Scrub jay the real state bird | Opinion

From the beaches to the prairies. From the towns and the cities. From the hills of Tallahassee, the people shout with glee, “The Florida scrub jay is the new state bird!” 

If only this were true. The Florida scrub jay, Florida’s only unique bird species, continues to wait its turn but, year after year, its chances die on the Senate floor.  

Florida scrub jays nurture Florida’s unique elfin oak forests –– each adult burying 6,500-8,000 acorns a year –– coaxing life from all-but-sterile soils. Perching on pine snags, they stand as sentinels during cycles of drought, flooding and fire. Florida scrub jays survive in a land of extremes, thriving where northern mockingbirds dare not tread.  

These brash and boisterous Florida loyalists live atop ancient dune islands in the peninsula’s oldest wildlands. They form close-knit families with precise territory boundaries and were once found in almost every county in the peninsula.  

The Florida scrub jay’s ancestors, along with 10 other bird species, arrived from the American West around 2 million years ago. Of these, only the ancestor of the burrowing owl and Florida scrub jay survived in Florida. Nearly all went extinct, but the Florida scrub jay ancestor adapted and evolved into a new Florida species, the only bird to ever do so. Florida scrub jay families have lived in parts of Florida for 650,000 Florida scrub jay generations.  

This feathered Floridian long ago became a habitat specialist, binding its fortunes with the land. In the modern world of the Anthropocene – the age of Homo sapiens – only 10% of Florida scrub jay habitat remains and the species population has dropped below 5% left.  

Stronger-than-normal hurricanes and massive fish die-offs are visible and immediate reminders of human-caused environmental problems in Florida.