The Mighty Peregrine Falcon

In this installment of 10 Minute Tuesday, host Rick Schwartz explores the fascinating world of the peregrine falcon, its history, adaptations, and the importance of conservation efforts. Learn how scientific studies and environmental policies have helped bring this incredible bird back from the brink of extinction.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

And knock them silly basically or knock them out completely or knock the wind out of them, and that bird falls to the ground. The peregrine meets it down there and has its snack. 200 miles an hour is a hard hit. It's a really hard hit. Also, here's something to consider too that I think is really cool. They have a cool adaptation. I'm Rick Schwartz, educator, public speaker, and all-around curious guy. Over the years, my curiosity and experiences, along with the many people I have worked with, revealed to me we all have a desire to feel connected to the natural world. You're listening to Animals, Nature, and You, a podcast that explores a connection between animals, nature, and humans. A podcast that celebrates learning more, following our curiosity, and reconnecting with the natural world. Welcome to another 10-minute Tuesday here on Animals, Nature, and You. I'm your host, Rick Schwartz, and today's topic is the Peregrine Falcon. And I will say I'm going to try really hard to keep it at 10 minutes because if things keep going the way they're going on these episodes, I might have to change it to 20-minute Tuesday, which I don't want to do. So here we go. Last episode, we had an interview with Tina. She talked about the Red Forest, Red Oak Forest School, excuse me, that she developed as in charge of runs, reminding us how important it is for kids to be in nature, and also honestly for adults as well. Part of her story, though, we talked at the very beginning of her interview about how she became known as the Peregrine Lady when she came out of college because she was helping to do a survey on the peregrine falcons, climbing up these smokestacks, getting coal ash on her and coal dust on her, because she was helping to do the survey on these breeding pears, et cetera. So why would somebody do that? Why is that important? So when it comes to an animal being listed or unlisted from the endangered species list or considered threatened or any of those things, scientists have to go out and do studies. We have to be able to present data to the system, basically, to the governing agencies, whatever it might be, state or federal, to say, look, these numbers are dropping, the habitat is getting smaller, whatever it might be. So therefore, here's our justification for saying we need to put protections into place. We more thoughtful about how we develop the land or the pollutions we use, the chemicals, et cetera. So with that, as an example, let's talk a little bit about the history of the peregrine falcon real quick when it comes to why surveys like this are important. In the 1960s, chemicals were being used for agriculture. There was this big boom on how we can do different things, not just fertilizer, but there was a particular product called DDT, which was aimed at controlling insect populations. We want to kill off the bugs to prevent them from eating the agriculture, eating our food, basically, so we can have a better harvest to feed the growing population of the United States. Makes a lot of sense, right? Well, as time moved on, we started to realize that birds like the bald eagle and peregrine falcon, even the brown pelican, suddenly their populations were dropping. And when we started to study and look at it, it was because for some reason the eggs were breaking. Long story short, DDT was affecting eggshell strength. It was eliminating the calcium in the shell. And so when the parents would sit on it to incubate the eggs, they would break. So what's the connection? Well, for whatever reason, the way DDT worked in these birds, it caused this deformation where not en calcium was going into the egg. The food chain is your line back to what was causing this. DDT doesn't kill bugs on contact. It would build up in them, they would slow down. The smaller birds are like, hey, you're moving slower, you're easier to catch, I'm going to eat you. And they would eat a lot of these. And then who eats those birds? Your paragon falcon is a bird hunter. It's going to eat a lot of these birds. So what's going on? Why, why, why does this work like this? Smaller birds, and this is true for birds, reptiles, and even fish species, they cannot process toxins like mammals can. And even some mammals, it's different also. For the most part, a lot of species will keep the toxins in the body. The body doesn't know what to do with it. The liver and the kidneys are different than yours and mine. And so what ends up happening is it stores it in fatty deposits in the body, it stores it in muscle tissue in an attempt to keep it out of the system so it doesn't affect the heart or the brain or other parts of the body, and it just keeps it there. So now you're a bird that eats other birds that's been eating a bunch of insects. The insect, the the excuse me, the DDT from the insect is building up in