Peregrine falcons, the fastest bird in the world, will no longer need banding from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. The decision comes just roughly a year after the bird was reclassified as threatened instead of endangered in Michigan.
Banding is the process of putting a plastic or metal ring around the bird’s ankle to help track and identify them as they travel. The rings usually have a nine-digit number on them that’s issued by a national lab. If people find the bird and can read the band, they can log and report where the bird is located and its condition.
Karen Cleveland is a wildlife biologist and bird specialist for the Michigan DNR. She said while most birds just receive a small, silver band, falcons actually receive a second, colorful band to help identify them from afar.
Cleveland said the falcon’s endangerment started back in the 1970s with pesticides, which affected many large birds of prey including ospreys, bald eagles, and various types of falcons.
“That was coming into the food chain at the bottom of the food chain through the insects and the fish,” she said. “If you’re a predatory bird, you’re really at the top of that chain. So it just concentrates all of those contaminants as it gets up higher and higher in the food chain.”
She said as a result, when the bird laid eggs, the eggshells would be so brittle they’d break underneath the adult bird’s weight. This drastically reduced the population of many predatory birds across the nation.
Cleveland said that the Michigan DNR decided to take action through hack boxes, an enclosed box with bars on the front which they would raise falcon chicks in and be very hands on with the birds until they reached adulthood. She said the goal was for the birds to return to those boxes to mate every year, but they soon discovered that may not work.
“What we didn’t realize at the time is that… ‘in the neighborhood’ is a much broader neighborhood when it comes to peregrines,” she said. “If we’ve hatched a chick in Lansing, it’s not necessarily going to come back to Lansing. It may come back to Kalamazoo, it may come back to Windsor, it may come back to Louisville, Kentucky.”
While the hack box program ended in the 1990s, Cleveland said their efforts helped restore their population. As of 2018, there were over 50 active nesting sites in the state, according to Jennifer Kleitch, the endangered species specialist for the Michigan DNR.
“Because of this, we don’t need to necessarily keep as close tabs on them as we once did,” she said. “Things that have threatened them in the past have largely been alleviated, and we are seeing their populations continue to be stable or increasing.”
Kleitch said that even though the DNR’s wildlife division will not be banding the falcons in 2025, other researchers who have authorization can continue banding and monitoring the population.
Today, the falcons can be spotted across northern Michigan, with some making appearances as recently as this month. According to e-Bird, a bird-spotting website hosted by Cornell University, the most recent sighting of a peregrine falcon in Alpena was on July 1 near the Alpena Hillman Trail.
Both Cleveland and Kleitch said without human interest and involvement, the falcons would not have this success story.
“It’s really great seeing the excitement that folks have about having these birds in their communities,” Cleveland said. “That’s something that we as an agency have really enjoyed seeing.”
Editor's note: The Michigan Department of Natural Resources is a sponsor of WCMU. We report on them as we do with any other organization.
