Each fall and spring, millions of birds travel the Pacific Flyway, the
westernmost of the four major North American bird migration routes. The
landscapes they cross vary from wetlands to farmland to concrete,
inhabited not only by wildlife but also by farmers, suburban families,
and major cities. In the twentieth century, farmers used the wetlands to
irrigate their crops, transforming the landscape and putting migratory
birds at risk. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service responded by
establishing a series of refuges that stretched from northern Washington
to southern California.
What emerged from these efforts was a hybrid environment, where the
distinctions between irrigated farms and wildlife refuges blurred.
Management of the refuges was fraught with conflicting priorities and
practices. Farmers and refuge managers harassed birds with shotguns and
flares to keep them off private lands, and government pilots took to the
air, dropping hand grenades among flocks of geese and herding the
startled birds into nearby refuges. Such actions masked the growing
connections between refuges and the land around them.
Seeking Refuge examines the development and management of refuges in
the wintering range of migratory birds along the Pacific Flyway.
Although this is a history of efforts to conserve migratory birds, the
story Robert Wilson tells has considerable salience today. Many of the
key places migratory birds use -- the Klamath Basin, California's
Central Valley, the Salton Sea -- are sites of recent contentious
debates over water use. Migratory birds connect and depend on these
landscapes, and farmers face pressure as water is reallocated from
irrigation to other purposes. In a time when global warming promises to
compound the stresses on water and migratory species, Seeking Refuge
demonstrates the need to foster landscapes where both wildlife and
people can thrive.
