New York State Regulations Fall Short for Grassland Birds

Co-authored with the Southern Adirondack Audubon Society, this opinion piece appeared in print in the Times Union on March 15, 2026.

As New York advances its transition to wash vitality, we face one other environmental emergency — the dramatic lack of grassland birds.

The 2025 “State of the Birds” report, produced by a coalition of scientific and conservation organizations, revealed that these birds are the fastest-declining species, with populations down greater than 40% since 1970.

Habitat loss is on the middle of this disaster, and now the disaster is hitting dwelling within the 13,000-acre Washington County Grasslands.

Right here, sweeping fields anchor a uncommon ecosystem that is among the state’s final lifelines for susceptible grassland birds, together with the state-endangered short-eared owl and threatened northern harrier.

These species use the core of the Washington County Grasslands for winter and breeding habitat and are exceptionally delicate to habitat fragmentation — even the addition of tall buildings can render the encircling habitat unusable. The scientific literature is evident on this level: Space-sensitive birds abandon or keep away from fields when visible or structural disturbances break up the panorama.

Photo voltaic arrays, if poorly sited, have the potential to do precisely that.

But the proposed Fort Edward Photo voltaic Venture locations photo voltaic panel arrays round this delicate habitat, threatening to immediately remove greater than 500 acres of occupied habitat and probably displace susceptible birds within the core of the grasslands. The proposed photo voltaic arrays would encircle the Washington County Grasslands Wildlife Administration Space to the south, east and west, probably displacing short-eared owls and northern harriers and forcing birds to cross over or close to the arrays to succeed in the higher-quality habitat within the administration space.

The mission space is just not merely good habitat; it’s precedence habitat repeatedly recognized in conservation plans. It lies throughout the Nationwide Audubon Society’s Fort Edward Grasslands Necessary Chicken Space and the state Division of Conservation’s Washington County Grasslands Grassland Chicken Conservation Middle. It’s included within the New York State Open House Plan, and it’s a state-designated Wintering Raptor Focus Space, amongst others. Few landscapes in New York carry this stage of ecological significance.

Regardless of these designations, the Fort Edward Photo voltaic Venture is required to observe solely the state’s minimal mitigation necessities. The Workplace of Renewable Power Siting’s method requires that solely 0.4 acres be conserved per acre of breeding habitat destroyed and 0.2 acres be conserved per acre of wintering habitat destroyed – that means that their plan would protect solely 20% to 40% p.c of the affected habitat for 30 years.

To place it mildly, that falls quick for a web site as essential because the Washington County Grasslands.

As well as, a latest ruling on the proposed photo voltaic mission denied get together standing to the Grassland Chicken Belief, a conservation group with in depth expertise in managing grassland fowl habitat within the Washington County Grasslands. Now Grassland Chicken Belief has no standing to immediately advocate for habitat safety and should ask for voluntary concessions from Boralex, the Quebec-based vitality firm slated to assemble the power.

The ruling immediately reductions a whole bunch of public feedback from neighborhood members, specialists and Northeast-based conservation organizations, such because the Nationwide Audubon Society, the New York State Ornithological Affiliation and a number of Audubon chapters.

Audubon strongly helps renewable vitality improvement — however it should keep away from, decrease and meaningfully mitigate impacts to birds and the surroundings. The Washington County Grasslands are irreplaceable, and if New York is to steer on local weather and biodiversity, the state should make sure that renewable vitality and wildlife conservation advance collectively — not in battle. Defending these grasslands protects the birds that outline them and preserves a dwelling legacy we can’t afford to lose.