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On 12/9/2013 11:57 AM, terri.crane@ns.sympatico.ca wrote:
> It was likely for the grit! not a healthy choice and as spastics show often a deadly one
* Road salts and birds: an assessment of the risk with particular
emphasis on winter finch mortality - Pierre Mineau and Lorna J. Brownlee
Wildlife Society Bulletin 33(3):835-841. 2005
Abstract: There have been many documented cases of bird mortality along
roadsides where salt was applied. Herbivorous and granivorous species,
especially, are attracted to salt, probably to satisfy a dietary need.
Because mortality appears to be primarily a result of vehicle strikes,
most authors have assumed that salt was only indirectly responsible for
the deaths—a case of “fatal attraction” to busy salted roads. Repeated
observations of apparent behavioral toxicity along roadsides, as well as
new information on the toxicology of oral salt ingestion in birds, now
suggest that salt toxicity per se is contributing to the vulnerability
of small songbirds to road traffic and perhaps is a direct cause of
mortality in some birds. The difficulty of retrieving bird carcasses and
the low rate of reporting suggest that kills probably are more
widespread and frequent than indicated by documented reports alone. Most
known cases of songbird mortality have occurred within a group of birds
collectively known as winter finches belonging to the subfamily
Carduelinae. This may result from a higher probability of exposure for
these species because of their diet and presence in the snow belt but
also may reflect a greater ease of detecting mortality incidents in
species forming large feeding flocks. The high attraction of salted
roads for winter finches suggests that the roads' ecological footprint
is very large. We conclude that the importance of road salt as a
mortality factor in these species long has been under-estimated by
wildlife managers and transport personnel.
http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.2193/0091-7648%282005%2933%5B835%3ARSABAA%5D2.0.CO%3B2
> ---- nancy dowd <nancypdowd@gmail.com> wrote:
>> There was a group of about 10 Mourning Doves amidst a pile of loose road salt on the paved intersection of Trunk 10 and the Cherryfield Road, Lun Co this morning. They flew off as I turned in. I can't imagine they were feeding on road salt and were maybe just investigating a possible food or grit source? Strange to see them there.
>>
>> Nancy
--
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Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad
Bishops Mills Natural History Centre - http://pinicola.ca/bmnhc.htm
Mudpuppy Night in Oxford Mills - http://pinicola.ca/mudpup1.htm
Daily Paintings - http://karstaddailypaintings.blogspot.com/
RR#2 Bishops Mills, Ontario, Canada K0G 1T0
on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44* 52'N 75* 42'W
(613)258-3107 <bckcdb at istar.ca> http://pinicola.ca/
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