Fern Davies

Nominees Sought for Theodore Roosevelt Genius Prize Advisory Council to Promote Technology Innovation in Wildlife and Habitat Conservation

May 12, 2020

Contact(s):

Laury Marshall, 703-589-6947, Laury_Parramore@fws.gov

The U.S. Department of the Interior seeks experts and leaders in wildlife and habitat conservation technology to advise the Secretary of the Interior as part of the newly formed Theodore Roosevelt Genius Prize Advisory Council. The Council, established under the 2019 John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act, will act as a catalyst for technological innovation to advance wildlife and habitat conservation.  It will focus on endangered species protection, invasive species management, poaching and wildlife trafficking prevention, and nonlethal solutions to human-wildlife conflicts.

“We are looking for leaders and highly experienced professionals who can help guide our efforts to more fully incorporate innovation into conservation,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Aurelia Skipwith. “This Council will do more than just award prizes for innovation, its members will serve as guides to competition winners, helping mentor them and chaperone their ideas towards their full potential.”

The Council will administer $500,000 in prizes and advise competition winners on opportunities to pilot and implement their nascent technologies, helping them develop partnerships with conservation organizations, federal or state agencies, federally recognized tribes, private entities and research institutions with relevant expertise or interest.  The Council will be governed by the Federal Advisory Committee Act.

The Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt will appoint 12 to 18 Council members who have expertise in one or more of the following areas: biology, economics, engineering, endangered species, invasive species, technology development, business development and management, international wildlife trafficking and trade, wildlife conservation and management, nonlethal wildlife management, social aspects of human-wildlife conflict management, or any other discipline the Secretary determines to be necessary to achieve the purposes of the Council.

For more information, please visit: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/05/11/2020-10008/call-for-nominations-for-the-theodore-roosevelt-genius-prize-advisory-council-and-advisory-boards.

From The Ibis:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ibi.12822?fbclid=IwAR0nsfy9G0r78EzfGAJqJUpxes3utTyygvYwuruCG7qwuAzU3iitB8I1tpc

With the death of Colin Pennycuick on 9 December 2019 at the age of 86 years, the ornithological community has lost a doyen of avian biology whose passion for flying informed his pioneering research into avian flight for over five decades. His innovative studies, which famously include developing the use of wind tunnels for studying flight performance, led to him to describing key principles underlying the mechanics of flight. A leading authority on the mechanics and physiology of flight in birds and bats, he was also an expert on their navigation and migration. He was particularly driven by a wish to test, and thus understand, why birds and bats fly in the way that they do. His own enthusiasm for piloting light aircraft – pursued from his student days – provided him with fresh insights into the constraints encountered by the birds during their daily movements and longer distance migrations.

Colin James Pennycuick was born in Windsor, Berkshire, on 11 June 1933. His father, Brigadier James A.C. Pennycuick, served with distinction in the Royal Engineers during WWI, and his grandfather was Treasurer of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Educated at Wellington College, Berkshire, and at Merton College, Oxford, Colin enlisted in the Oxford University Air Squadron for the Royal Air Force Voluntary Reserve, and this triggered his life‐long love of flying. A keen birdwatcher since childhood, whilst still an undergraduate he joined a goose‐ringing expedition to Spitsbergen. The results were published in the Seventh Annual Report of the Wildfowl Trust (now the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust; WWT). He moved on to Peterhouse, Cambridge, for a PhD study on muscle physiology, and as a research fellow at Cambridge, he studied the navigation of the Common Pigeon Columba livia, before moving to become a lecturer in the Zoology Department at Bristol University. His association with Bristol continued over many years, though interspersed with periods spent working elsewhere. He also became a regular visitor to the Wildfowl Trust at Slimbridge, and flew gliders with the WWT’s founder, Sir Peter Scott.

During his initial stint in Bristol, from 1964 to 1968, Colin used the university’s first computer to design and build a wind tunnel, which he famously hung in a stairwell in the Zoology Building and then trained and pigeons to fly within it. His observations led to him adapting the existing aerodynamic theory for helicopters to birds, using the results of his wind tunnel experiments to derive a quantitatively accurate mechanical model of bird flight, which was published in a landmark paper in the Journal of Experimental Biology. During this period, he also used the wind tunnel to estimate basic properties for birds in steady gliding flight, with information gained about wing lift and drag from the body and wings leading to his classic ‘momentum jet’ model of flapping flight mechanics, and to addressing the key point of how the mechanical power required to fly varies with airspeed. A second seminal paper on this theory appeared in Ibis in 1969, describing its significance for the flight of birds of different sizes and with varying migration ranges. Colin concluded at the time that there is an upper limit to the body mass at which birds are capable of flight and migration, with larger birds more limited by the amount of body fat which they can carry as fuel, which reduces their range, but they can economize by soaring. He suggested that the upper limit lay approximately with the Kori Bustard Ardeotis kori.

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With the death of Colin Pennycuick on 9 December 2019 at the age of 86 years, the ornithological community has lost a doyen of avian biology whose passion for flying informed his pioneering research into avian flight for over five decades. His innovative studies, which famously include developing the use of wind tunnels for studying flight performance, led to him to describing key principles underlying the mechanics of flight. A leading authority on the mechanics and physiology of flight in birds and bats, he was also an expert on their navigation and migration. He was particularly driven by a wish to test, and thus understand, why birds and bats fly in the way that they do. His own enthusiasm for piloting light aircraft – pursued from his student days – provided him with fresh insights into the constraints encountered by the birds during their daily movements and longer distance migrations.

Colin James Pennycuick was born in Windsor, Berkshire, on 11 June 1933. His father, Brigadier James A.C. Pennycuick, served with distinction in the Royal Engineers during WWI, and his grandfather was Treasurer of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Educated at Wellington College, Berkshire, and at Merton College, Oxford, Colin enlisted in the Oxford University Air Squadron for the Royal Air Force Voluntary Reserve, and this triggered his life‐long love of flying. A keen birdwatcher since childhood, whilst still an undergraduate he joined a goose‐ringing expedition to Spitsbergen. The results were published in the Seventh Annual Report of the Wildfowl Trust (now the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust; WWT). He moved on to Peterhouse, Cambridge, for a PhD study on muscle physiology, and as a research fellow at Cambridge, he studied the navigation of the Common Pigeon Columba livia, before moving to become a lecturer in the Zoology Department at Bristol University. His association with Bristol continued over many years, though interspersed with periods spent working elsewhere. He also became a regular visitor to the Wildfowl Trust at Slimbridge, and flew gliders with the WWT’s founder, Sir Peter Scott.

During his initial stint in Bristol, from 1964 to 1968, Colin used the university’s first computer to design and build a wind tunnel, which he famously hung in a stairwell in the Zoology Building and then trained and pigeons to fly within it. His observations led to him adapting the existing aerodynamic theory for helicopters to birds, using the results of his wind tunnel experiments to derive a quantitatively accurate mechanical model of bird flight, which was published in a landmark paper in the Journal of Experimental Biology. During this period, he also used the wind tunnel to estimate basic properties for birds in steady gliding flight, with information gained about wing lift and drag from the body and wings leading to his classic ‘momentum jet’ model of flapping flight mechanics, and to addressing the key point of how the mechanical power required to fly varies with airspeed. A second seminal paper on this theory appeared in Ibis in 1969, describing its significance for the flight of birds of different sizes and with varying migration ranges. Colin concluded at the time that there is an upper limit to the body mass at which birds are capable of flight and migration, with larger birds more limited by the amount of body fat which they can carry as fuel, which reduces their range, but they can economize by soaring. He suggested that the upper limit lay approximately with the Kori Bustard Ardeotis kori.

