19 April 2013 - Even though the project didn't snag a hoped-for grant, federal officials said Thursday they have decided to proceed with plans to collect eggs from the nests of one of the most endangered species in North America — the Florida grasshopper sparrow — in hopes of preventing its extinction.
Researchers fear the small, elusive bird, now clinging to survival in three Central Florida parklands, could vanish within a few years.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials said the captive-breeding program will consist of volunteers and staff from their agency, the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the state Park Service. Teams will attempt to collect eggs through early summer, taking them to the Rare Species Conservatory Foundation in Loxahatchee.
Hatchlings will be kept in captivity in a years-long effort to establish a population of birds that eventually could help bolster the health of sparrows still existing in the wild — or serve as pioneers in re-establishing a wild population should the current one go extinct.
Several university and private researchers have criticized the federal agency, harshly in some cases, for giving the sparrows a low priority as their numbers dipped alarmingly and inexplicably in recent years. The birds rely on vast, treeless prairies, but much of that habitat has been paved by development or plowed under by agriculture.
Researchers are vexed by the birds' decline in part because the public lands where they still exist, including Three Lakes Wildlife Management Area and Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park, have been intensively managed to suit the sparrows' needs. Invading fire ants are suspected to play a role in the decline.
The Fish and Wildlife Service said it will cobble together dollars from various sources to support further research and the captive-breeding work.
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