How Coffee Is Bringing Songbirds Back

birds chirping) (lively music)
- [Narrator] A scientist walks
into what looks like a pristine forest in Mexico.
Birds dripping from the trees.
It's a lush haven for a diverse range of songbirds.
But then the scientist looks down,
and she realizes she's actually standing on a coffee farm.
Migratory songbirds are some
of the most extraordinary travelers on Earth.
Tiny animals, many no bigger than your fist,
flying thousands of miles every year
between North America and the tropics.
- There are roughly 650 species
of migratory songbirds in North America alone.
But since the 1970s,
we've lost nearly three billion of them.
(birds chirping) (wings fluttering)
This is the story of how that happened
and what's being done to bring them back.
I'm Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant.
(screen whooshes) (upbeat music)
- [Narrator] This is "Back from the Brink,
from Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom."
- Each episode, we're investigating some
of the most remarkable comeback stories in the natural world
and the people who made it happen.
Today, I'm talking with Kirstin Hill,
program manager at Smithsonian Bird Friendly,
one of the people at the center
of a quiet conservation revolution,
happening one cup of coffee at a time.
Migrations are one of the most incredible phenomena
on this planet.
You know, all kinds of species migrate,
but for people who are maybe just getting started
understanding migrations, can you tell me about,
you could pick any bird you want,
but can you tell me about, like,
what it looks like over the course of a year?
- So, the annual migration cycle
is something that does repeat kind of on the calendar year.
So, in the springtime, we are seeing the return
of a lot of these migratory birds
from their overwintering lands.
So, if we start at the beginning of the calendar year,
you can think about them.
They're spending their winter in these nice, warm areas,
these tropical climates,
so there's different migratory pathways around the globe.
So, for us, our overwintering period
is gonna be in that kind of that tropical belt,
so that Central and northern South America.
That's where you're gonna see a lot
of the overwintering territory
for a lot of these migratory birds.
And then in the springtime,
they leave their overwintering territory
and they migrate back up north to their breeding grounds.
And depending upon the species,
that migratory route can really vary depending upon,
you know, where it is that they're going,
what their individual needs are as a species,
but you're seeing these birds kind of come back up north
for the warmer months for their breeding grounds.
And that's where they'll kind of build their nests,
they'll find the mate, they'll lay their eggs,
they'll kind of go about the breeding process there
and kinda have the next generation of birds.
And then when the fall migration happens,
they're leaving these areas as the weather
starts to get colder, and they're going
and heading back down south for the winter.
So, that kind of annual migration cycle repeats each year
where the birds are kind of occupying two
totally different environments in the summertime
and in the wintertime in a way that kind of best meets,
you know, their needs and allows them to survive and thrive.
And in the meantime,
they're taking these incredible journeys,
flying sometimes hundreds or thousands of miles down
and then back up again each year.
And just to think about the phenomenon of that,
of just these tiny little animals
that they go and they go and they go and they go.
And then when they get to their overwintering period,
they need a place to rest,
and they need to be able to rest and refuel
and kind of eat lots of nutritious foods
that help them replenish all of that energy that they spent
to get back down to the overwintering ground.
So they spend that time resting,
and then then they're heading back up north again
this time of year in the spring.
- I really often have to just take a little bit of a pause.
You know, I cannot imagine.
I can't imagine humans doing it on foot.
I can't imagine these birds doing it in the air,
and yet they do and they have always done.
And we're really here to talk about, like,
how they can continue to do this,
and so can you talk to us about, like, the bad news here?
So, what are the threats to migratory birds in general?
Are the threats more in the air as they're flying?
Are the threats more on the ground?
Is it their winter habitat, their summer habitat, both?
I mean, what are the problems?
What are the issues?
- So, unfortunately for migratory birds,
it's in all of the above situations.
So, these are animals that present
a unique conservation challenge
because they occupy so many different places.
So, if you do a great job
protecting the overwintering habitat of migratory birds,
but there's still a lot of threats for them
in their breeding grounds,
that's not gonna be enough for the species
to persevere and to kind of continue.
- The breeding grounds are usually,
like if we're talking about those that are North American,
their breeding grounds are here, like on our continent,
in the Mexico, US, Canada,
you know, the places where someone like me,
you know, might live and work.
