No more rigged elections! Give us the loon: Toronto Star Editorial

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2016/11/17/no-more-rigged-elections-give-us-the-loon-editorial.html

‘It’s up to the federal government to name a national bird in time for Canada’s 150th birthday next July 1. It should respect the will of the people and pick the loon.’

The gray jay is the Canadian Geographical Society's choice as Canada's national bird.

Thu., Nov. 17, 2016

So let’s get this straight. One candidate clearly won the popular vote, not by a little but by quite a lot. Yet, disturbingly, another candidate has been declared the winner as a result of a rather murky process involving faceless elites.

Nonetheless, we are being urged to just go along and accept the result. Even though the declared “winner” is an upstart with no experience in the relevant role.

No, it’s not what you think. It’s another vote, hardly as momentous as the one on Nov. 8 that put the candidate who lost the popular vote on the road to the White House. But it’s important nonetheless, both for the substance of the choice and how it’s being made.

The Royal Canadian Geographical Society made a big deal of the vote it organized to gauge popular opinion on the weighty matter at hand: what should Canada choose as its national bird?

The survey, it boasted, went way beyond just picking a particular species. It involved Canadians “joining a movement to identify a new national symbol of pride, identity and belonging on the cusp of the country’s 150th birthday.” The level of engagement, it said, was “off the charts.”

In the end, an impressive 50,000 people weighed in as Canadian Geographic magazine conducted a national poll, asking Canadians to choose among five avian finalists. And guess what? The hands-down winner was the common loon, with 13,995 votes, followed by the adorable snowy owl with 8,948.

But in the end the society this week chose none of the above. It went instead for the third-place choice, the gray jay or whiskey jack, as its recommendation to be our national bird even though it garnered just 7,918 votes. Apparently various bird experts got involved and decided (we’re not quite sure how) that the humble jay is more worthy than the choice of the people.

We think not. We aren’t quite prepared to go into the streets and declare “Not our bird!” or #NeverJay. But we do stick by our original recommendation that the best candidate to be Canada’s national bird is indeed the common loon – an admirable and iconic creature that has the added merit of being the clear popular favourite.

It’s now up to the federal government to name a national bird in time for the 150th anniversary of Confederation next July 1. It should respect the will of the people and pick the loon. One rigged election in a week is more than enough.

Ecology. 2015 Nov;96(11):3005-15.

Experimental evidence and 43 years of monitoring data show that food limits reproduction in a food-caching passerine.

Derbyshire R, Strickland D, Norris DR.

Abstract

Several species of birds and mammals overcome periods of scarcity by caching food, but for the vast majority of species, it is virtually unknown whether they are food limited during these periods. The Gray Jay (Perisoreus canadensis) is a boreal-resident, food-caching passerine that breeds in late winter when fresh food is scarce. Using a two-year experiment and 43 years of monitoring data, we examined the food limitation hypothesis in a population of Gray Jays in Algonquin Park, Ontario, Canada, that has declined by over 50% in the last three decades. Breeding pairs that were experimentally food supplemented during the pre-breeding period laid eggs earlier in the season and had larger brood sizes than non-supplemented controls. From the long-term data, we found strong evidence that pairs that were regularly supplemented by the public (park visitors) tended to lay eggs earlier and have larger clutches and brood sizes compared to pairs that were not supplemented. Nestling body condition (mass controlled for body size) was not influenced by either experimental or public food supplementation. Our results support the hypothesis that Gray Jays are food limited during their late-winter breeding period and suggest that warmer fall temperatures, which have been hypothesized to lead to cache spoilage, may have a significant impact on reproductive success in this declining population. Moreover, our results contribute to understanding how public feeding can influence the fitness of wild animals.