Global warming and the Florida Scrub Jay

On a small stretch of sandy Florida coastline there lives a unique species of Bluejay. This friendly little bird is known as a Scrub Jay. These Florida Scrub Jays live in a very small area just a few miles long and wide. Coincidentally the Scrub Jays seem to have made their home just a few miles from the launch pad of NASA’s space shuttle. Scrub Jays are an endangered species and seem to prosper only in areas where their preferred habitat, that is scrubby brushy live oaks have grown to a height of between 3 and 5 feet tall.

Slight changes change large environments
Now one might think that there would be plenty of places where the brush was precisely that height but there aren’t. In order for live oak trees to grow in that exact range every so often a forest fire needs to come along and burn out the land so that new growth will occur. Nature starts these fires with lighting and they just manage to burn often enough and scattered in the right way so as to always leave some patches of land available with trees that are exactly as Scrub Jays prefer them. Lest you think that the little birds are simply too picky consider that the area where the Scrub Jays live is filled with predator birds such as Red Shouldered Hawks. The Florida Scrub Jays live on acorns from the oaks and must dart out from the brush quickly to gather the acorns and return to hiding. If the trees are too tall there is no ground cover. If the trees are too short… no acorns. As you can see the Scrub Jay isn’t being fussy they simply have very strict rules that allow them to live safely.

Roads create firebreaks
At one time the entire east coast of Florida had hundreds of thousands of these little bluebirds. But their homeland shrunk over the last 100 years to the point where there are just a few thousand Scrub Jays left. How did this happen? Roads were built. As Florida became more populated simple dirt roads were built for traveling and agricultural access. Dirt roads became highways and highways brought more people. By the 1950s most of Florida’s east coast in the area of Cocoa Beach and Titusville was pretty well divided by roads.
When these roads were built no one thinking of how it might impact the Little Blue Scrub Jays. But every time a road divided the coastal areas, it served as a firebreak. When lighting did strike and start a natural prescribed fire, it would quickly run out of room to burn as all those dirt roads and highways closed off the burning area. Without the forest fires the scrub could not begin anew to develop into breeding areas for the Jays. After time there was simply no room left for the birds at all.

Most environmental damage occurs by accident
The people who built up the area of Florida’s East coast weren’t trying to kill off the Scrub Jays. They were honestly unaware of the damage they were doing. The problem just sort of happened as a consequence of daily life and development. What we take from the lesson of the Scrub Jay is this… All of our man’s actions have results. Something a simple as clearing a road can affect an entire species.

Imagine how all of the industrial development that we have been party to over the years has impacted our environment. Consider all the changes we have made to the world’s balance without ever knowing it. We divert rivers, build skyscrapers and send jets racing across the sky. Do we consider how all of these actions might intertwine to impact the Earth? Imagine all of the changes we are making to our own nesting grounds. And then imagine that we, the human race are the Scrub Jays.

Global Warming is not a circumstance we find ourselves in. It is a symptom of environmental change. It is a bell weather of need for planning and consideration. Around the Space Shuttle launch pad are thousands of sandy acres perfect for Florida Scrub Jays to live in. NASA now starts planned fires in these quadrants, so that as years pass there are always sections of land with live oaks that are from three to five feet tall, just perfect for the Scrub Jays to live in.