Trapped, then bred in captivity, Florida’s grasshopper sparrow is coming back

A decade ago, critically endangered Florida grasshopper sparrows, three male and four female chicks, were spirited away from prairie wilderness of south-Central Florida.

The abductors were wildlife biologists desperate to save the species from extinction by breeding them in captivity and releasing offspring back into the wild . It was a scary move, done with minimal confidence things wouldn’t backfire and doom the birds.

On Tuesday, ten young sparrows born and raised in captivity north of Jacksonville were released not far from the bombing targets of the Avon Park Air Force Range about 60 miles straight south of Orlando.

Among them was the 1,000th sparrow born and reared under the care of what amounts to an enormous team of state, federal and private wildlife caretakers. About 30 of them on hand for the milestone stood off in the distance, whooping and cheering.

Florida already has driven a bird, the dusky seaside sparrow that lived east of Orlando and near Kennedy Space Center, into extinction.

That history remains a haunting reminder that attempting to rescue wildlife from oblivion is challenging, but that inaction can result in a far crueler outcome.

With Florida grasshopper sparrows, captive breeding is akin to putting a patient on a ventilator for life support. Participants are thrilled that they have bought some time to find a more fundamental understanding and — just maybe — a cure for the bird’s mortal woes.

“It’s one of the most endangered species in the U.S.” said biologist Liz Abraham of the Archbold Biological Station. “I like to think about the many moving parts it took to do this.”

Few people reading this story will ever see a Florida grasshopper sparrow, a small, brown, drab bird with behaviors of a ghost, a roadrunner and something else.

“I call them my mouse bird,” Abraham said.

The birds weigh about as much as three nickels and have 8-inch wingspans. They scurry on the ground under low bushes, running down grasshoppers for dinner and making babies in nearly invisible nests constructed of fine grasses. Females refuse to reveal themselves.

That makes the sparrow’s saga all the more remarkable.

Florida’s charismatic wildlife, including panthers, manatees and eagles, have won the hearts of the public and big shares of imperiled species funding.

What the Florida grasshopper sparrow has won, flying below the radar of popular awareness, was the passion of a bunch of bureaucrats, scientists and environmentalists.

“There was definitely hesitation and doubt at the start,” said Adrienne Fitzwilliam, the lead grasshopper sparrow research scientist for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

“We were concerned about unintended consequences of releasing conservation-bred birds and we did a disease risk assessment and a bunch of things to imagine the worst case scenarios,” Fitzwilliam said. “I think what we have achieved has been the best case scenario.”

The three main populations of grasshopper sparrows have nosedived since the beginning of this century.

The Three Lakes Wildlife Management Area in Osceola County had about 130 males (females are difficult to count). The number dropped to as low as 30 males but was back up to more than 70 last year with releases of captive-born birds.

Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park in Okeechobee County had hundreds of males in the late 1990s. There’s nearly none now.

The 106,000-acre Avon Park bombing range in Polk and Highlands counties also had more than 100 males but was down to a few prior to releases there of captive-bred birds, which has restored the population to several dozen.

As obscure as the sparrows are, their home habitat is also unknown to most Floridians. It’s described as a treeless, dry prairie – though it’s soggy half the year.

It’s an old-growth ecosystem still largely unaltered today and containing some of the nation’s richest diversity of plants, bugs and wildlife.

With success in captive breeding, biologists are pushing ahead, investigating whether the sparrow’s problem is with its health, habitat or both.

“Disease is suspected and we have sampled for diseases but we haven’t found a smoking gun.  A slow disease like tuberculosis would be easy to find but a rapid killer like a virus could kill them too fast for us to detect,” said Paul Gray, a Florida Audubon scientist.

If it’s not a disease, Gray said, it could be a host of other threats: more predators, fewer bugs to eat and changes in rainfall or temperature.

“The problem is just so hard to figure out what’s wrong,” Gray said. “These birds have survived for millennia on their own and suddenly they couldn’t.”

Caretakers of grasshopper sparrows were paralyzed initially with conflicting fears about taking birds from the wild and not taking birds from the wild, agonizing over which course would bring the best chance of survival and which might be a huge mistake.

“It was a long road,” said Rob Aldredge of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, who coordinates conservation on Air Force lands in Florida. “If I can say anything, it’s that the partners we have are both passionate about what they do and really collaborative.”

Alan Lieberman, retired director of field conservation programs for the Institute for Conservation Research at San Diego Zoo Global, said debates over whether to undertake captive breeding can be bruising.

“It’s complicated when you have emotions and passions and politics and it involves money,” Lieberman said. “It’s a tough situation. So I give them a lot of credit.”

Slow and patchy at the start, funding became more robust, with $2.5 million provided by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Foundation and annual contributions of hundreds of thousands of dollars from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service.

The sparrows are being bred by four conservation organizations, including Brevard Zoo in Melbourne.

“You have to give them the perfect habitat outside and in open air,” said Kelly Currier, a conservation coordinator at the zoo. “And then you have to give them the right plants and then all the food to support them to make them feel safe enough to start breeding.”

They leave the nest eight or nine days after hatching, still tiny but able to fly. At 21 to 23 days, they are independent from their parents. And at 40 days, they are fully grown, though still sporting some baby plumage, Currier said.

At the Avon Park range, which conserves vast wild lands that surround bombing targets, the 10 birds were released Tuesday from a trailer-mounted aviary, complete with a floor of dirt and grass.

“Most of them came out boop, boop, boop, running down the ramp,” said Orlando Sentinel photographer Joe Burbank, who was provided the closest vantage point and was watching through a telephoto lens.

He said the last two flew out, keeping low and close to grass and shrubs. “They had no desire to be up high,” Burbank said.

All wearing identification bands, the birds didn’t go far, settling into hiding places where they sang and buzzed.

From the minute they moved into their prairie home, they faced incredible perils and predators: floods, fire ants, corn snakes, coyotes and more.

The year-to-year chances of survival for savvy adults is about 50 percent. For most grasshopper sparrows, it’s 30 to 40 percent.

The sparrow brought into the world in a breeding center cared for by people aren’t doing quite that well in the wild. Their year-to-year survival is 20 to 25 percent.

“Which is wonderful,” said Audubon’s Gray. “I was shocked. I thought it would be closer to 5 percent.”