In 1968 Colin moved to East Africa, where he was seconded to Nairobi University for 3 years and first acquired his own aircraft (a Piper Cruiser). There he used his wind tunnel to study gliding flight in the Egyptian Fruit Bat Rousettus aegyptiacus. This was followed by 2 years in the Serengeti National Park as Deputy Director of the research station, at which time he flew a powered glider with pelicans Pelecanus spp., storks Ciconia spp. and vultures Gyps spp. and discovered that soaring birds are able to travel across vast areas with little effort, using currents of rising air to gain height, then gliding to the base of the next thermal. In preparation for his return to Bristol in 1973, he adapted his Piper Cruiser for long‐distance flight and made a ‘stepping‐stone’ migration back to the UK, calling in at Addis Ababa, Cairo and Crete en route. This time he remained in Bristol until 1983, using the Piper to track migrating cranes in southern Sweden and also developing the ‘ornithodolite’, a portable instrument which recorded in real‐time on to a computer the azimuth, elevation and range of birds in flight. This he used in South Georgia to measure glide patterns for albatrosses Diomedea spp. and Phoebetria spp. to determine how the wind and waves of the Antarctic Ocean powered their flight, thus shedding light on gust‐soaring phenomena in the species. He also renewed his collaborative work with the WWT, including undertaking an aerial survey of Barnacle Geese Branta leucopsis across Scotland and Ireland in the Piper, and being instrumental in bringing the first computer to the organization.

In 1983 Colin moved to the US as the Maytag Chair of Ornithology at Miami University where he continued his studies of flight performance, using the ornithodolite to study frigate birds Fregata spp. flight, and the wind tunnel to refine his flight mechanics model. Here he developed his ‘Flight’ software, which he made readily available to other researchers, and his book Bird Flight Performance, a Practical Calculation Manual was published in 1989. He collaborated on several projects with the Patuxent Research Centre, including developing bird‐borne transmitters that could send data via the Argos satellite system, and recording basic flight characteristics data for several falconry‐trained raptors and wild sage grouse to test the effects of radio‐tagging on avian flight. When he returned to Europe in 1992 he again made an inter‐continental flight in his own aircraft, this time a Cessner 182, flying via Greenland and Iceland to Bristol. Once back in Britain, following much commuting between the US and the UK by both parties since the early 1980s, he married his wife Sandy, also in 1992. Several new projects commenced, with Colin making regular visits to Lund University where a new wind tunnel was inaugurated by King Carl XVI of Sweden and also, with WWT, tracking Whooper Swan Cygnus cygnus migration between Britain and Iceland. This was of particular interest to Colin because the species was deemed to be at the upper limits for making the long‐distance overseas flight. His VW campervan became a familiar sight in Lund and at Whooper Swan catch sites in Iceland.

Always generous with his time, Colin mentored a number of undergraduate and PhD students who went on to be highly successful in their fields, including such luminaries as Julian Hector, Anders Hedenström, Malcolm Ogilvie, Keith Scholey and Geoff Spedding, their tributes to Colin having contributed substantially to this article. Colin’s life‐long love of flying and his innovative spirit never diminished; on co‐supervising a PhD on Whooper Swan breeding biology during the early 1990s, he suggested that inaccessible parts of Iceland could perhaps be reached by the new method of paramotoring, a concept viewed less enthusiastically by others involved. He also took trouble to ensure that the results of his somewhat technical research were made accessible and understandable to a wider audience, including joining the WWT/BBC/Nenetskiy State Nature Reserve expedition to ring Bewick’s Swans Cygnus columbianus bewickii in the Russian arctic in 2003, an expedition which included tracking Bewick’s Swans fitted with satellite tags for BBC Radio 4’s ‘Migration’ programme. Although recovering from treatment for cancer at the time, Colin was a calm and steadfast presence throughout, clearly delighted to be back in the field.

Colin was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1990 for his innovative work on the flight of birds and bats, and was made Honorary Companion of the Royal Aeronautical Society in 1994. In 1996 he was also awarded an honorary doctorate by Lund University. His publications, including the textbook Modelling the Flying Bird (2008) and his ‘Flight’ software models on the mechanics of flapping and gliding flight and long‐distance migration, set out the principles of aeronautical engineering and how they may be adapted for exploring bird flight. These will remain valuable tools for future generations, and form a basis for the continuing research into avian flight and the dissemination of this information by those who he inspired.

From Fred C. Schaffner:

It’s taken me a long time to internalize this, and I can only offer my sincerest apologies to Heaven for delaying so long. Colin J. Pennycuick was the only true genius I have ever known and I cannot imagine meeting anyone of his calibre ever again. He was kind and patient with mortals like me, jovial, eccentric, and humble, sometimes hilarious, and always in good cheer. Often, we were the only ones in the room who understood one another’s jokes. I’ve tried to be as good a teacher and mentor as he, but matching his genius would be impossible. I had the honor of being his first PhD student after he came to the US from England. He taught me to fly, to master SI units in everything, and most importantly to see farther by patiently stepping back and starting with first principles.
We flew together from Miami to my research site at Culebra, Puerto Rico piloting the Cessna 182 pictured in the article, which he later flew from Miami to England vía Greenland.
I remember ground-breaking scientific articles he wrote on the backs of envelopes, and his home-built computers. And I remember a time when my mind was swirling with a tangled spaghetti of ideas as I tried to write my dissertation. He left the office with a magic marker in hand and returned from the restroom with a length of toilet paper on which he’d written, “When your thoughts come out, it helps to get them down on paper”. He told me to stick it on the wall and keep looking at it until the spaghetti got untangled. It worked!
I remember him calling me one afternoon, years after I graduated, to tell me that for his 65th birthday he’d taken up hang-gliding and had gone to Spain to glide with the Griffons. I can’t imagine who or what or where I would be without him. He was a truly unique and stellar human being.

Colin Pennycuick, who has died aged 86, was the pre-eminent researcher in animal flight over the last century. He focused on the flight of bats and birds (and their possible ancestors), and asked the question: how do they work? To answer this deceptively simple question he brought to bear a mix of sharp logic and original and practical invention.

Though he sought to ground his work in the rigorous application of physics and mathematics, he was not satisfied with abstract results and conclusions by themselves, but always sought to democratise his findings, first to the biological sciences community and then to the huge population of lay people fascinated with birds and their flight escapades.

Pennycuick was an expert glider pilot, and gained some notoriety by piloting his craft in and around flocks of vultures, storks and eagles in Africa, and condors in Peru.

