Bird Nesting on Truck Tire at Dealer is Saved by Federal Law

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]Welcome once again to Leato's Law.

[00:00:02]Here's Steve Leato.

[00:00:04]>> A lot of people are going want to argue about who the heroes and the villains are in this story, but uh this is a fascinating one and it's been sent to me by everybody. So, thank you very much.

[00:00:12]Federally protected Robin's Nest delays Ford F250 Superduty sale in Kansas. My understanding it's not delaying the sale so much as it's delaying the delivery of the truck. This is from roadtrack.com, a website I wrote for a while back. Full disclosure, the Ford dealership is happy to let one Robin raise its babies on the tire of a superduty. I know a lot about robins. I've got robins that uh coexist with me on my property. They let me stay here. I let them stay here. I've said before, you know, animals were on my property long before I was. Therefore, I've got no problem with any of them except for wood chucks that get in my garage. But that's another story. Zack Palmer wrote the story about a dealership in Kansas. Ford dealer can't let a customer take home an already bought F250 Superduty. And the reason is for the birds, quite literally. The uh dealership posted its conundrum on Facebook. It's dealing with an unusual circumstance. A robin decided to build a nest and lay its eggs on the tire of an F250 right inside the wheel well. It's a perfectly little protected spot. Those enormous tires and mighty wheel gaps make a nice spot for a bird to raise its four babies. After noticing the nest, the dealership writes that it learned robins and their active nests are federally protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918.

[00:01:32]In other words, the dealer can't legally relocate the nest. Now, there is a question about that, but we'll get there. Even if it could move them, referring to the chicks and the nest, the dealer said that truthfully, our team has become a little too invested in these babies to rush them out now. And so I want to salute the dealership for doing this. I really do because let's face it, somebody could have quietly pretended they didn't see the Nest and just moved that vehicle around a little bit and probably nobody would have known. However, the folks who bought the F250 are having to patiently wait for the Robins to leave before they can take delivery. The dealer notes the buyers are happy to be patient alongside the dealer for the babies to move along, that is on their own. In case you were wondering, the dealer already named the birds lug nut, axle, diesel, and turbo. Turbo.

[00:02:23]A video posted on May 19th shows the birds are growing quickly. If these Robins follow the normal timing, they'll likely start to filter out of the nest toward the end of May, and the customer might be able to take their truck home at the start of June. The dealer jokes that this may be the only F250 protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. We have a feeling they're correct. that is unless other robins catch on and make this a trend. Robins are ubiquitous. Uh it's a state bird of Michigan, they are everywhere. Uh and I have a deck that robins love to build nests under. And it is, if you saw it, and I'll probably dig up some photographs and post them if I can. There is the perfect little spot for them because the deck is here. And then directly underneath the lip of the deck is a support and between that support and the deck is a space that's just enough for a robin to build a nest and then for the robin to sit in the nest and then for the babies to grow up and eventually they grow up and they leave. I've told stories about this before, especially on my second channel where I talk about things that are not legal in nature. And that is that every summer I have probably five or 10 nests of robins. I'm talking about how many times like a nest might get used more than once, but I'm talking about a robin that comes in, lays eggs, raises them, and the robins leave. The interesting thing you need to know is that the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 implements four international conservation treaties that the US entered into with Canada, Mexico, Japan, and Russia. Uh, now those were entered into at different times, but one was in 1916 and then 1936 and 1972 and then Russia 76. It's intended to ensure the sustainability of populations of protected migratory bird species. And so you might realize this, but birds that migrate will often spend their summers in one spot and their winters in another spot that could be in a different country. And so people thought, well, gee, you can't just protect it here. You got to protect it there also and and in between. But here's the key portion. The migratory bird treaty act prohibits the take the take of protected migratory bird species without prior authorization by the department of interior US fish and wildlife service.

