The Kiskadee of Death by Jan Dunlap

purposes. Birds needed those resources for their survival.
    Some people think that activism on the behalf of protecting bird species began in the 1990s with the very public battle over preserving habitat for the Northern Spotted Owl in the face of logging operations in the Northwest of the United States. But the truth is that a concern for birds’ survival surfaced in the last years of the nineteenth century, when the extinction of the Passenger Pigeon and the alarming decline in the population of Whooping Cranes led to a reappraisal of human impact on wildlife populations. In 1900, America’s first conservation legislation was signed into law by President William McKinley. Known as the Lacey Act, it charged the Secretary of the Interior with the responsibility to safeguard game and wild bird populations from commercial exploitation. Over the years, other wildlife conservation legislation was enacted, including the Endangered Species Preservation Act in 1966. Finally, in 1973, President Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act, which continues in force to this day.
    That doesn’t mean our national mandate to protect endangered species isn’t challenged, or circumvented, by special interest groups.
    Two years ago, a wind turbine project along the shores of Lake Erie sparked national headlines with the confrontation it caused between energy companies and the American Bird Conservancy over bird deaths that resulted from birds flying into turbines. In Minnesota, a proposal for a similar wind energy project was defeated by state conservation activists out of concern for safeguarding Bald and Golden Eagles that nested in the area. From what we’d already heard about the SpaceX project since our lunch at Fat Daddy’s, it appeared to be the lightning rod of the moment for birding issues around this part of Texas.
    Cynnie’s expression morphed from disgust to astonishment.
    â€œYou don’t know where the spaceport’s going in?” she asked. “I just assumed you did, even if you are new to the area. This disaster has been brewing for a while.”
    Luce and I both gave her blank looks.
    â€œWe only learned about it earlier today,” I explained. “It’s like a lot of commercial developments—if it’s not directly impacting your part of the country, you don’t hear about it.”
    â€œWell, this one should be making the national news big-time. It’s in Boca Chica Beach,” Cynnie said. “East of Brownsville, near the U.S.-Mexican border, five miles south of South Padre Island. It’s next to a state park in the Boca Chica subdelta of the Rio Grande.”
    Okay, I could see why people might be upset about developing a beach. Proximity to beaches was probably jealously guarded in a hot and dusty state like Texas, but in this particular area of the state, you practically bumped into a state park boundary every time you turned around. The airport in Harlingen, in fact, was about a stone’s throw from Hugh Ramsey Nature Park, which formed part of the Harlingen Arroyo Colorado, one of the nine World Birding Center sites in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Heck, you could almost bird in Hugh Ramsey from your plane seat while waiting for take-off.
    Cynnie must have read the lack of understanding on my face, because her next comment hit me like a knock-out punch.
    â€œIt’s on the flyway,” she emphasized. “THE flyway that branches into the Mississippi and Central flyways. If they build a space launch complex on that piece of land, you can bet it’s going to disrupt the migration patterns of hundreds of thousands of birds. That particular beach area is vital to the health of the migratory corridor into North America. We’re talking about over 500 species of birds being impacted.”
    Holy crap.
    Cynnie looked at my stunned face.
    â€œNow, does that sound like a stupid idea or not?” she asked me.
    Again, holy crap.
    â€œHow did