The son of Brig James Pennycuick and his wife, Marjorie, Pennycuick was born in Windsor, Berkshire. His family followed his father’s army postings, which in 1938 took them to Singapore, which they left in 1941 shortly before the Japanese invasion. Pennycuick was later sent as a boarder to Wellington college, Berkshire, studied zoology as an undergraduate at Merton College, Oxford, and worked on his PhD at Peterhouse, Cambridge. There he studied muscle mitochondria, whose task of converting oxygen and nutrients into energy he viewed as the basic engine of flight.

During two years’ national service with the RAF, he flew Provosts and Vampires, early jet-powered aircraft. He subsequently worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Animal Behaviour Laboratory in Madingley, Cambridge, and in 1964 began a long association with the zoology department at Bristol University as a lecturer.

Colin Pennycuick at work in Iceland in 1995. His career took him as far afield as Nairobi, Peru and the South Georgia Islands. Photograph: Sverrir Thorstensen

He used the first computer at the university to design a tiltable wind tunnel, which he built from scratch and hung in a stairwell. He developed and adapted aeronautical ideas from helicopter theory to bird flight and tested their application based on meticulous observations of the free-flying pigeons which he kept in a loft on the roof of the building.

In 1968 he traveled to Nairobi, which he made his base for three years, installing his tilting wind tunnel between two acacia trees to study bat flight in the same manner as he had previously done with pigeons. He then spent another two years in the Serengeti national park as deputy director of the research station there. He learned how to fly his powered glider alongside pelicans, storks and vultures, documenting for the first time their extraordinary and essential abilities to travel economically over large distances by exploiting thermals.

From here on, his career was not so much a list of academic positions and research topics as a restless migration (frequently aerial, frequently self-piloted) of his own. He flew back to Bristol in 1973 via Addis Ababa, Cairo and Crete, in and around the Shetlands, France and Sweden, and down to Bird Island in South Georgia, Antarctica. There he first used his “ornithodolite”, an instrument he designed for measuring birds’ flight paths and speed, to track in detail the soaring flight of albatrosses. He found that the standard explanation – that they could power their flight by following a specific trajectory through a wind shear profile – was only partly responsible for their ability to fly continuously, without flapping for very long times, and that instead they used the wind in several different ways.

In 1983, he left for Miami University, which became a handy launch point for expeditions to the Everglades, Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Idaho, and further afield in Puerto Rico, the Bahamas and Peru. In 1992 he left Miami, via Greenland, Iceland and Sweden. He began a continuing association with the animal ecology group at Lund University in Sweden, tracking migratory birds by radar, and in 1994 the bird flight wind tunnel was inaugurated there by the king of Sweden.

In the late 1990s he collaborated with the Wildlife and Wetlands Trust at Slimbridge, in Gloucestershire, in tracking whooper swans, which as the largest flapping bird can provide a stringent test of aerodynamic theory at relatively large extremes of scale. He appeared in the 2003 BBC radio series Swan Migration Live, which tracked six Bewick’s swans and a whooper swan from Arctic Russia to the UK, with updates on their progress on the Today programme each morning.

In 2008 Pennycuick took part in an even bigger and more ambitious Radio 4 project, World on the Move: Great Animal Migrations, which tracked brent and white-fronted geese from the UK to Canada. With the aid of very accurate meteorological data, combined with measurements of wing beat frequency and wing shape, he modelled a gauge that could estimate the fuel consumed while these geese were migrating: this would give audiences, and the scientific community, some idea of the effort involved.

Pennycuick’s primary goal was to provide and test a physically reasonable theory of vertebrate flight, which could then be used to predict and understand how and why birds and bats do what they do. Many of his inventions, in techniques, procedures and instrumentation, were absolutely novel because he thought his own thoughts and proceeded by himself, according to the rigorous rules of logic and scientific inquiry.

A rich and exuberant publication history burst from his activities, starting with the first practical flight theory papers in 1968 and going on to include the books Animal Flight (1972), Bird Flight Performance (1989) and Modelling the Flying Bird (2008). In later years he increasingly focused his efforts on his flight software package, which grew from a small custom Basic program to a rather versatile application with graphical interface. As well as biologists, engineers wanting to know how birds manage to achieve the things they do with apparent economy of effort and energy expenditure used the program, and both groups learned from it, which gave Pennycuick particular pleasure.

He was appointed research professor in zoology at the University of Bristol in 1993, and senior research fellow in 1997. He was elected fellow of the Royal Society in 1990, and was made honorary companion of the Royal Aeronautical Society in 1994. In 1996 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Lund University.

In 1992 he married Sandy Winterson. She and his son, Adam, survive him.

Colin Pennycuick at work in Iceland in 1995. His career took him as far afield as Nairobi, Peru and the South Georgia Islands. Photograph: Sverrir Thorstensen

A note from Eduardo Santana about Jim:

Jim  was my supervisor at the Puerto Rican parrot conservation project in the Luquillo Forest during the summer of 1978 and from 1979 to 1980. He also freely offered advice while I was doing my masters thesis fieldwork there on Redtailed-hawks from 1981 to 1983. Jim, along with Joe Hickey, Tim Moermond, Stan Temple, Lloyd Keith and Ariel Lugo, was one of my main professional role models, especially for his intense commitment to doing high-quality fieldwork and his knowledge and love for birds, and his love for the outdoors. As for how his worked helped, I share what my friend Eduardo Iñigo told me: “A significant indicator that Jim’s work was highly valued is that he was the first foreigner to receive the Gundlach recognition from the Cuban Zoological Society”. Since I came to work in conservation and teaching in western Mexico decades ago I unfortunately lost track of Jim (and most of my Caribbean ornithology colleagues!). But I have always remembered him and acknowledged that he was a good teacher to many and  “a  teacher affects eternity.” esantanacas@gmail.com   

In 2014, the Association of Field Ornithologists honored Jim with the Alexander F. Skutch Medal.

This year, the council and members of the AFO are honored to present the Skutch Medal for Excellence in Neotropical Ornithology to Dr. James W. Wiley. Dr. Wiley is recognized for his significant contributions to the scientific literature that have aided in the conservation of a wide range of imperiled Neotropical species in the Latin American-Caribbean region. He was one of the founding members of the Society for the Conservation and Study of Caribbean Birds (SCSCB), and served as the editor of The Journal of Caribbean Ornithology between 1988 and 2004.

His research efforts have not only assisted in the recovery of endangered species and management of critical habitat, but have also provided benefits to the public. For example, Dr Wiley has co-authored numerous popular books including three seminal field guides, Birds of the West Indies, Birds of the Dominican Republic and Haiti, and The Birds of Hispaniola. These definitive field guides have not only provided pleasure for scientists and recreational birders alike, but have also significantly contributed to the understanding of ornithology in the region.

Throughout his career, Dr. Wiley’s extensive mentoring and teaching efforts have impacted a wide range of students and professionals, particularly those in the Latin American-Caribbean region. Dr. Wiley engaged students formally through supervision within Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Unitsat Grambling University and at the University of Maryland at Eastern Shore, and informally in the field, through ornithological meetings, and personal communications. His dedication to mentoring and developing his students is legendary.

