The Roseate Spoonbill is leaving the Everglades

I was disappointed to read in the Miami Herald this week that one of Florida's signature bird species, the Roseate Spoonbill, is disappearing from where it once was most abundant -- the Everglades and Florida Bay.

According to scientists with Audubon of Florida, the long-legged pink birds just wrapped up the worst breeding season in Florida Bay in more than 40 years, managing only 292 nests -- down 37 percent in one year, and far short of a peak 1,260 in 1979.

Florida Bay is a shallow inner-shelf lagoon located at the southernmost tip of the Florida Peninsula. Fresh water from the everglades mixes in it with the salty waters from the Gulf of Mexico to form an estuary that is surrounded by mangroves forests and encompasses more than 200 mangrove islands. Most of the bay lies within the boundaries of Everglades National Park.

It sounds like an ideal place for spoonbills. So ideal, in fact, that we had a naturalist for the Florida Bay District of Everglades National Park write about the pleasure of watching them (and flamingos too) in Snake Bight, a 10-square-mile bay on the northern shore of the bay, in our February 2008 issue.

But last year, for the first time ever, more spoonbills nested in heavily urbanized Tampa Bay than in Florida Bay, said ecologist Jerry Lorenz, state research director for Audubon.

The reason is familiar to anyone who has followed the sad story of the Everglades: The national park is simply dying for more water on account of roads, development, and drainage projects. The spoonbills, an indicator species, are indicating.

As we've reported previously, Lorenz and other biologists with Audubon of Florida have been banding spoonbill chicks in an effort to gauge the overall health of the Everglades, and they're asking birders to report sightings of banded spoonbills.

If you see one, please report it! Call the Florida Coastal Islands Sanctuaries office at (813) 623-6826, or use the online report form.

You can find Audubon of Florida's recommendations about what to do about Florida Bay here. --C.H.