Narrator: Every round in this rifle
could save a bird's life.
The splash of the bullet scares migrating species
off this mile-long toxic lake in Montana.
If birds land there for more than a few hours,
the acidic water cooks them from the inside out.
It's Mark Mariano's mission
to make sure that doesn't happen.
Mark: Yep. Mark Mariano, waterfowl protection specialist.
We invented that title. But it fits.
Narrator: He uses a multimillion-dollar arsenal
of high-tech tools
to keep birds off of what used to be
a copper mine in Butte, Montana.
Mark: This is the one everybody likes to see, though.
"Do you get to fly the drone?" That's what they all say."
No, nope.
Narrator: What's now a toxic birdbath
started out as an open-pit mine 65 years ago.
But in 1982, the company that owned the mine
shut down the water pumps.
Groundwater started to seep in,
creating sulfuric acid
that leached metals
out of the rock.
People have been shooing birds off the Berkeley Pit
ever since.
And some of the methods they've developed here
could help protect the estimated
hundreds of millions of birds killed
by industrial activity every year.
Snow geese,
avocets
and grebes
are just a few of the species that stop in Butte
on their journey north in spring and south in fall.
And Mark
loves them all.
Mark: You got your wigeon,
[bird call]
teal.
[bird call]
I mean, I dream, sleep, eat, and poop ducks.
We obviously went over the top with the wildlife decor.
My mom bought me this one,
and I told her it was stupid,
and now I love it.
Narrator: But the sounds that repel birds
are more unnatural.
Mark: So we're going to move it over.
There it goes. [alarm]
Always when you're trying to talk.
Narrator: The first line of defense
is four so-called wailers.
They randomly play a series of alarms to annoy the birds.
Mark: You can hear these things
on a nice, warm summer night all across Butte.
Narrator: And propane cannons hooked up to timers
fire all day.
Mark: They mimic gunfire,
which a lot of the birds are scared of, for obvious reasons.
Narrator: On special occasions,
the birds might get their own private fireworks display.
Mark: This is kind of a last resort, or we know
something big would be coming.
We've used them twice.
Narrator: One of Mark's favorite tools
is meant for spotting the birds
before they get wet.
Mark: It's at $5,000 Swarovski scope.
Narrator: But after nearly four years on the job,
he can usually spot them with the naked eye.
Mark: Can you see him?
I'm going to keep laying on him,
because if we can get them, keep them from landing,
that's always the best.
Narrator: HQ is this small hut
along the same ridge where the mine's dispatcher
used to direct trucks.
They call it
the bird shack.
Mark: We've discussed renaming it
something more professional-sounding than bird shack,
but it's become such kind of a colloquial term
that we kept it.
Narrator: During peak season,
someone like Mark comes up here every hour
to do what they call hazing.
That's the technical term for annoying birds
that land on the pit
so they fly away.
Mark: We've got a group coming in.
I've got one, two, three, four, five.
And it looks like more shovelers.
So there's 33.
Two, three, 43.
Narrator: When they first started scaring off birds
30 years ago,
their only tools where a rifle and a clipboard.
They didn't even have heat during the long Montana winters.
For the most part,
it worked —
even if the miners' records looked like
a real life game of
duck, duck, goose.
That changed in 2016.
Snow geese migrate through Montana every year,
but that November, an estimated 60,000 of them
landed on the pit.
Mark: Essentially, the entire snow goose population of our flyway
came overnight,
hit a nasty storm, and ended up using the worst rest stop
that they possibly could.
This could be myth now, you know,
but they shot the gun so many times
the barrel like essentially curved, because it got too hot.
Narrator: About 3,000 birds died in a matter of days,
according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
Mark: Those guys choke up when they, you know,
burly miners talking about coming out here
and seeing thousands of snow geese on there.
Narrator: After that,
the companies working to clean up the pit
brought in experts to devise a more scientific approach.
The researchers discovered that the pit attracts
over 50 bird species,
not just ducks and geese.
The companies invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into
fancy, high-tech tools, but many didn't work.
It turns out that each kind of bird responds differently.
Mark: With each of the technologies,
as well as the simple stuff,
a combo of them can help sometimes.
And then usually one will pick up
where the other leaves off.
Narrator: The aerial drone is most effective
when birds land on ice or the shore,
where there's a risk a bullet could ricochet.
Mark's high-powered laser works well on American coots
and other species that like to migrate at night.
In 2016, they custom-built drones
just for the pit.
Early prototypes combined 3D-printed parts
with boogie boards and kid-sized kayaks.
Mark: So they're at your
10 o'clock.
Narrator: Today,
technicians use a remote control to operate what they call
the WaterDog.
Mark: Here's the group. They probably went onto your view
to the left a little bit now.
Narrator: Sometimes the boat gets the birds to lift off.
Then a rifle shot
gets them to fly away.
This new and improved suite of tools
has a near-perfect record
of keeping birds off this deadly human-made mess.
Successful programs like the one at the pit
are more important than ever.
Nearly a third of North America's bird population
has disappeared since 1970.
Mining is to blame for destroying habitat,
but some cleanup efforts have worked —
just not always in the way
people expect.
For a prime example of that,
you need to travel about 20 miles downstream.
Every year, hundreds of thousands of birds stop here:
the Warm Springs Wildlife Management Area.
It's where researchers Stella Capoccia and
Gary Swant come to count birds.
Stella: Oh, we've got some American avocets.
Narrator: These scientists
help design the pit's upgraded protection program.
Gary: The reports that we do here on Mondays
and Wednesdays are posted in the bird shack
so these miners have a good predictive
instrument of what might be in the pit.
There's a cinnamon teal that ...
Stella: Hmm.
Gary: You probably haven't seen one of those yet this year.
Narrator: During peak season,
Gary's grandson also helps with the count.
Narrator: The team comes to Warm Springs
because it's a biodiverse haven
that has hosted more than half of Montana's bird species.
But just like the Berkeley Pit, it was created by humans.
Stella: This is a constructed area
that now
has been turned into a preserve for the wildlife.
Narrator: In 1908,
a flood washed mining waste from Butte into local waterways.
It killed fish and made the water unsafe for humans.
After that catastrophe,
these ponds were built so that hard metals
could seep out of the water
before they run downstream.
Giant hoppers
neutralize the water with lime.
That keeps things clean
and safe enough for wildlife.
Gary: So the event happened in a single month in 1908,
and here we are still getting it cleaned up.
Feels wonderful,
because we can correct the problems of the past.
Narrator: Experts caution that it's impossible
to erase over a hundred years of mining pollution.
But with people like Gary, Stella,
and Mark on the job,
the future for Montana's birds might be looking up.
But not if you're a wild turkey.
Mark: I am by no means a seasoned turkey hunter,
so this was my very first. But we saved everything.
Narrator: Mark takes pride in not letting anything
go to waste.
Mark: I made it real traditional,
like a chicken noodle soup. It's even gluten-free,
if you can believe that.
Mark: I'm a big waterfowl hunter as well,
and what that has taught me about protecting the waterfowl
at the pit is just priceless.
I wake up without an alarm every morning,
and I'm, you know, happy to go
literally rescue birds.
And most days you walk home
with your head held high.