The Return of Eagles, Ospreys, Peregrine Falcons

The Return of Eagles, Ospreys, Peregrine Falcons

In 1962 Norm Spring read Silent Spring by Rachel Carson.  He wondered how anyone could read the book and not do something about the harm DDT was causing to the environment. He was living right across the street from Central Park at the time and the city of Grand Haven, Michigan would spray the elm trees for Dutch Elm disease with DDT.  He was told he could move his car, but along with his wife he had two small children and the house and places where the young children played would be coated with DDT.  The problem was DDT did not kill the elm beetle. it soaked into the ground and everyone could see robins trembling in their death throes in the grass.  The spray washed down the streets and into the storm drains so DDT entered Lake Michigan where it was caught up in food chains.  The fish became highly contaminated with DDT.

 Fish eating birds such as the American Bald Eagle were affected since their eggs became thin and cracked as a result of DDT and did not hatch.  Norm went to every meeting of the Grand Haven City Council for three years and finally the Grand Haven City Council agreed to stop their DDT program.

People came from a nearby city and asked “How did you do that?” and together they formed the Michigan Pesticides Council that met at Michigan State University.  Among the members were:  Norm Spring, chairman, Joan Wolfe, ornithologists Dr. Ted Black, Dr. George Wallace, Dr. John Kitchel,  Charles Schick, Ann Van Lente, , Joseph Kleiman, Theodore Carbine.  Due to their work DDT and like pesticides were banned in Michigan in 1972 and then the ban went nation wide and Canada followed.

Today the Eagles, Ospreys and Peregrine Falcons have returned to the shores of the Great Lakes, the United States and Canada because the democratic process worked.

Norm was inducted into The Michigan Environmental Hall of Fame in 2014 for his work on behalf of the environment.

 Think Globally and Act Locally.

You Can Fight City Hall and Win Big

 Norm Spring

You can fight City Hall and win.  It takes time and patience, but sometimes the results are spectacular.

Years ago we lived across the street from the city park in Grand Haven, Michigan where the elm trees were sprayed with DDT to fight Dutch elm disease.  Long after the spraying we would see robins trembling in their death throes.  DDT is a long lasting pesticide that magnifies through food chains and the robin that had fed upon earthworms died before our eyes.

The fish in nearby Lake Michigan were affected even more since food chains in water are long.  DDT builds up in plankton and then magnifies with each step up the food chain.  Small fish and then larger fish and then the American bald eagle that feeds upon fish began to show the effects of DDT.  The young of eagles, peregrine falcons and ospreys did not hatch because DDT caused the shells of the eggs to break before the birds could hatch.

At that time, I was reading Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring,  and showed it to my husband, Norm Spring.  His reaction was visceral.  He had to do something about it.  He marched down to city hall and asked that the DDT program stop in our city park.  When it was not stopped, he brought experts to explain why it should be stopped.

City hall countered by bringing agriculture department people.  This went on for three years before he convinced city hall to stop the DDT program.

Then people from a neighboring city, Holland, Michigan came and together with others Norm Spring formed the Michigan Pesticides Council.  It met at M.S.U. with Dr. Ted Black, Dr. George Wallace, Dr. Howard Tanner, Dr. John Kitchel, Joan Wolfe and others.  Together they marshaled citizen support and by 1969 DDT was banned in Michigan and by 1972 was banned nationally. 

It took years for DDT to purge from Lake Michigan food chains, but today we often see bald eagles along the beaches and the Grand River that flows through Michigan.  On January 4, 2003, the Grand Haven Tribune reported 46 bald eagles on the ice and in the trees not far from U.S. 31.  About a third of these were mature eagles.

Flight of the Peregrine Falcon from Detroit

Peregrine\noun a swift nearly cosmopolitan falcon that is used much in falconry


Peregrination\noun a journey

Webster’s Dictionary



Detroit, Lake St. Clair and Flight of the Peregrine Falcon



From a skyscraper in Detroit, a peregrine falcon flies northeast toward Lake St. Clair. Flying over cattails on its edge she hears the rasping voice of redwing blackbirds and the great blue heron’s loud clacking signal of alarm. She circles over heart shaped Lake St. Clair, past mansions on its shore and boats bobbing in the gentle waves. She soon reaches Lake St. Clair’s wetlands: St. John’s Marsh and the rich delta area above it where the St. Clair River fans out into hundreds of tiny channels to form the world’s largest freshwater delta, a rich breeding ground for many species of fish and birds. Her peregrination takes her to Lake St. Clair’s outlet, the Detroit River.


From the outlet of Lake St. Clair the peregrine flies eighteen miles down the Detroit River passing the large industrial centers in Windsor Canada and Detroit and River Rouge in Michigan. The Detroit River’s powerful current seems to boil as it drops about eight feet in elevation: the blue green waters of Lake Superior, Lake Michigan and Lake Huron have filtered through the marshes and Lake St. Clair and rush past Detroit, Michigan on one side of the river and Windsor Ontario on the other side.

Read more about the Great Lakes in my book, The Dynamic Great Lakes fourth edition now available for $9.95 + s&h  http://www.publishamerica.net/product95488

The Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore Lake Superior

Near Grand Marais, Michigan there are high sandstone cliffs called the Pictured Rocks that stretch for 38 miles.  I took a boat trip along this shore and saw a pair of peregrine falcons that had a nest on top of the rocks.  This was a great spot for them to dive upon their prey.

I could hear the sound of waves thundering in the caves at the base of the cliffs.  The soft sandstone of the Pictured Rocks was formed when saltwater seas covered much of the continental United States millions of years ago.  Later, the powerful wave action of Lake Superior carved the stone into many beautiful shapes: one resembles a castle, others three battle ships, two indian drums, a broken flower vase, and the profile of an indian's face.  The buff colored rocks are steaked with green, red and black caused by deposits of copper, iron, and other minerals along with white limestone.

The Pictured Rocks are covered on top with forested sand dunes.  In the Grand Marais area there are waterfalls to explore.

http://www.nps.gov/piro/index.htm

Environmental Success Story

The American bald eagle was nearly wiped out by DDT and like pesticides that were used after World War II. Since these poisons take many years to break down, they were caught up in Great Lakes food webs and affected the fish eating birds such as the eagles.

The eagles are higher on the food pyramid than humans since they eat only fish and meat, but fish eating humans were also being poisoned by these insecticides.

My community was the first to ban DDT that was used to control the Dutch elm beetle in the park in front of our house. My husband and I formed a committee to get it stopped and after this was accomplished, we joined others to form the Michigan Pesticides Council that met at MSU. This was a grass roots movement and it was part of a national movement.

As a result of this work, the eagles have returned to the Great Lakes as well as peregrine falcons and ospreys. Read more about this in The Dynamic Great Lakes
This book is available online at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and many other stores.