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Assessing Landowner Activities Related to Birds Across Rural-to-Urban Landscapes

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Abstract

Fluctuations of bird abundances in the Midwest region of the United States have been attributed to such factors as landscape change, habitat fragmentation, depredation, and supplemental feeding. However, no attempt has been made to estimate the collective role of landowner activities that may influence birds across a landscape. To investigate how landowners might influence birds when the majority (> 90%) of land is privately owned, we surveyed all 1694 private domestic landowners living on three breeding bird survey routes (∼120 km) that represent a continuum of rural-to-urban landscapes in Southeastern Michigan from October through December 2000. Our survey was designed to investigate (1) the proportion of landowners involved in bird feeding, providing bird houses, planting or maintaining vegetation for birds, gardening, landscaping, applying fertilizer, and applying pesticides or herbicides; (2) whether differences existed between urban, suburban, and rural landowner activities; and (3) whether landowners that carried out a given activity were sociodemographically different from those who did not. Of the 968 respondents (58.5% response rate), 912 (94%) carried out at least one of the activities on their land and the average landowner carried out 3.7 activities. A total of 65.6% fed birds, 45.7% provided bird houses, 54.6% planted or maintained vegetation for birds, 72.7% gardened, 72.3% landscaped, 49.3% applied fertilizer, and 25.2% applied pesticides or herbicides. Significant differences existed between the landscapes, with rural landowners having more bird houses and applying pesticides or herbicides in greater frequency. Similarly, urban landowners had a greater density of bird feeders and houses, but planted or maintained vegetation in the lowest frequency. Participation in activities varied by demographic factors, such as age, gender, and occupation. Scaling each activity to all landowners, including nonrespondents, across all landscapes indicates that between 14% and 82% of landowners may be engaged in a particular activity, with application of pesticides or herbicides having the least potential involvement (13.9%–55.4%) and gardening having the greatest potential involvement (40.1%–81.6%). Taken collectively, our results indicate that landowners are both intentionally and unintentionally engaged in a wide range of activities that are likely to influence bird populations.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the staff at the Ingham, Livingston, Oakland, and Washtenaw county Equalization Offices, which allowed us access to landowner records. Keith Pardieck and Jane Fallon at the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center kindly assisted with providing maps and details of BBS routes. We are grateful to Kimberly Baker, Jayson Egeler, and Mike Mascarenhas for assisting with the survey logistics and data entry. Robert Holsman and Sam Riffell provided critical review of the draft survey. Daniel Brown, Katherine Gross, Nan Johnson, and Patricia Soranno, critically reviewed the manuscript and provided many helpful suggestions. In addition, we would especially like to thank Andrew Cannon, Virginia Dale, Mark Hostetler, and an anonymous reviewer for helpful and constructive reviews that greatly improved the clarity of the manuscript. Support for this research was provided by a Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station grant and an N.S.F. CAREER Award to J. Liu, a Michigan State University College of Social Science Grant to J. Liu, A. Mertig, and P. Sorrano, and a U.S. E.P.A. Science To Achieve Results (STAR) Fellowship (Grant no. U-91580101-0) to C.A. Lepczyk. This paper was submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for C.A. Lepczyk’s doctoral degree in Fisheries and Wildlife, and the Program in Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Behavior at Michigan State University.

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  1. Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1222, USA

    Christopher A. Lepczyk, Angela G. Mertig & Jianguo Liu

  2. Department of Sociology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1111, USA

    Angela G. Mertig

  3. Department of Forest Ecology and Management, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 120 Russell, Labs, 1630 Linden Drive, Madison, WI 53706-1598, USA

    Christopher A. Lepczyk

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Lepczyk, C., Mertig, A. & Liu, J. Assessing Landowner Activities Related to Birds Across Rural-to-Urban Landscapes. Environmental Management 33, 110–125 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-003-0036-z

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