U.S. industries are no longer liable for accidental bird deaths. At what cost?

These penalties were brought, in part, under one of the country’s oldest wildlife protection laws, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA).Since its passage 1918, the act has made it illegal to “pursue, hunt, take, capture, [or] kill...in any manner, any migratory bird” without permission.If a calamity similar to the Exxon Valdez or BP oil spills were to occur today, however, the punishment for loss of birds would likely be much smaller—if there were any punishment at all.On February 3, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that it intends to adopt a rule holding that individuals and businesses will no longer be prosecuted under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act for the “incidental take”—or accidental killing—of migratory birds. In the 1970s, U.S. prosecutors shifted the focus of enforcement of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act from errant hunters—who were largely responsible for the decline of birds when the law first went into effect in the early 20th century—to oil, gas, timber, mining, chemical, and electrical companies whose industrial activities were killing birds accidentally. “[The MBTA] has been interpreted for decades as applying to the incidental take of migratory birds, and the service would enforce that in a very cooperative way.”Nonetheless, industry representatives have cheered the new interpretation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The Fish and Wildlife Service’s press release heralding its intention not to prosecute accidental bird deaths quotes a number of government and industry representatives. Before the Fish and Wildlife Service began to prosecute accidental bird deaths under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, “it was not standard practice for oil and gas companies to cover their oil waste pits, for utilities to string their lines wide enough so they weren’t a risk to eagles and hawks, or for communications companies to use blinking versus constantly shining lights on their towers,” Greenberger says.