So, sometimes we think about the migrations
and, like, what's a problem,
you know, where they go down south,
but truly, their population is dependent
on them having babies safely,
and that happens up here.
- Yeah, absolutely.
So, for migratory songbirds in particular,
kind of one of the biggest, most prevalent threat,
and this is gonna be nothing new for anyone
who thinks about wildlife conservation,
is gonna be habitat and habitat loss, habitat deterioration,
and fragmentation, things like that.
That's something that's happening at both areas,
both in that overwintering land in the Central
and South America when we think about them flying south,
as well as in the breeding grounds up here by us
in North America, too.
- What did these overwintering habitats
used to look like largely?
And then what kind of transformations
are happening in many of these landscapes?
- So, when we think about the overwintering habitat
for migratory birds, we're looking at, ideally,
a pristine forest for them to kind of come back to.
They need a place to stop, to rest, and refuel,
and so for a long period of time,
there were, you know, lots of abundant forests
with lots of native trees,
but over time, we've seen more and more
of that habitat that's been converted
for human use effectively.
And a lot of that is driven by agriculture,
so you'll see some land that is converted
to pasture for cattle,
so that means you're kind of clear-cutting
a lot of that forest.
You're leaving almost no space for birds and biodiversity.
And then in other areas, you're planting other things,
and that can lead to sort of the removal
of different types of trees.
But in many cases, there's also a lot of ways
where you can grow agriculture in a way that is also kind
of in harmony with nature in that way, too.
So, those are kind of the areas,
the practices that we try to focus on
when we think about what's a way for humans and birds
to coexist in a way that's, you know, good for both.
(screen whooshes) (birds chirping)
- [Narrator] Scale and the effect that the habitat
that's been lost didn't really land until 2019
when a landmark study put a number to it.
And that number was staggering.
(screen whooshes)
- When in the last 40 years, like, did we see
that things stopped just kind of diving
and started bottoming out
and maybe populations increasing again?
- So, one of the biggest conservation stories
for migratory songbirds in the last,
you know, 40, 50 years or so
was the paper that was published in 2019 that talked
about the loss of three billion individual birds,
you know, basically since the 1970s,
over the last 50 years or so.
And so, you know, these things
that our migratory bird scientists and many other scientists
were noticing about the decline of birds,
you're just seeing fewer and fewer birds.
They were finally able to kind of quantify that
and put that into terms that we could wrap our heads around.
And just it's such a staggering number to think
that three billion birds- - I mean, you're saying
we have three billion fewer migratory songbirds today
than we did 50 years ago.
- Yeah, I mean, that three billion number
is birds in general,
but a vast majority of them are these migratory songbirds
who, you know, as we were kind of talking about,
they're facing these different threats
at different points of the year during their annual cycle,
so it's this habitat loss that's happening, you know,
at both the over wintering and the breeding grounds.
We're also looking at things like window collisions
and threats that are happening during the migration period
as they're moving through their annual cycle.
We didn't even talk about cats, but that's another,
you know, big threat for a lot
of the bird species is- - No, I'm with you.
- Yeah, yeah. - I'm with you on cats.
- Yeah, you know, people are allowing
their cats outdoors unsupervised.
You know, they're kind of picking off a lot of these,
you know, migratory songbirds 'cause that's what they do.
They're little predators. That's in their nature.
There's, you know, no faulting them for doing
what comes naturally for them,
but, you know, we as humans have to be responsible
and make sure that we're, you know, behaving in a way
that's setting our local wildlife up for success
while also creating an enriching environment
for our pets at home, too.
(screen whooshes)
- [Narrator] Three billion birds is an incredible loss.
But decades before that, scientists knew
that migratory bird populations were dropping.
And at the Smithsonian,
getting to the bottom of the problem
led to a crucial discovery.
(mysterious music)
- Our Migratory Bird Center was founded in the 1990s,
but the work for migratory bird conservation
kind of started long before that.
And in the 1980s, the person who then went on
to kind of be the founder of the Migratory Bird Center,
Dr. Russell Greenberg, he was noticing a decline
in migratory songbird populations in North America.
So, if you think about, you know, 40 years ago,
we're in the '80s, and he's noticing
and trying to figure out sort of like,
"Where are these birds going?