The Skutch Medal committee was chaired by Dr. Herb Raffaele, Chief, Division of International Conservation, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The committee consisted of Lisa Sorenson, Executive Director and former President of Birds Caribbean; Amiro Perez-Leroux, Director of Birdlife International for Latin America and the Caribbean; Bert Lenten, Deputy Secretary General of the Convention on Migratory Species; Richard Huber, Principal Environmental Specialist for the Department of Biological Protection and Management at the Organization of American States and Chair of Western Hemisphere Migratory Species Initiative; Maria Rivera, Senior Advisor for the Americas in the Secretariat of the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance; and Nestor Herrera, Director of Wildlife and Ecosystems at El Salvador’s Environmental Ministry.

 

 

Jim Wiley, a mainstay of Cuban ornithology, passed away on 19 September 2018. Apart from his scientific contributions, Jim was a gem of a man, exceedingly and unfailingly kind, gentle, and humble.

 

In 2010, the Journal of Caribbean Ornithology dedicated a volume to Jim. In the dedication, Herb Raffaele, Joe Wunderle, and Noel Snyder wrote:

(Note -  the Society for the Conservation and Study of Caribbean Birds is now BirdsCaribbean)

Were his only contribution the monumental bibliography on West Indian birds that he published in 2000 (Wiley 2000), Jim Wiley would rank among
the most important ornithologists to have ever focused their attention on birds of this region. But Jim’s contributions to the studies of Caribbean
birds, beginning in the early 1970s and continuing without diminishment today, have been so much more. We know of no ornithologist of the region
whose impacts have been more beneficial, going back to the first European explorers who mentioned birds in their natural histories. Therefore, it is with
profound respect and admiration that this issue of JCO is dedicated to a colleague whose detailed knowledge extends to more species than seems possible and whose many publications and other contributions could hardly be more impressive.

Normally such remarks are only possible for doddering ancient figures or for spirits who have already passed from the scene after lifetimes of devoted field work. Fortunately, Jim is still at the peak of his capacities, and it is reasonable to anticipate that much is yet to come, regardless of his recent official retirement from the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Jim’s energy in pursuit of worthy goals has been legendary and sets a standard for diligence that we can only dimly comprehend. Perhaps it all goes back to the Mexico City Olympics of 1968, where Jim competed as a member of the

United States bicycle team and trained up to a level of fitness that he has maintained ever since. All three of us have at one time or another had the privilege of collaborating in field studies with Jim, and we are directly familiar with his tireless capacities. Even more, we have been amazed how he somehow always manages good humor and a spirit of selfless cooperation under even the most miserable field conditions. Jim’s skills range from scaling towering rain-forest trees to crossing treacherous streams (Fig. 1) and scuba diving, and we will never forget his tale of being nudged in the back by a curious Killer Whale (Orcinus orca) as he conducted field observations on marine Gobies along the California coast for his master’s degree. Fortunately for all of us, he survived this incident to finish his master's research at California State University in 1970 and to go on to many other studies.

From California, Jim moved on to graduate studies at the University of South Florida on Red-shouldered Hawks (Buteo lineatus), interrupted in 1973 by taking a position with the Puerto Rican Department of Natural Resources to study Plain Pigeons (Patagioenas inornata ), White-crowned Pigeons                 (P. leucocephala), and other columbids, a group for which he has always had a special affection. In 1977, he took over supervision of the Puerto Rican Parrot Project for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) after completing a detailed study of the Hispaniolan Parrot (Amazona ventralis) in the Dominican Republic for the US Forest Service. He remained in the Puerto Rican Parrot position until 1986, having overseen a steady and convincing increase of the wild population and having launched the captive breeding and release efforts that continue today. The success Jim and his wife Beth had with Puerto Rican Parrot conservation was outstanding, and included an informative experimental release effort of captive Hispaniolan Parrots to the wild in the Dominican Republic in 1982. Concurrent with their efforts with parrots, Jim and Beth also conducted diverse ecological and behavioral studies of the raptors of Puerto Rican and Hispaniola and ground-breaking studies of the endangered Yellow-shouldered Blackbird (Agelaius xanthomus ) in collaboration with Will Post, particularly with reference to the invasion of Puerto Rico by the Shiny Cowbird (Molothrus bonariensis). It was Jim’s cowbird studies that led at last to finishing his Ph.D. with Bud Owre at the University of Miami in 1982.

In 1986 Jim was transferred back to California by the USFWS to conduct efforts for the California Condor (Gymnogyps californianus), a period when the very last wild condors were being trapped into captivity and when temporary experimental releases of surrogate Andean Condors (Vultur gryphus) to  the wild were just beginning. This period also saw a profound change in Jim’s dietary habits that resulted, quite understandably, from his having to oversee the supplemental feeding program for condors.

For those who have long wondered about Jim’s antipathy to Big Macs and Whoppers, he was faced at one point with the clean-up of a defunct walk-in freezer filled with rotting mammal carcasses immersed in an incredible miasma of toxic gases. Fortunately, despite this brush with hell on earth, his enthusiasm for guanabana ice cream and other nutritious tropical delights has remained intact.

From California, Jim moved to Grambling State University in Louisiana in 1991, where he took charge of a cooperative wildlife unit for the USGS. At Grambling, he developed a special interest in the training of wildlife students from the West Indies, especially Jamaica and the Lesser Antilles, and a number of his former Grambling students are current members of the Society for Conservation and Study of Caribbean Birds (SCSCB). There, he also had the good sense to keep all his local sightings of Bachman’s Warblers (Vermivora bachmanii) and Ivory-billed Woodpeckers (Campephilus principalis)to himself.

As some indication of the importance of his mentoring contributions at Grambling, one of us (HR) recently was talking with an assistant to the Directorof the USFWS. This individual was a graduate from Grambling some 15 yr ago and spontaneously described how much he and the other grad students at the time appreciated and respected Jim’s dedication in assisting underprivileged students, particularly those from developing countries throughout the Caribbean. Jim’s ability to inspire others to careers in ornithology and conservation is one of his most important legacies.

In 2001, and continuing until his recent retirement, Jim took over supervision of the Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. There, he continued to be involved with diverse conservation and research projects in the West Indies, as well as local projects in the Chesapeake Bay region, carefully guiding an impressive number of students toward their graduate degrees.

Thus, despite being based in stateside locations from the late 1980s to the present, Jim’s first loyalties have always been in the Caribbean, with frequent trips to Cuba, the Cayman Islands and Hispaniola, and continued work with the psittacines of these islands, as well as many other bird species. He has been especially focused on aiding Cuban ornithological efforts in recent years, and was given special recognition for these efforts by Cuban ornithologists at the July 2001 meeting in Cuba of the SCSCB.

Jim was a founding member of the Society of Caribbean Ornithology (now the SCSCB) and played an important role in launching the organization. He was the first editor of El Pitirre , and during the nine years of his editorship he was responsible not only for editorial duties, but with help of his students served also as the publisher (aided by desktop publishing software) and distributor of the publication. im oversaw the evolution of El Pitirre from a newsletter, for which he often scrambled for manuscripts in the early years, to a journal format covering a broad range of topics. As editor, he was especially helpful and patient with inexperienced authors and viewed the journal as an important forum for their contributions. Other editing contributions he has made have included serving for many years as editor of publications for the Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology in California.