these smaller birds, you eat a bunch of these smaller birds, it builds up in you. The outcome is unfortunately eggs keep breaking. If eggs break year after year, you go year after year with no boost to the population, no young adults the year after or two years after. And you perpetually see this loss of population, to the point that by if I have this right, let me just double check my numbers here. By the by 1970, the population of breeding pairs dropped by 95% in the peregrine falcon. So in 1970, people got together and there was this endangered species, a version of the endangered species act that we have today at that time that said we need to protect these birds. And this happened for bald eagles and the brown pelican because DDT would get in the waterways and get in the fish. Fish eat insects also, and again, it would build up in the fish. Those birds eat fish, it builds up in them, and all of a sudden now we see this drop in population. So by 1975, even though they were protected in 1970, peregrine falcons, they were pretty much gone from the eastern side of the United States, and the population west was dropping dramatically. We know there was about 324 breeding pair left in the population. That's what 650-ish almost individuals that we know of. With the work then of DDT being eliminated from use, not going in the environment anymore, that's a huge step. So now those that are left can have babies. But then also breeding programs are put in place by zoological facilities, the Peregrine Falcon Fund, a bunch of other organizations doing their part to help not only protect them, but then bolster the population through breeding programs. Then by 1999, so roughly what, 25, 30 years later, depending upon how you want to do the math, as far as if you're measuring from 1970 versus 1975, either way, around 29 years, 25 years, they are taken off the list because the work that was done was working. It did work. And we need to maintain that, of course. Just like when I've talked about in the past with the giant panda being taken off the endangered species list, doesn't mean we stop doing the conservation. It means we keep doing it because it's working. We keep being thoughtful about how we work within the environment and our breeding programs, our reintroduction programs, everything else. So, with that, it's it's also something to discuss today because in our current environment, we see a lot of things happening where people are in charge of these environmental decisions come from a space of wanting to protect the businesses that actually could potentially damage these spaces. And the reason I want to point out, too, these numbers we're talking about of the paragraph and falcon, why these studies are important, is not that someone says, hey, that's a cute-looking bird, I want to save it, or ooh, I love that field of flowers, it's so pretty, I want to save it. It is actual numbers and knowledge. We can apply our ability to be thinking creatures and thoughtful creatures, and apply the science and the math and recognize this is what causes population decline in species, loss of habitat, and this is what can protect it, save it, and bring it back. So it's interesting we look back at our history of how we've treated a lot of our environmental issues and overcome them to now be in a space where we see the Environmental Protection Agency, the Endangered Species Act, and other similar things being degradated, being eroded by behavior of those who find themselves now in charge with a history of being more interested in companies making money than necessarily protecting these things. These are people who've fought these protections to give companies and organizations more opportunity to exploit these spaces and these these and ignore the species. It's important to recognize, too, that the science and the ecology, the environmentalism, the conservation work, all of that is not political. These are just facts. It is when the politicians get involved because they are supported by other organizations that want to exploit these things that it becomes political. Does that make sense? Anyhow, peregrine falcon. Let's get back into it because we've only got a few minutes left. Peregrine falcons are incredibly awesome predators. They are known for being one of the fastest animals alive today. Now, on the wing, as in flying just straight ahead, flapping their wings, they're pretty fast, but they're known for their stoop or their dive. When they are hunting, they drop down, they tuck, everything about their body becomes this ridiculously aerodynamic thing, a projectile, and they can hit speeds of 200 miles an hour. Now, when you think about an eagle going down to grab its fish out of the water or an osprey, or maybe you've seen other birds of prey come in, they're oh, like an owl, even getting like a mouse or a vole. They're going to come in talons first and grab that prey item. Because the peregrine falcon is hunting on the wing, in other words, they're hunting other birds that are flying, they come down from above and they usually ball up their talons to punch them and knock them silly, basically, or knock them out completely, or knock the wind out of them, and that bird falls to the ground. The peregr meets it down there and has its snack. 