I know they're here in North America
during part of the year, and then they disappear,
and then sometimes they come back and sometimes they don't.
And we're starting to see fewer and fewer of these birds."
So he kind of said, "All right,
I'm gonna try to figure out where it is
that these birds are going."
He went down to Mexico to conduct a bit of research there
and to try to see if he could find those same birds
and figure out where it was that they were going
when they left our areas in North America here.
What he kind of found while he was down there
was that there were
lots and lots of birds in undisturbed forest.
And he's looking around, he's trying to figure out,
"Okay, what are the types of habitat
that they're utilizing?"
He was on one area of a valley and heard a lot of bird calls
and things like that happening.
And he looked over and it looked like an area
that appeared to be sort of like an undisturbed forest.
Went over to check it out,
and what he realized is that it was a coffee farm.
So, there was coffee growing in the understory,
and then lots of native trees
providing high shade for birds,
really high quality habitats,
and, you know, lots of, you know,
this area that effectively looked like a forest,
but was actually a coffee farm.
And he said, "Hm, this seems like this
could be a really important habitat measure
for migratory birds in providing a healthy
overwintering habitat for them."
And so that kinda led to just this concept
that coffee could be grown in a way
that was friendly to birds and biodiversity,
and that sort of went on to become
the Smithsonian Bird Friendly certification program.
- I mean, this is just such a serendipitous story, right?
And I think probably the biggest shock to Dr. Greenberg
was thinking he's looking at what we're saying,
like pristine, untouched, you know, old-growth forest,
going in and actually seeing like,
"Oh, this is a farm. (laughs)
Who knew a farm could look like this?"
'Cause certainly in North America,
we, at that time, didn't have those examples.
Many of us in the West are quite detached
from the things we consume.
Can you help me understand what does coffee look like?
Like, it's apparently not a tree. (laughs)
How does coffee grow,
and how can that fit into a forest ecosystem?
- So, coffee is kind of like a shrub.
When it's ripe, it's these nice, beautiful
bright red cherries that kind of grow out
on the coffee shrub itself.
And the shrubs, they can get to be quite tall,
and so they can grow in the understory.
So, coffee is a unique crop in that it is perfectly happy
to grow under the shade of trees,
and that's actually how it was originally grown.
And it was only actually up until the 1970s
that most coffee was grown that way.
And then around the '70s, that's when we saw the conversion
of a lot of coffee farm from this agroforestry,
where there's the agriculture kind of in the understory
of the forest above to the removal of a lot of the trees
and a lot of the kind of the native plants
and things like that that are in there
to grow coffee in the sun instead.
And there are a number of different reasons
why that change kind of happened.
There's rising number of people who were drinking coffee,
and the governments are kind of saying,
"Hey, we wanna make sure that we can keep up
with this demand."
And there was this idea that
if you eliminated some of the shade trees,
that you could, in theory, grow more coffee in that way,
that the cherries would ripen faster
and that that would be a higher yield
for the producers there.
There ended up being a big conversion of the way
that coffee was grown from the agroforests,
how it originally grew into just this
kinda clear-cut monoculture where the coffee
is just kinda baking in the sun
and you're just seeing rows and rows of crops
and very little space for birds and biodiversity
to coexist in that way.
- So, we have a scientist who traveled down
with a team and discovered,
"Okay, there is habitat fragmentation and habitat loss,
but it looks like there's also solutions at the same time."
And then what stemmed from there?
- What we ended up kind of seeing was,
you know, when Dr. Greenberg came back
and was trying to figure out, you know,
"What do we do with this information that we now have?
So, you know, we have made this association
that the agroforests can provide really high quality habitat
for birds and biodiversity.
The question then became,
how do we incentivize producers
to grow their coffee in this way?"
So, for those remaining folks
that have kept this high-quality habitat on their land,
how can we make it so that they feel there's a reason
for them to continue growing coffee in this way?
How do we incentivize that? - And let me interrupt you
here just for me to get a sense.
Like, tell me a little bit about the economics of this.
Is it somehow, like, cheaper to do the monoculture
where it's just coffee?
Is it somehow more expensive for landowners
to continue with the polyculture?
Like, why would someone choose one over the other?