Jim’s personal list of scientific publications includes well over a hundred substantial papers, books, and monographs, mostly on West Indian birds. We find ourselves consulting his annotated A Bibliography of Ornithology in the West Indies (Wiley 2000) with frequency, and it is impossible to exaggerate the usefulness of this colossal assembly of more than 11,600 references, stretching back to the earliest ornithological writings for the region.

Among his other outstanding publications, we call special attention to his coauthorship of The Parrots of Luquillo: Natural History and Conservation of the Puerto Rican Parrot  in 1987 (Snyder et al.1987), coauthorship of A Guide to the Birds of the West Indies  in 1998 (Raffaele et al.  1998), coauthorship of The Birds of Hispaniola  in 2003 (Keith et al.  2003), and his authorship and coauthorship of numerous shorter papers on the Shiny Cowbird, the Puerto Rican Parrot, the Yellow-shouldered Blackbird, and various other psittacids, raptors, and columbids of the West Indies, not to mention his publications on such subjects as the effects of hurricanes on West Indian birds and techniques of captive breeding and reintroduction for endangered forms. For his overall contributions to field studies of Caribbean birds and to ornithology in general, the

SCSCB is truly indebted to Jim Wiley.

LITERATURE  CITED

 KEITH , A. R., J. W. WILEY , S. C. LATTA , J. A. OTTENWALDER . 2003. The birds of Hispaniola.British Ornithologists’ Union Checklist 21:1-293..

RAFFAELE , H., J. WILEY , O. GARRIDO , A. KEITH , J. RAFFAELE . 1998. A guide to the birds of the West Indies. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.

SNYDER , N. F. R., J.W. WILEY , C.B. KEPLER . 1987. The parrots of Luquillo: natural history and conservation of the Puerto Rican Parrot. Western

Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology, Los Angeles.

WILEY , J. W. 2000. A Bibliography of ornithology in the West Indies.  Proceedings of the Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology, vol. 7.

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Meeting Description:

PIF VI will be in San Jose Costa Rica October 30 to November 3 this year.

 

http://pifconference.com/ is up and running and now has a link to registration.

 

All abstracts are due June 30, and early registration ends July 31.

 

Information and deadlines for travel support should be sent out next week. The deadline will be in July. There may not be enough money to support much travel for participants from the US and Canada, but having money for travel support should improve attendance from Mesoamerica.

 

Sorry for the radio silence, but everything has just come together! Please forward to anyone who hasn’t already received two or three copies of this.

 

Some of you might perhaps be under the misapprehension that it would be OK to skip the upcoming Partners in Flight International Conference, but of course you would be wrong.

 

The main reason to attend is that the conference is being held in conjunction with the XXIst Congress of the Mesoamerican Society for Biology and Conservation (SMBC). To my mind, the major advance in conservation biology over the past two decades or so has been the emergence of well trained and highly talented and dedicated professionals in Latin America and the Caribbean. More than 500 of them (including many professionals-in-training, also known as students) are expected to attend SMBC XXI and PIF VI.

 

We are all alerted to the importance of full annual life cycle biology and conservation of migratory birds. To be successful in this endeavor, we need to greatly increase our partnerships with our colleagues south of our border. This meeting is a great way to make that happen. In addition, the timing of the meeting provides the opportunity to see for yourself how Nearctic breeding birds interact with Neotropical residents during the nonbreeding season.

 

The most important reason to attend is that both PIF and SMBC are putting together a great program. I will send you here www.congresosmbc.org to learn more about the SMBC program. Suffice it to say that it greatly broadens the variety of topics that we are used to seeing covered in a North American bird or wildlife meeting.

 

We have attracted 21 symposia for this meeting, producing concerns among several key leaders that we have over-programmed the event. Your attendance will guarantee the conclusion that all this effort will go together to produce a memorable and impactful event with just the right amount of material presented.

 

For those of you who can’t get enough of Partners in Flight Business Conservation Planning (sometimes referred to as Investment Strategies), you will be glad to know that several symposia will be devoted to aspects of that planning.

Our colleagues Alaine Camfield, Ruth Bennett, Randy Dettmers are building an all-day symposium on “Improving conservation implementation: integrating single species and ecosystem conservation initiatives.” The morning will be devoted to single-species initiatives focused on Wood Thrush and Canada, Golden-winged, and Cerulean Warblers. The group will meet as a whole to promote collaboration among these initiatives. The afternoon will include updates from the Southern Mexico/Central America and the Central and South America Highlands Conservation Business Plans and roundtable discussions focused on promoting projects within those plans.

 

Claudia Macias Caballero is organizing a group to report on “Thirteen years of collaboration to preserve the Golden-cheeked Warbler and Mesoamerican Pine-Oak Forest” and to show how a single-species focus can still produce habitat-wide conservation benefits across Mesoamerican countries.

 

To promote conservation in a different habitat type, Carol Beardmore, Edwin Juarez, and Sarah Otterstrom will foster increased Central American participation in “Conserving birds across the tropical deciduous forest and mangrove habitats of Western Mexico and Central America.”

 

Taking a slightly different approach to single-species conservation, John Alexander and Sarahy Contreras Martinez will be convening a group to begin summarizing the “State of Rufous Hummingbird conservation and science” throughout its full annual cycle.

 

Hummingbirds will be well covered at the conference. Susan Wethington and Maria del Coro Arizmendi are organizing a full day symposium on “Hummingbirds in a changing world: Why hummingbird conservation matters!” They have invited the leading hummingbird researchers in Mexico, the United States, and beyond to present their research. In the afternoon, three panel discussions will work towards developing hummingbird conservation programs.

 

To approach business conservation planning from another angle, John Alexander will offer a workshop on “Developing projects and project proposals within a conservation planning framework”, recommending the use of the Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation to identify threats and conservation strategies. His objective is to arm participants with products that can be used to develop funding proposals for their projects.

 

A very timely symposium offering is “Migration Stopover in the Neotropics: Filling a Black Hole in Full Annual Cycle Conservation” organized by Ken Rosenberg, Nick Bayly, Wendy Easton, and Keith Hobson. They will have presentations from ongoing research highlighting new insights, emerging patterns, and opportunities for collaborations. In addition, they will show how stopover results help motivate large-scale conservation efforts and promote the use of Neotropical Flyways protocols in Mesoamerica.

 

Even long before the emphasis on full annual cycle, we have been promoting long-term research projects because of extensive inter-annual variability. Luckily, Ghisselle M. Alvarado Quesada has organized a symposium to report on Costa Rican projects under the title “Ornithological Diversity in Tropical Ecosystems: Long-term Studies”.

 

For me, one of the highlights will be the country-by-country rollout of the Central American Species Assessment organized by Luis Sandoval, Viviana Ruiz, and Arvind Panjabi. The assessment is done and is expected to lead to a “Central American State of the Birds Report” so this will be an excellent chance for you to hear from the leading experts for each Central American county on the status of all their birds using Partners in Flight criteria.

 

A similar treat will be an ambitious all-day symposium on “Bird Conservation in Mexico” organized by Ernesto Ruelas Inzunza and Efraín Castillejos Castellanos that is designed to build towards an integrated national conservation strategy.

