Herbicides Don’t Affect Survival of White-Crowned Sparrow Nests & Fledglings
A number of birds that use forests disturbed by timber harvest have been declining for decades in North America’s Pacific Northwest. In this region, timber management often requires spraying competing vegetation with herbicides so that crop trees can grow, but the consequences of this herbicide treatment on bird nesting are poorly understood. We designed an experiment to find out how herbicide application was affecting nesting in the White-crowned Sparrow, a songbird that’s declining in the Pacific Northwest.