- So, for each individual farmer or a landowner or producer,
there's different motivating factors,
and it kinda boils down to how you want to sell your coffee.
So, there's coffee that can be sold as specialty grade,
and that's when we think about, you know, high-quality,
high-end specialty coffees versus your commodity coffee,
which, you know, I kind of refer to
as like your gas station coffee
where it's just like a mix of a bunch of beans,
and we're not really sure where it's coming from,
and maybe the qualities is a bit lower.
So, there's a lot of different factors that can go
into how a producer can sell their coffee
and how much money they can get for it,
so that was kind of what led to the creation
of the Bird Friendly program,
was trying to find a way to provide this incentive
for producers that they could get more money
for their coffee.
And Smithsonian will prove, we will vouch for them that,
yes, this coffee is grown in a way
that's really good for birds.
(screen whooshes) (birds chirping)
- [Narrator] A decline of three billion birds,
habitat loss on two continents.
That might feel overwhelming,
but inside the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center,
alongside the Bird Friendly program,
scientists are working on individual species recovery,
including one of the most remarkable
songbird comeback stories on record,
a single species that came so close to disappearing
that scientists were counting the males one by one.
(screen whooshes) (birds continue chirping)
- You lit up a bit
when you mentioned the Kirtland's warbler,
and so, you know, again, I'm a mammal person,
but can you tell me, just even briefly in summary,
what is that story
and why does it bring a smile to your face?
- So, these guys are one of the, unfortunately, rare
but really great kinda conservation
success stories for songbirds. (birds chirping)
So, they went from a population of about 167
singing males in 1974,
recovered all the way to being delisted
from the endangered species list in 2019.
So kinda really big recovery story there,
down to just, you know, a little over,
you know, between 100 and 200, you know,
individual singing males that you're seeing there.
And the reason behind that is kind of twofold.
So, their decline happened because, in part,
they're an incredibly range-restricted bird,
so they only breed in young jack pine forests
that are between five and 20 years old
in a small corner of Northern Michigan,
so they have a super, super specific set of criteria
that they need in order to breed.
And if those forests aren't there,
and if they aren't there in that timeline,
so if they're too big or they're too small,
then these birds can't breed in there, they can't thrive.
And the other kinda big conservation threat
for Kirtland's warblers was brood parasitism
by a species called the brown-headed cowbird.
So, when we say brood parasitism,
it's kind of a little bit of a mouthful,
but that means that these cowbirds
were coming in- - But it doesn't sound good.
- Yeah, it's not as ugly. - That's for sure. (chuckles)
- And so they were laying their eggs in the nest
of the Kirtland's warblers,
and they were kind of out-competing
the warblers for survival.
So, the cowbirds were coming in,
they were laying their eggs in the nests,
and then basically leaving the Kirtland's warbler adults
to raise and care for the cowbirds
instead of their own young.
And so, we saw a big population decline there
because of those two factors of just
this lack of breeding ground that they had
in this very, very restricted kind of territory.
And then these cowbirds that were coming in
and taking over these Kirtland warblers' nests.
So, what kinda ended up happening
was we saw a kind of more management of the cowbirds,
so they were kind of capturing them
and, you know, removing them from there.
And in 2019, that issue had actually been totally resolved.
There was less than 1% of warblers that were still dealing
with the brown-headed cowbird parasitism there,
and so that was kind of like-
- Wow. - A big conservation success,
so we said, "Hey, we took care of that problem.
We managed those cowbirds-"
- Yeah. - "To the extent that,
you know, that's no longer a threat
for the Kirtland's warbler."
And then there's ongoing kind of habitat management
that's happening for, you know, kinda keeping
that breeding ground intact,
so we're planting new jack pine habitat
that's kind of helping them to recover and making sure
that there's good management that's in there,
so it's fire management has to happen there
just to keep them at that right size.
If the trees get, as I said, the trees get too big,
then they can't thrive.
And so, for that, it's still a species
that is kind of like a conservation-reliant species,
so their continued survival depends
upon the ongoing habitat management that's in place there.
(screen whooshes) (calm music)
- [Narrator] The Kirtland warbler
went from 167 singing males
to a completely recovered species.
That happened because of dedicated scientists,
active habitat management,
and people who truly refused to give up.
