On the Brink
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Sunday, July 9, 2017 Vol. CXXXII, No. 27providencejournal.com © 2017 Published daily since 1829 $3.50 PROVIDENCE Murders add up, and a feud lives on Annette Perry Gil- Meanwhile, miles away at a This is how it’s been for some liard, the mother Bad blood rises church in Cranston, the loved ones growing up in Mount Hope, Chad of Dimitri Perry, again among three of 22-year-old Devin Burney gath- Brown and the South Side since releases a balloon ered for his funeral. the 1970s. Something that no one at her son’s grave neighborhoods Perry and Burney had been remembers anymore sparked a vio- site in the North friends when they were children. lent feud that has snowballed, with Burial Ground in By Amanda Milkovits Their mothers, Annette Perry Gil- young men wounded or dead over Providence on Journal Staff Writer liard and Shawndell Burney, have slights and retaliations, and leaving Saturday, as the known each other for years. their families to suffer. family marked the PROVIDENCE — His family But as the boys became young Ronald Gilliard knew about the two-year anniver- and friends stood by the grave of men, they ended up on different feud, but he hoped his family would sary of his murder. 23-year-old Dimitri LaQuan Perry sides in a generations-old feud — be safe. Dimitri was his youngest, [THE PROVIDENCE in North Burial Ground on Saturday determined by where they live. Gilliard said, a bright boy who JOURNAL / DAVID and released balloons to mark the Both young men were murdered. DELPOIO] second anniversary of his death. Their killers remain at large. SEE PERRY, A5 DIPLOMACY ENVIRONMENT Trump lobbies On the for help against brink ‘menace’ Against a rising tide, the plucky little saltmarsh sparrow could be After N. Korea’s ICBM headed for extinction, a canary in the coal mine of climate change launch, Japan is on board, China less so By Ken Thomas and Darlene Superville The Associated Press HAMBURG, Germany — Wrap- ping up his second European tour, President Donald Trump sought consensus with Asian allies Sat- urday on how to counter the “menace” of North Korea after its test-launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile. “Something has to be done about it,” Trump said as he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping. In a separate meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Trump said the two were addressing “the problem and menace of North Korea.” The White House said after the meeting with Abe that the U.S. was “prepared to use the full range of capabilities” in defense of Japan. Trump and Abe committed, the White House said, “to redoubling their efforts to bring all nations together to show North Korea that there are consequences for its threatening and unlawful actions.” The Trump administration has tried to press Beijing to rein in North Korea, a major trading partner of China, and halt Kim Jong-Un’s development of nuclear weapons before they can threaten Holding a saltmarsh sparrow carefully, Deirdre Robinson crimps a numbered aluminum band onto its leg as part of a study into the dwindling species’ numbers U.S. territory. Trump has voiced and nesting habits at Jacobs Point marsh in Warren. The birds are captured using fine-mesh “mist nets” and banded. Robinson and field ornithologist Steven his frustration in recent days that Reinert, top, are self-funding and directing the study and are assisted by volunteers. [THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL / SANDOR BODO] China hasn’t done more, suggest- ing he may take steps of his own. But during their meeting, Trump By Alex Kuffner Robinson, who is co-directing told Xi, “I appreciate the things 114 Journal Staff Writer a study of the species, says in that you have done relative to the BARRINGTON WARREN a mellifluous voice. “Isn’t that very substantial problem that we WARREN — Deirdre Robin- Vernon St. beautiful?” all face in North Korea.” son holds a female saltmarsh Jacobs Beautiful and besieged. The Xi said during the meeting that Point Main St. “sensitive issues remain” in the sparrow in one hand, cupping marsh saltmarsh sparrow is a tiny her fingers around its delicate thing, 5 inches long and half China-U.S. relationship and more body as if she’s cradling an egg. an ounce, and in the drowning work needed to be done. But he The sparrow’s dainty head marshes of Rhode Island, this said he had built a “close contact” peeks out between Robinson’s ½ mile BRISTOL resourceful bird is locked in a with Trump. index and middle fingers, dusky Narragansett Bay race with the rising sea. The Trump’s extensive slate of eyes alert to everything. Source: maps4news.com/©HERE very species is struggling to meetings