 

Two symposia will highlight successes of widespread bird conservation networks. “International collaboration and capacity building to conserve our shared birds”, organized by Jaime Stephens, covers a number of projects mainly involved in research and monitoring, but also a few habitat conservation programs. On the other hand, Andrew Rothman is leading a group that is primarily focused on habitat conservation and management under the rubric “Bird Conservation through Green Investments - Creating effective BirdScapes for Migratory Birds”.

 

Thanks to Sue Bonfield, Lily Briggs, Jody Enck, and Oliver Komar, we have three strong educational symposia planned. Sue is organizing “Engaging Communities in Conservation” that will cover eight international education and outreach programs. Lily will offer “Detectives de Aves-Internacional: Aves de mi Mundo”, an educational program from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology that is already in widespread use in Costa Rica. Jody and Oliver will introduce us to the “Sister Bird Club Network – Linking Birders through Neotropical Migratory Birds”, which is already underway, especially in Honduras.

 

Our colleagues at the Museo Nacional de Costa Rica have organized two symposia focused on research tools. “Ornithological Collections”, organized by Ghisselle M. Alvarado Quesada, includes two collections in Costa Rica and one each in Colombia, Panama, and the USA. “On-line tools for data management, research and education in Ornithology” organized by Silvia Bolanos should open our eyes to the many resources available through the Internet.

 

As has become standard, Partners in Flight is not just for landbirds. Our friends in the waterbird world are bringing us two symposia and a two-day workshop. “Priorities for shorebird conservation in Mesoamerica” by Isadora Angarita-Martínez and Rob Clay will lead a group to talk about the application of the Atlantic and Pacific shorebird plans and the Americas Flyways Framework to Mesoamerican shorebird work, with some specific site-based examples. In addition, Rob Clay, Diana Eusse, and Matt Reiter have organized “Multi-National Monitoring Programs for Waterbirds in Central America – Building a regional baseline for conservation action” to promote a typical Partners in Flight goal: coordinating monitoring programs to provide a coherent picture that motivates conservation. Finally, Alfredo Alvarez is assembling a group of experts for “Expanding and Enhancing Conservation Efforts of Reddish Egret into Mesoamerica”. They are organizing two days of planning and coordinating during our meeting.

 

It’s quite a program! See you in Costa Rica!

 

Greg Butcher

Migratory Species Coordinator

Forest Service

International Programs

p: 202-644-4551

c: 202-617-8259

f: 202-644-4603

gsbutcher@fs.fed.us

1 Thomas Circle NW, Suite 400

Washington, DC 20005

www.fs.fed.us

Caring for the land and serving people

 

Meeting Website: http://pifconference.com/

 

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A new meeting has been added to the =1']Ornithology Meetings database.

 

Meeting Description:

WESTERN BIRD BANDING ASSOCIATION ANNUAL MEETING

 

CAVE JUNCTION, OREGON

 

September 28 – October 1, 2017

 

The Western Bird Banding Association is pleased to invite you to our annual meeting, in scenic Cave Junction near Oregon Caves National Monument in the Illinois Valley. We have selected the Siskiyou Field Institute in south-western Oregon as the venue (www.thesfi.org). The Institute is renowned for its lovely accommodations in beautiful, wild and rural surroundings. The birds and banding opportunities are fantastic. Nearby Deer Creek has a bird-rich mist net station that will provide many birds for training and enjoyment. The Institute is just a short drive from the quaint town of Cave Junction, Oregon.

What to Expect: The meeting will include demonstrations and workshops on a diverse array of bird research, banding, data management, and analysis of banding data. In addition, there will be an Advanced Molt and Ageing Workshop led by renowned molt expert, Jared Wolfe. Evenings will include catered meals, campfires and live music as well as special sessions. Updates from banders in Brazil, Mexico and Costa Rica will also be featured. Details for speakers and workshops will soon be finalized and announced on the WBBA website.

 

A NABC training session and evaluation will be held by accomplished NABC trainers, including Kim Hollinger, Bob Frey and banders from Brazil, Luiza Figueroa and Pedro Martins.

 

Online registration and submission of papers, posters, and demonstrations will be at the WBBA web site. www.westernbirdbanding.org/ and will be due by September 1.

 

Meals and food will be delicious buffet style meals catered from local Illinois Valley sources featuring organic and local foods, beer, and wine.

 

Facilities at the Siskiyou Field Institute include unlimited primitive camp sites, two group yurts with bunk beds, dorm rooms, a state-of-the-art solar bathhouse, and a covered picnic pavilion. The Institute provides a hostel-style kitchen and indoor classrooms for our meeting.

 

Hotels in Cave Junction include several motels in a variety of price ranges. We will have arranged for a WBBA discount for attendees. Updated information will be posted on the WBBA website.

 

Transportation: The closest airports are at Crescent City, California and Medford, Oregon, and rental cars are available.

Exciting Silent and Live Auction: Do you have something to contribute to a silent or live auction? If so, please bring it to the meeting. All sorts of nature and bird-related items (pictures, books, traps, t-shirts, feeders, equipment, etc.) are welcomed as auction items. Come and share your extras, and have fun!

 

Contact Information: for inquiries, email, wbbameeting2017@gmail.com

 

 

 

PRELIMINARY SCHEDULE

 

Updates will be posted on the WBBA website: www.westernbirdbanding.org/

 

 

 

Thursday, September 28, 2017

 

Registration

 

Meet and Greet dinner and social

 

Friday, September 29, 2017

 

All day -- Banding Demonstrations and Workshops

 

Afternoon Board of Directors Meeting

 

Guided bird watching tour around the Siskiyou Mountains.

 

Saturday, September 30, 2017

 

All day -- Scientific Sessions starting with a Plenary Speaker

 

Afternoon and evening poster session and social.

 

Dinner and a keynote talk by John Alexander

 

Sunday, October 1, 2017

 

NABC CERTIFICATION SESSION BEGINS

 

Banding demonstrations

 

Oregon Caves National Monument: cave exploring and birds in a world-famous setting

 

Monday and Tuesday, October 2-3.

 

NABC certification session continues

 

This 850-acre property is situated at the gateway to the Illinois River Canyon – nestled up against the Siskiyou Mountains and overlooking the beautiful Deer Creek Valley. The Klamath-Siskiyous are the most biodiverse region in North America. Researchers from across the country come to Siskiyou Field Institute's property to investigate and learn about the rich biodiversity in the adjacent federal lands.

 

Meeting Website: http://www.westernbirdbanding.org/

 

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A new meeting has been added to the =1']Ornithology Meetings database.

 

Meeting Description:

Call for papers is now open!

 

The Scientific Program Committee and Local Organizing Committee have been working very hard on the conference program and logistics. We had had our share of challenges (anybody that has worked in Cuba can understand this!), but the meeting is shaping up to be a fantastic event that you will NOT want to miss. See the exciting sessions, workshops and symposia listed below - there are many learning opportunities as well as the chance to share your work and network with your colleagues, one of the most valuable (among many!) benefits of attending our conferences.

 

To apply for a place in the program (to deliver an oral paper or poster), please visit the Call for Papers page on the conference website, read the instructions carefully, and submit your abstract online at this link.

 

If you are unable to submit online, you can send your abstract as a Word attachment by email to:BirdsCaribbean@gmail.com. Please indicate clearly in your cover letter your preference for either an oral or poster presentation. Please also indicate into which of the sessions listed below your paper best fits.