The story of migratory songbirds is still unfolding,
but there's a role for all of us in it.
(screen whooshes)
- How many, or about how many coffee companies
participate in the Smithsonian Bird Friendly program?
Like, do we have a large variety to choose from?
Where are we at?
And do you think that number will increase pretty soon?
- So, right now, if we think about coffee roasters,
so coffee brands that you tend to see or are familiar with,
we have about 110 roasters globally,
so it's a small-ish number- - Wow.
- In the grand scheme of things,
but it's growing every month,
so we're really excited
to constantly be welcoming new coffee roasters
into the Bird Friendly program,
which really just kinda helps grow our presence
and, you know, kinda makes the coffee more accessible
to people who are interested in supporting it
and looking for it.
Now, of course, behind those folks in the supply chain,
leading up to that, we've got,
you know, a community of over 4,000 producers,
so there's lots and lots of people
who are growing this coffee,
who are invested in protecting the land.
And those folks are kind of at the heart of our program.
We could not exist if it weren't for them
and their long-standing commitment
to protecting that habitat on their land.
- That is such good news.
I really did not think
you were going to say a number that high.
I think over 100 of these companies is major.
I'm sure crossing that 100 mark was a huge milestone.
And, you know, who knows what their future brings?
I mean, there is a potential for all coffee companies
to get on board and realize that this is the best way
to produce these products, to get them to people.
Now, how would someone know that the coffee
they're purchasing is bird-friendly?
Is there, like, a logo or an emblem, you know,
on the bag of coffee?
How can they distinguish?
- Yeah, absolutely, so you've got it exactly right.
The easiest way to determine if a coffee
is Smithsonian Bird Friendly-certified
is to look for that black and white logo
that says Bird Friendly on it.
It's got the Smithsonian and a little sunburst on it.
If you see that logo on a coffee product,
then you know that it has been verified by us at Smithsonian
as 100% of the coffee that's in that product
is coming from a farm, a producer
that is protecting really high quality habitat
for birds and biodiversity on their farm.
That logo tells you that that coffee
is grown 100% organically, that it's deforestation-free,
and that there is you know, a diversity
of native shade trees that are on the land
that are really kind of helping to provide
and preserve that important habitat
for birds and biodiversity.
I mean, I've been working in the conservation sphere now
for, gosh, like almost 20 years,
and I have never seen a solution
that is so, like, simple and easy
and, like, it doesn't require you to give something up.
It doesn't require you to stop doing something.
It's something that's accessible to you.
I mean, for so many of us,
coffee is like a multi-cup a day habit, right?
So we need it to get up in the morning.
We're not saying don't drink coffee whatsoever.
We're saying, "Hey, make a switch to a coffee
that is grown in a way
that is really good for birds and biodiversity."
And I think that's rare that we get that easy,
you know, a conservation win,
where it's just a simple switch that you can make,
and you can feel really, really good about the impact
that you're having on there,
you know, because of the science and the rigor
that's attached to, you know,
our certification through Bird Friendly.
So, I don't know, I always like to think about just sort
of like sipping my cup of bird-friendly coffee as I'm,
you know, taking my daughter for a walk down the street.
And, you know, you see, you know, a wood thrush
or you see a warbler fly by, and that individual bird
might be benefiting from the coffee that's in your cup.
Because of those migratory patterns and because of that,
this time of year when we're seeing these birds
coming back into our communities,
they're coming from these coffee-growing lands.
And the individual choices that we make
by choosing a bird-friendly coffee,
by choosing a coffee that's good for birds and biodiversity,
that can make a difference for that individual
that's right here in your community this time of year.
And for me, every time I think about that,
it gives me chills.
It makes me think like, "Wow, that's a really awesome thing
that I have the power to do."
It's something that, you know, I feel good about.
It's something that I am excited about,
and it tastes really good, too, so that also helps. (laughs)
(screen whooshes) (lively music)
- [Narrator] 110 roasters and growing.
4,000 producers protecting the land.
And somewhere right now,
a warbler is making its way north.
(birds chirping)
- If this episode sparked a little something in you,
follow or subscribe, leave a review,
or send to the bird nerd or coffee lover in your life.
I'm Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant, and I'll see you next time.
(screen whooshing) (bright music)
(gentle piano music)