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Hi everyone and welcome to Curious By Nature.
Today, we're going to learn about some endangered and extinct species using the Nature Museum's own collections.
The Chicago Academy of Sciences holds over 390,000 items in our collection
with some natural history specimens dating back to the early 1800s.
We're going to join Dawn Roberts, the senior director of collections, at our Collections Facility.
Dawn, what have you got for us today?
Thank you Airen, and welcome everyone to the Chicago Academy of Sciences storage facility
here in Chicago's Ravenswood neighborhood.
My name is Dawn Roberts and I take care of all of our scientific collections and archives at the Nature Museum.
Today, as we take a look at specimens in the Academy's collections,
we're going to explore a few species that have been both positively and adversely impacted by people.
First, we're going to take a look at a species that's gone extinct as a result of human behavior.
Next, we'll look at an endangered species that again has been harmed by human activity,
but that is also being helped by human intervention to protect the species' population.
Lastly, we'll look at a conservation success story.
A species that saw dramatic changes in its population in the 1960s and '70s,
but that today has a healthy population thanks to the help of humans.
So we've got a lot to see today, let's go take a look at the collection.
So first we're going to take a look at an extinct species of butterfly called the xerces blue.
Now this little tiny butterfly was endemic to the western side of the United States in the San Francisco Bay Area,
and we only have one specimen of this extinct species in our collection,
but we have other specimens of the same genera, glaucopsyche.
Some of them have even been found here in Illinois,
so we can take a look at some related species to the xerces blue.
The xerces blue butterfly is this tiny little butterfly only an inch across at its wings
with colors ranging from blues to soft browns.
It lived in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, but is now extinct.
It went extinct in the early 1940s and is one of the first butterfly species
to go extinct from loss of habitat due to urban development.
As people moved into the area, the plants the xerces needed,
the yellow bush lupine and deerweed, became more scarce.
Once that habitat was gone, the butterfly was, too.
When studying specific animals, it is helpful to look at preserved specimens,
as well as observe living individuals in their habitat.
With extinct species, we don't have that option.
There aren't many specimens of the xerces blue in museum collections either.
Looking at species that are closely related to one that has gone extinct can help us understand how that species lived.
The xerces blue was related to the silvery blues, glaucopsyche lygdamus.
Silvery blues are found across North America, even up into Canada and Alaska.
So next we're going to take a look at the California condor,
and here we have a study skin specimen.
California condors are the largest land bird in North America.
They have wingspans of three meters, over nine feet.
Condors are currently listed as critically endangered.
These massive birds almost went extinct in the 20th century largely due to human activities.
Habitat destruction and poaching were among the things harming condor populations,
but the major cause of death was lead poisoning and other chemical pollutants
being put into the environment.
Condors are vultures and like other vultures, they're scavengers.
They soar high up in the sky looking for large dead animals to feed on.
Condors were ingesting lead shot left in animal carcasses
and lead is toxic and this chemical accumulated in individual birds causing their death.
By the 1960s and '70s, the condor population had plummeted and was listed as federally endangered.
It was actually one of the first species to be listed through the Endangered Species Act.
Their population continued to decline and biologists determined that the
species had so few individuals left that they would likely go extinct.
The U.S. federal government led a plan to capture the remaining 27 wild condors in the 1980s
and to initiate a captive breeding program.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service leads the California condor recovery program working with many federal and state agencies, as well as zoos.
The breeding program has been slow.
Condors can live for a long time, 50 to 60 years, and only have one egg at a time.
But starting in 1991, condors started to be released back into the wild
and now there are populations in California and Arizona.
As of 2019, there are 518 individuals in the wild and in captivity.
The condors that are released into the wild are closely monitored
and scientists even conduct blood tests to test for lead levels.
Sick individuals are brought back into a facility where doctors can chelate their blood to remove the metals.
All right, finally, we're going to take a look at the eastern bluebird.
Eastern bluebirds are a native bird species in Illinois.
They were once very common in this area, but suffered major population declines starting
in the 1920s due to introduced species such as European starlings and house sparrows.
These two types of birds like the same kind of nesting habitat as our native eastern bluebird,
but are larger and more aggressive.
Starlings are even known for chasing away other birds and kicking out eggs if they want to take over a nest site.
Starlings and house sparrows are highly adaptable,
and as they spread across North America in the 20th century, they out-competed bluebirds.
The bluebird story has a positive turn, though.
They are secondary cavity nesters which means they like to make their nests in cavities,
but as they are small they don't carve out their own holes.
They rely on ones already made by other animals.
As early as in the 1930s, people started creating nesting boxes for bluebirds,
and the key for these was making the opening only big enough for the bluebirds
so as to keep the larger species, like the starlings, out.
Community and birding groups brought greater focus to the effort in the 1960s and '70s
and now there are regular conservation groups that monitor bluebird populations.
The nesting boxes have been quite successful and is one way that people can support this native species.
So as we've learned today, humans like you and me have a very important role to play in taking care
of the planet and all the other species that call Earth home.
Our actions can both help and hurt the species around us,
which is why we all need to learn to be helpful stewards of our environment.
The species we learned about today are just a few of the many species that are in need of support,
and there are so many ways that you can help with small actions at home.
You can always head to the Nature Museum's website to learn more about some of our
local species and actions you can take to get involved in supporting them.
Thanks for joining us on our tour today and now back to Airen.
Thank you, Dawn, for all of the information and for sharing with us the importance of caring for wildlife.
If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to give it a like and be sure to subscribe for future episodes.
Don't forget you can leave any questions on our collections in the comments below.
You can also help care for these collections by making a donation at naturemuseum.org.
Thanks again for joining us today and we'll see you here next time on Curious By Nature.