The Migratory Bird Treaty Act turns 100 this week, leading conservation groups to dub 2018 the “Year of the Bird,” and to ask the Trump administration to live up to the spirit of the law. The MBTA made it illegal to pursue, hunt, or capture migratory birds. Last December, the U.S. Interior Department rescinded Obama-era guidelines about prosecuting companies that cause bird deaths. Bob Dreher with Defenders of Wildlife tells us the replacement guidelines amount to a license to kill.
“The new administration’s position, which is that the act just doesn’t cover industrial ‘take’ at all, gives these industries just a free hand. They don’t have to do anything in order to avoid the killing of migratory birds, even though they know that it will occur from what they’re doing, and even though there may be reasonable and cost-effective things they could do to avoid killing birds.”
The government used the MBTA to prosecute BP for the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in 2010 and the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989. The recently-implemented replacement rules state companies may not be prosecuted for unintentional bird deaths, or an “incidental take.”