with Abe, Xi, British Robinson traces the speckling GATEHOUSE MEDIA keep its head above water. Prime Minister Theresa May and of brown and white feathers It is this struggle that has others came on the final day of that form a necklace around Videos online drawn Robinson and others to the annual Group of 20 summit, the throat and the dual brush- the salt marsh at Jacobs Point, strokes of yellowish-orange To see videos of the banding of where they band sparrows for a SEE NORTH KOREA, A10 that curve away from the saltmarsh sparrows at Jacobs Point project that will track the bird’s pointed bill to frame the bird’s marsh in Warren, and a graphic video numbers over time. profile. showing the species’ race against the Inside tides, go to providencejournal.com/videos SEE SPARROWS, A6 “You can see the ochre,” U.S. bombers join Japanese, S. Korean fi ghters in show of force over Korean peninsula. A10 TODAY MON TUE Arts Calendar ...F6 Editorial ........ A12 Books ................F3 Lotteries .......... C2 Business .......... B1 Movies ..............F7 Classifi ed ......... E3 Obituaries ........ B6 Crossword........ E4 Television ......... E5 83°/63° 85°/67° 85°/70° Complete forecast, B8 Home delivery: 401-277-7600 Sunday A6 Sunday, July 9, 2017 | PROVIDENCE JOURNAL | providencejournal.com SPARROWS From Page A1 Robinson deftly extends the sparrow’s left leg so that volunteer Katie Christ can crimp a numbered aluminum band around it. They check that the ring of metal isn’t too tight by spinning it around the lower leg, or tarsus, and sliding it up and down. Robinson attaches a blue plastic band below the aluminum one and then, on the right leg, adds a red band and an orange. The combination of colors will be unique to this bird. Robinson confirms that the sparrow is nesting by exposing the bare skin on its belly — the “brood patch” that makes for a more efficient transfer of heat from mother to eggs — and then measures the length of one wing, checks the store of fat over the breastbone, weighs the bird, and finally takes a series of photographs. Only then does she release the bird back to its home on the marsh. “She wants to go toward the light,” Robinson says as the little sparrow flits away. Losing ground Katie Christ prepares bands on the Jacobs Point marsh in Warren while fellow volunteer Evan Lipton looks for birds. [PROVIDENCE JOURNAL PHOTOS / SANDOR BODO] The saltmarsh sparrow canary in the coal mine for may be more vulnerable climate change,” Robinson to sea-level rise than any says. other animal that inhab- its the nation’s coastal Dedicated volunteers wetlands. On this morning in mid- A reclusive songbird, the June, the marsh is alive sparrow is a rare “obligate” with birds. Red-winged marsh species, spending blackbirds wheel and its entire life cycle in salt dart overhead like stunt marshes. planes. Willets — “the Its numbers have dwin- most annoying bird on the dled over the decades as marsh,” Reinert says — fly marshes have been drained in groups, making loud, and filled in to make way piercing calls. for seaside homes, and as Two ospreys swoop back roads and rail lines have and forth between the been cut through them, river and the nest they’ve interfering with tidal flows built on a man-made and drainage. stand, feeding fish to their Found exclusively along nestlings. a narrow strip of shoreline Reinert and Robinson lay on the East Coast, the bird out their equipment on a summers in marshland weathered tarpaulin: col- from southern Maine to ored bands that will allow Virginia and winters in researchers to identify a region from the mid- birds from a distance and Atlantic states to Florida numbered aluminum bands and around the Gulf Coast that will be used to confirm to Texas. IDs if birds are captured. The bird has carved out Their team of six includes a niche over thousands of Christ, a URI senior study- years, building grassy nests ing natural-resources on the ground in the upper science who met Reinert reaches of salt marshes, when she was about 7 years above the high-tide line. To old at one of his banding live in this regularly flooded classes. And Kathy Mills, habitat, it must synchro- an amateur birder whose nize its breeding between Study co-director Deirdre Robinson holds a sparrow carefully as volunteer Katie Christ takes a photo for identification. The wing is extended to license-plate frame identi- the extreme tides pulled in record the mottling pattern. fies her as “that crazy bird by the new moon. lady,” has driven from Even a slight change in Shrinking habitat Bay, she spotted a salt- their work and are funding Worcester, Massachusetts, sea level could narrow the The saltmarsh sparrow’s range runs from Maine marsh sparrow with everything themselves.