Greater scaup faces numerous threats, the most significant challenge to their survival is habitat degradation caused by a mix of human development and runoff. Greater scaup, when moulting and during the winter, are threatened by escalated levels of organochloride contaminants. Oil and sewage pollution also threaten this duck. Since 80% of the greater scaup population winters in the urbanized part of the Atlantic Flyway, these ducks are subject to high levels of organic contaminates, along with increased levels of heavy metals in foods and habitat. A joint group of American and Canadian scientists researching scaup migration across the Great Lakes found that
What a queer bird in Chicago", with the work allegedly first printed in the "Bulletin of the Chicago Board of Education". The "Chicago Ledger" printed the work its "Jokes and More Jokes" section in May 1922, where the word "wonderful" replaced "queer". In July 1922, it appeared as a verse of imprecise origin in the "American Consular Bulletin". When printed in the "Pleasantries" section of "The Christian Register" in September 1922, it was attributed as a "[c]omposition by foreigner in a Chicago night school." By 1980, it was published as a folk song to be sung as a round. What a queer bird "What