200 miles an hour is a hard hit. It's a really hard hit. Also, here's something to consider too that I think is really cool. They have a cool adaptation called a tubercle. It's a bony protrusion that's just inside the nostril. So imagine this. You're driving along down the freeway, depending upon where you live, 60, 70 miles an hour is the average. You stick your head out the window, and that force of air, and you can actually feel it pushing and how it does make breathing a little bit challenging or different than what we're used to. Imagine 200 miles an hour with your nostrils right there at the top of the beak, zooming down. Those tubercles in there regulate the pressure coming into the nostrils so they can breathe normally. What a cool adaptation. There's a whole bunch of other cool adaptations too that allows them to reach these speeds. But another thing I want to share with you really quick, which is true for other birds of prey, there are two focal points in their eyes. They have focal points that allow them to see sort of up close depth perception. And there's others then that allow for long distance focusing on prey items. So having these two different focal points in their eyes allow for that sideways look, closer things, or even at a distance, but then also they have the same binocular vision you and I have, which allows for better depth perception for hunting prey and for doing what they do. They have this physical strength too. Not only are they fast in the stoop, they have to have powerful muscles to fly. One very well-known powerful muscle is the heart. That can beat up to 900 times per minute when they're in that hunting mode, which allows all that oxygen to get through that body and get to those muscles. One other cool adaptation, which is true for other birds of prey too, they have a tominal tooth. It's not a true tooth like you and I have. It's a shape of the beak that once they do have their prey item to prevent the prey from possibly scratching or biting them, they can go in there. And this is again true for other birds of prey too. This little angle and sharp edge of the beak, they go in and snap the vertebrae or the spinal column up by the neck of their prey item, pretty much killing them right away and rendering rendering them safe then to try and eat or deal with instead of getting scratched. Uh, I do want to share also, too, I think it's cool to acknowledge that if you live in a big city, you might have peregrine falcons right there in the urban downtown area. Now, they when they build a nest, it's more what they call a scrape, meaning they'll they may or may not put a few twigs or something on a cliff ledge, but they're going to pretty much just use a cliff ledge as their nest, where they'll lay their eggs, they'll sit there and they'll feed their young, etc. Well, in the urban areas, what is a big cliff? Tall buildings. So in tall buildings, bridges, uh, smokestacks, like uh our friend the paragon lady Tina was saying in the beginning of her interview, any of these man-made structures can work very well. And it's one of those things where we also realized as we were working in the 1900s to save the paragon falcon that this is also something good for the urban life of humans, because birds like pigeons that can become a very large problem if their population grows too big. The peregron falcon helps manage that and they can nest naturally right there on the buildings because they are adapted or they have grown up. Evolved is the word I'm looking for. I don't know why I'm having a hard time with that. They've evolved to have their nests on these scrapes on the cliffsides, which buildings represent a version of that pretty well. So, with that, the last one thing I want to share with you. If you ever do see paragraph falcons, males are smaller than females. Females are typically larger than the males among most raptor species. And a lot of ornithologists believe that's because they're the egg bearers, they have to have the larger body to keep those eggs going and also move those eggs out of their body. So a larger skeletal structure allows for that. So, in raptors in general, paragon falcons, no exception. You tend to see larger females than males. So that's that's it for paragon falcons. Still a little over 10 minutes. I tried, I really tried, I tried. Want to wrap it up. And of course, I want to say thank you very much. I appreciate you for following along, for listening. If you haven't already subscribed or follow, please do. Every Tuesday, 10 minute Tuesday like this, which is closer to 12-minute Tuesday, and then every Thursday, new interviews with awesome people doing awesome stuff. If anything I mentioned here is interesting to you, check the show notes. I probably will have some links, like today. There'll be some links down below about paragon falcons. And of course, you can find then the social media for Animals Nature New or my website, zoologyrick.com, or my social media too. So I'm going to wrap this all up so we can be all done. Thank you so much for being here and supporting this podcast. I appreciate you tremendously. Have a good one, everybody.