 

The deadline for receipt of abstracts is 7 May at midnight (EDT).

 

The following symposia and sessions are included in the program (we are especially looking for presentations that fit these topics!):

• Cuba Day: Celebrating advances in the study and conservation of endemic, resident, and migratory birds in Cuba
• Engaging diverse audiences and stakeholders in conservation through social media, events, campaigns, citizen science, and education programs
• State of Caribbean forest endemic birds: Bringing science and conservation together
• Ecology of migrants and the importance of stopover sites in the Caribbean
• Habitat restoration and best management practices for the conservation of Caribbean birds and biodiversity
• On-the-ground bird and habitat conservation efforts: New approaches, success stories and lessons learned
• Promoting bird tourism in the Caribbean for sustainable development and conservation—Updates on the Caribbean Birding Trail (CBT) and marketing tools to enhance your efforts
• Shorebirds and waterbirds in the Caribbean: Connecting research, Caribbean Waterbird Census monitoring and education to conservation of key sites
• Invasive alien species in the Caribbean: Recent advances and best practices in prevention, control, eradication and monitoring to restore habitats and minimize impacts for birds
• Hunting in the Caribbean—Promoting sound management of shorebirds and other game species
• Recent advances in seabird conservation in the Caribbean
• Climate change impacts on birds and their habitats: research, management, mitigation and restoration solutions
• The role of advocacy in fighting mega-development projects: Case studies on what works, what doesn't, and lessons learned
• Advances in avian ecology and applied research
• Applied research for the conservation and management of Caribbean Birds

The following workshops have been accepted for the program:

• Current and emerging technologies in avian and biodiversity research, management and conservation: Mini training workshops
• Reaching People: Writing for a General Audience—A Hands-on Workshop
• Mark-recapture and demographic modeling to inform on-the-ground management and conservation actions
• Bird Checklists of the West Indies Project
• Fundraising Workshop—Next Level Strategies for your Nonprofit
• Song Meter SM4 Acoustic Recording Workshop
• Cuba National Consultation on the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) Ecosystem Profile for the Caribbean Islands Biodiversity Hotspot (Pre-conference workshop)
• Eastern Caribbean Dialogue on the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) Ecosystem Profile for the Caribbean Islands Biodiversity Hotspot
• BirdSleuth Caribbean: Connecting Youth to Nature and Science
• Bird Conservation Education in the Caribbean: Caribbean Endemic Bird Festival and International Migratory Bird Day
• Caribbean BirdWatch—Developing practical approaches to monitoring birds and their habitats

 

The following round-table discussions have been accepted for the program:

• Journal of Caribbean Ornithology, Past, Present, and Future: An open call for suggestions to improve the journal
• Standardizing Spanish names

 

Attention Students: If you would like to apply for consideration for the Founders Award for Best Student Paper, please indicate this on your abstract form.

Meeting registration will open and details on how to apply for travel support will be available later today.

 

Field trips:

We are planning wonderful early morning, pre-, mid- and post-conference field trips for you. Consider arriving early to Cuba early or staying on after the conference with your spouse, friends and family to go on a field trip and enjoy fantastic birding as well as the vibrant Cuban culture, stunning landscapes and history. We are awaiting final information on pre- and post-conference field trip costs and will be posting itineraries and costs very soon.

Get social!

• Be sure to follow us on Twitter for more updates as they become available: @birdscaribbean #BirdsCarib2017
• Updates are continuously being added to the meeting website, so check back often; we will also post updates on this BirdsCaribbean list serve, Facebook and Twitter.

Sponsorship:

We are still looking for conference sponsors - if you, your organization, agency, or company can help, please visit the Sponsorship Opportunities page and contact us - thank you!

Any questions, contact me.

Looking forward to seeing you all in Cuba in July!

Best wishes,

Lisa

______________________________

Lisa Sorenson, Ph.D.

Executive Director, BirdsCaribbean

Adjunct Associate Professor

Dept of Biology, 5 Cummington St.

Boston University, Boston, MA

02215

(508) 655-1940 (home office)

(508) 333-8587 (mobile)

Skype: Lsoren

www.birdscaribbean.org | www.caribbeanbirdingtrail.org

 

 

 

 

 

__._,_.___

 

Meeting Website: https://sites.google.com/site/birdscaribbeanconference2017/home

 

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A new meeting has been added to the Ornithology Meetings database.

Meeting Description:

OVERVIEW AND CALL FOR PROPOSALS FOR SYMPOSIA AND WORKSHOPS
21st Congress of the Mesoamerican Society of Biology and Conservation (SMBC) and
6th International Meeting of Partners in Flight (PIF)
SAN JOSÉ, COSTA RICA
30 October – 03 November 2017
"Conservation of biodiversity in the hands of Mesoamerican women"

 

Hotel Crowne Plaza Corobicí, San José, Costa Rica http://www.ichotelsg...hotelCode=SJOCP

 

The Organizing Committee of SMBC encourages participants in this Congress to present summaries of our knowledge on the conservation of biodiversity and to highlight how these advances have improved its management or can improve future management. Given the theme of the Congress, it is important that presentations focus on the work of women in research and as change agents.

 

Partners in Flight is meeting in Costa Rica to promote our interest in understanding and conserving birds throughout their full annual cycle. PIF looks forward to meeting in Mesoamerica to increase partnerships with students and professionals throughout the region. In addition, PIF is interested in examining the relevance of bird and biodiversity science and conservation to the wider fields of sustainable development and human wellbeing.

 

SMBC Themes:
GLOBAL CHANGE
1) Adapting to climate change
2) Mitigation of climate change
3) Loss of habitat and impact on biodiversity
4) Invasive species
BIODIVERSITY MANAGEMENT
5) Marine-coastal and oceanic ecosystems
6) Freshwater ecosystems and inland aquatic resources
7) Terrestrial and epi-continental ecosystems
8) Public and private protected areas
9) Innovative financial mechanisms
10) Adaptive management
11) Biodiversity and Technology
12) Fragmented landscapes
13) Application of high technology
SOCIOECONOMIC ASPECTS OF BIODIVERSITY
14) Social participation, poverty reduction and governance schemes
15) Infrastructure development and biodiversity
16) Management, provision and socio-economic benefits of biodiversity and ecosystem services

 

PIF Themes:
CONSERVATION STRATEGIES
1) Economics and Ecosystem Services
a) Ecotourism benefits
b) Ecosystem services provided by birds and bird habitat
c) Birds as umbrella or iconic species for biodiversity and ecosystem conservation
2) Protection and Conservation
a) Enhancing protected area management for multiple benefits
b) Integrating bird and biodiversity conservation into commodity production
c) Markets and certification for eco-friendly products
DEVELOPMENT TOOLS
3) Outreach and Communication
a) Encouraging citizen science and stewardship
b) Building a birdwatching/ecotourism constituency
c) Using social science to promote conservation
4) Conservation Planning and Implementation
5) Networking and Development
a) Working with sustainable development agencies
b) Fundraising
FIELD METHODS
6) Monitoring for baseline and project effectiveness
7) Generating and interpreting indices of bird, biodiversity, and habitat conditions
8) Measuring and estimating abundance and survival
9) Skills for obtaining and using sight and sound records: eBird, iNaturalist
RESEARCH FINDINGS
10) Ecology/Population Dynamics
a) Habitat requirements and habitat management
b) Factors affecting survival and reproduction throughout the annual cycle
c) Patterns of connectivity and their significance
d) Population limitation
11) Anthropogenic impacts
a) Climate change
b) Pollution
c) Urbanization
d) Habitat conversion

 

Instructions for the submission of bird-related symposia, workshops, courses, forums, and special lectures:
Proposals should be sent to Greg Butcher gsbutcher@fs.fed.us until May 19, 2017 according to the instructions. Space is limited and proposals will be accepted taking into consideration suitability and available space. Please consult with Greg on proposals during development if any questions arise. There is a fee for these events (usually $500). It is great if the organizer can find the funds, but PIF will work to raise the money if the organizer cannot.

