA still to address is the letter they provide to landlords intended to be given to those people having starling and sparrow-infested martin housing on their property. The letter requests that this housing be removed.

I believe that this is in error for the following reasons:

1) Almost all Eastern Purple Martins alive today were hatched in poorly maintained housing alongside sparrows. Anyone who doubts this is free to come here and we can spend all day out looking at as many sites as they'd care to.

2) While there are favored sites occupied every year, martins CAN reclaim space in neglected housing that did not hold martins the year before. We see cases of this every year..

3) At present, even in this still martin-rich area, less than one in one hundred residences has martin housing. I doubt that removing every S&S infested house would have any meaningful effect on local S&S populations.

It would take out 90% of our local martin population though.

Mike Scully

[Dave Duit]

The Iowa Purple Martin Organization has sent an email encouraging the listing of the purple martin as a species of special concern. Power in numbers.