Natural History Wanderings

KCET reported on  the Wrentit was recently gained protected status under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. As the Wrentit is not a migrating bird you might ask how did this happen? The American Ornithologists Union had just moved the Wrentit from the family Timaliidae, which is known as Old World babblers, a huge group of small songbirds similar to warblers and thrushes to Sylviidae, which is Old World warblers and includes mainly Asian species, with a few in Africa and Europe and (now) one on the West Coast of North America: the Wrentit.  However as the Wrentit is not a migratory bird, how did it gain protection on a migratory bird treaty? The KCET article explains

But the wrentit isn’t migratory. So whether or not the species enjoys MBTA protection depends on whether it belongs to a family that’s specifically included in the law’s protection.

The family Timaliidae, which the wrentits used to belong to, is not protected under the MBTA. The wrentit’s new family Sylviidae is. And so when the AOU moved the wrentits into the Sylviidae in 2010, it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that USFWS — usually at least a couple years behind on these things — would amend its MBTA rules to include the wrentit.

Read more A Tale of One Tiny Bird’s Twisty Road to Protection | Birds | ReWild | KCET.