[00:04:40]The take in this context is referring to the take as an hunting which means an action that adversely affects a species particularly killing it. So the there's a parenthetical up here and it says it prohibits the take which includes killing, capturing, selling, trading, and transport of protected migratory bird species. So it turns out there's a list of migratory birds protected by the MBTA and I went and looked it up and robbins are on the list. And it's interesting because on the one hand there are so many robins. There are so many robins. And robins I I would like to think of them as the rabbits of the sky because rabbits multiply like like it's it's crazy. I've got rabbits in my property and I I see so many generations of rabbits every single summer. They they they routinely are two or three crops of rabbits a year. And um they don't all make it, which is part of their survival strategy. But there are so many robins and you think to yourself, do they really need to be protected? But of course, the issue is that you have had in the past populations of animals where there were so many of them, passenger pigeons, that nobody ever thought they could ever possibly go away and then they went away fairly quickly because they were over hunted or overh harvested or whatever word you want to use. And so, you know, um I do agree that that a law like this is a good thing. uh obviously if if the animals became a pest uh you know then you can go and apply and like I said there is a subsection in here that you can get authorization from the US Fish and Wildlife Service uh to to manage things like that and that's a long debate. I'm not going to get into it here, but I can tell you for instance that deer deer, okay, I've also got deer on my property, but deer are everywhere in Michigan. And if you don't believe me, just drive up and down any highway and look for the deer by the side of the road that have had deer car collisions.

[00:06:53]But go talk to a farmer. Uh there are some sections of the state where there are gigantic deer herds and if a deer herd wanders into your crop field uh and decides it's hungry uh they can cause a lot of damage and so they have uh exemptions in the law for farmers who are trying to protect their crops from deer. So uh back to this, there's a nest on the tire of a truck. It's got babies in it. Now the dealership is saying we're okay with that. We don't care. We don't care. But the legal question is if somebody had simply taken the nest and picked it up and moved it three feet and put it down on top of a tire, would that have broken the law? And an argument can be made that that's not a take because it's not killing the birds and you're not capturing the birds. You're not selling the birds. and it says trade or transport. And the question is obviously you're not trading them and are you transporting them? Now you could argue and say yes yes Steve if you picked them up here and put them down over you've transported them 3 ft.

[00:08:04]But there are also things in the law that talk about whether something is so trivial as to not rise to the level of unlawfulness. Okay. So, the real question is simply, would moving that nest violate this law? And I can see an argument being made that no, it wouldn't be. No, it wouldn't be as long as you didn't disrupt the bird andor the babies. And the question is like, let's suppose there's two trucks parked right next to each other. And all you did is you picked it up and put it down.

[00:08:38]And assuming the mother bird had no problem with that because she came back and took care of the babies. The babies all lived and thrived. Eh, and I have to point this out simply because it is a practicality, but you and I both know that in most instances, somebody come by, look at that nest, and go, "Who cares?" and move that truck cuz you got to move that truck.

[00:09:00]So, I like the animals. I like the birds. I can't tell you how many baby birds I've watched grow from egg to adulthood. probably in the last four or five years, 50 or so, 50 or so. And um it's it's it's impressive. And I remember one day I was walking around outside and I did not know that there was a bird nest tucked into a corner of the deck because what I can often do is I can walk across a deck and then look through the slats and see the eggs in the nest. Robin's blue eggs. And I can see those eggs. And and a mother had built a nest in a corner that I couldn't see through to.

[00:09:42]And I did I'd never noticed birds coming and going because the way it was in the corner. And I was walking by one day and apparently I startled the last baby in that nest because I heard something happen. And I turned and looked and this baby flapping frantically jumped out of the nest and went and just as about to hit the ground cranked up the velocity of its wing flaps and picked back up again and took off.

[00:10:13]I believe I saw that baby robin take its first not steps but wing flaps successfully. So there you go. Uh, federally protected Robins's Nest delays Ford F250 Superduty sale in Kansas and the sale's completed, but the owner's apparently cool with it, too. The vehicle won't be moved till the Robins all leave the nest. And I have to salute the Ford dealer for doing that.

[00:10:39]Questions or comments, put them below this. Talk to you later. Bye-bye.

[00:10:42]>> Thank you for watching Leato's law. The hardest mountain to climb is the one within.