Mississippi River Delta Restoration Campaign to launch fall bird migration tour

By Ryan Rastegar, Mississippi River Delta Restoration Campaign Coordinator

Migratory flight paths, including the Mississippi Flyway (National Audubon Society)

The Mississippi River Delta Restoration Campaign is organizing a fall migration tour! Throughout the months of October and November, our staff will be organizing events up and down the Mississippi River to highlight the important role the delta plays in maintaining a healthy Mississippi Flyway.

The Mississippi Flyway is a bird migration route that our winged friends generally follow along the Mississippi River when migrating south in the fall and north in the spring. Birds typically use this route because there are no mountains to block their path, making the trip easier and more direct. This route also provides easy access to water and food. About 40 percent of all North American migrating waterfowl and shorebirds use the Mississippi Flyway, which accounts for the higher number of bird species found in those areas!

The Mississippi River Delta itself supports more than 400 species of birds, providing critical breeding, wintering, and migratory stopover habitat for 100 million individual birds each year, including approximately 5 million ducks and geese.

The Mississippi Flyway (U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service)

Unfortunately, after decades of abuse and mismanagement, the delta is disappearing rapidly, sinking into the Gulf of Mexico. The collapse of the delta has the potential to disrupt this migration path, thereby decreasing not only the number of birds in the delta, but also along the entire Mississippi Flyway. We can restore the delta by connecting the Mississippi River to its wetlands, but we must act now before it is too late.

We’ll be planning tour events over the course of the next month to raise awareness of this issue all across the flyway and recruit activists who are ready to join the fight to restore the Mississippi River Delta. Our first event is this week at the John Borom Birdfest in Fairhope, Ala. Check back here to find out where we’re going and register for an event near you! And be sure to ‘like’ us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for more updates!