Disappearing doves: a blessing or a warning?

VIC LEIPZIG AND LOU MURRAY

When we moved to Huntington Beach in the early 1980s, we found a

community with nearly the same urban birds that would be found in any

town in the western U.S. Birds like house sparrows, feral pigeons and

European starlings were among the most abundant bird species that

could be seen in local yards and parks. And they still are.

But back in the ‘80s, there was another species that was nearly as

abundant, the spotted dove. Then something happened. Today, there are

no spotted doves in Huntington Beach. In fact, there may be no

spotted doves left anywhere in Orange County.

In 20 years, this species has gone from extremely common to

nonexistent. This bird has disappeared, but very few, if any,

environmentalists are concerned, including the two of us. You see,

the spotted dove is an introduced species. Like the three birds

mentioned above, it was brought to this country and deliberately

released.

House sparrows and European starlings were brought to America in

the 19th century from Europe with the goal of making America seem

more like Europe. Well, the people who brought those birds to our

shores got their wish. These are now some of the most abundant

species of birds in North America. Unfortunately, their success has

come at the expense of native birds that use the same habitat.

The starling has a particularly ugly history of displacing native

bluebirds, with which it competes for nesting sites. Louann and I

have commented in this column about the great work of Dick Purvis and

his bluebird box program that has been largely responsible for

bringing back bluebirds to Orange County. In order to do that, he had

to build hundreds of artificial nesting boxes to replace the bluebird

nesting cavities taken over by starlings.

Like the starling or house sparrow, the spotted dove is an

introduced species. It was brought to the Los Angeles area from China

as long ago as 1917. For 50 years or so, it expanded its range from

downtown Los Angeles until it gradually colonized all of L.A. County

south of the San Gabriel Mountains. It had spread into Orange County

by the end of the 1940s.

Its population grew and grew and here in Huntington Beach and

became as common as the familiar mourning dove.

Starting in the late 1970s, something happened. No one knows what

that something was, but it triggered the beginning of the slow

decline in spotted dove numbers that has reached its nadir this year.

Orange County’s Sea and Sage chapter of the National Audubon Society

has conducted an annual winter bird census (called the Christmas

Count) every year since 1949. The census taken this past December was

the very first in which no spotted doves at all were counted. The

decline can be seen in L.A. County, also. There are still spotted

doves to be found there to the north, but they are getting scarcer in

L.A. and Long Beach, too.

What could it be? What could be causing the decline of a species

whose previous success had been so phenomenal?

There are any number of possibilities. Maybe it’s mysterious

disease -- bacterial, viral or other -- that is decimating them. No

one finds an unusual number of dead spotted doves lying around, so

that possibility doesn’t seem too likely. Maybe they are running out

of food, but that doesn’t seem likely either. They appear to feed on

exactly the same seeds and small fruits that mourning doves consume,

and mourning doves continue to flourish.

Part of the mystery is that spotted doves inhabit only urbanized

areas like parks and residential neighborhoods. Other than constantly

expanding up into the foothills, what change could have taken place

in these parts of Southern California without anyone noticing?

The most frightening possibility is that spotted doves are

succumbing to some new environmental pollutant, to which they are

more sensitive than other species. They might just be the proverbial

canaries in the coal mine.

It might be that spotted doves are declining because of some swing

of the balance of nature. What mankind brought about, natural forces

are correcting. If so, then we probably have reason to be happy to

see the loss of this nonnative interloper. But if the pollutant

theory is correct, then the decline of the spotted dove may be a

disturbing portent of worse things to come.

* VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and

environmentalists. They can be reached at [email protected].