 

Preference will be given to proposals that have an affinity with one or more of the thematic areas of the Congress. The Organizing Committee of the XXI Congress will provide support with the logistics of the events located at the Congress venue. Support available for pre- or post-Congress events can be negotiated with PIF and the Organizing Committee.

 

Contact Zaida Piedra, Logistics Manager for the XXI Congress logisticacr2017@gmail.com., for questions on logistical support for these events and for non-bird-related proposals.

 

Proposals should include the following:
• Event Title (maximum 10 words)
• Type of event (indicate if it is a symposium, forum, course, workshop or lecture).
• Thematic Area of the Congress
• Name of the organizer (or speaker for Master Lectures)
• Include in an attachment a short bio or CV (3 pages maximum) of the organizer (or speaker for Master Lectures)
• Summary of the event or lecture (up to 300 words)
• Objectives (does not apply for lectures)
• Duration (number of sessions and hours required)
• Financing source (s) (indicate if they already have or have plans to obtain financing, the name of the donor (s) and how much funding is expected to be obtained).
• Registration fees (applies only for pre- or post-congress events)
• Program of the event (not applicable for lectures)
For each presentation at the event include (can be tentative until July 31):
• Title and / or subject
• Presenter and his/her institution

 

Deadlines
May 19 - Proposals for symposiums, forums, master lectures, courses and workshops pre or post congress
May 31 - Confirmation of acceptance of previous proposals
May 31 – Proposals for oral presentations or posters
July 31 - Confirmation of acceptance of abstracts
July 31 - Early registration payment
July 31 - Registration deadline for publication of abstracts in the "Mesoamerican" Magazine
October 1 - Submit photos for contest

 

We will send out a complete circular in English soon. In the meantime, for more information, visit the SMBC web site: www.congresosmbc.org

 

We are waiting for you in San Jose, Costa Rica, to share another international scientific event of high level in a fraternal atmosphere.

 

Greg Butcher
Migratory Species Coordinator
Forest Service
International Programs
p: 202-644-4551
c: 202-617-8259
f: 202-644-4603
gsbutcher@fs.fed.us
1 Thomas Circle NW, Suite 400
Washington, DC 20005
www.fs.fed.us

 

Caring for the land and serving people

Meeting Website: http://www.congresosmbc.org

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A new meeting has been added to the =1']Ornithology Meetings database.

 

Meeting Description:

THE WORLD OWL CONFERENCE 2017 IS NOW ON for 26-30 Sep 2017 in Evora, Portugal. Ten years after the last meeting in Groningen,

The Netherlands, this important event for all researchers, naturalists and ornithologists dedicated to studying owls finally returns. The World

Owl Conference 2017 will take place at the Colégio do Espírito Santo, University of Évora, a remarkable UNESCO World Heritage Building

from the sixteenth century.

 

Conference deadlines:

 

Early bird registration:

1 Mar – 31 May 2017

Regular registration: 1 Jun – 31 Aug 2017

Abstract submittal: 1 Mar – 15 Aug 2017

 

For more information check

 

http://www.woc2017.uevora.pt/en/

 

Meeting Website: http://www.woc2017.uevora.pt/en/

 

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A new meeting has been added to the =1']Ornithology Meetings database.

 

Meeting Description:

We invite you to attend the Ornithological Congress of the Americas in Puerto Iguazú, Argentina, from 8–11 August, 2017. Puerto Iguazú is located in the heart of the interior Atlantic Forest and is the portal to the Iguazú Falls, one of the world’s Seven Natural Wonders and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The area surrounding Puerto Iguazú, the province of Misiones and neighboring regions of Paraguay and Brazil—in addition to its many scenic attractions and natural areas like Iguazú National Park—offers unique opportunities for birdwatching. Over 500 species have been recorded, including many Atlantic Forest endemics like the Blue Manakin (Chiroxiphia caudata), the emblem of our congress. This is meeting is co-organized by the Association of Field Ornithologists, Sociedade Brasileira de Ornitologia, and Aves Argentinas and promises to be an outstanding professional experience for both students and researchers. The congress will feature workshops, symposia, over 350 scientific presentations, 7 internationally renowned plenary speakers, and a celebration of the first 100 years of Aves Argentinas!

 

Dates: August 8-11, 2017 (with workshops and field trips on Aug 7-8 and 12-13)

Location: Centro de Eventos y Convenciones del Iguazú, Hotel Amerian, Puerto Iguazú, Misiones Province, Argentina

 

IMPORTANT DATES

May 15th: Deadline for workshops and symposia proposals. Travel and presentation awards deadline.

*** June 9: Abstract and early bird registration deadline!! ***

 

Meeting Website: http://www.afonet.org/2017iguazu/

 

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A new meeting has been added to the =1']Ornithology Meetings database.

 

Meeting Description:

ANNOUNCEMENT – The 40th Annual Meeting of the Waterbird Society. Call for ABSTRACTS and EARLY REGISTRATION. New Bern, North Carolina, 20-23 September 2016.

 

The Waterbird Society will hold its 40th Annual Conference and General Meeting in New Bern, North Carolina, from 20-23 September 2016. Three full days of scientific sessions, symposia and workshops are planned including symposia on Herons of the World, Black Rails, Black Skimmers, and the Atlantic Marine Bird Conservation Cooperative and workshops on Herons of the World.

 

This announcement is the first call for Abstracts and Early Registration, both open on April 11, 2016. For abstracts, please use the following link https://waterbirds.o...act-submission/ and for registration, please go here https://waterbirds.o...g/registration/. Any questions about abstracts, registration, or about the meeting, please contact Clay Green (Chair, Scientific Program – claygreen@txstate.edu ) or Sara Schweitzer (Chair, Local Committee – sara.schweitzer@ncwildlife.org ). For student travel awards, see https://waterbirds.o...-travel-awards/

 

Because the Waterbird Society is celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2016, we are planning a celebration of the first 40 years of the Society, complete with displays of the Society’s early formative days, so please make plans to join us in New Bern. Meeting information, including details on the New Bern Riverfront Convention Center, field trips, accommodations, and special events will be posted on the Waterbird Society web site (http://www.waterbirds.org/).

 

Daily early morning birding trips will be offered, as well as longer field trips on 24 and 25 September. Historical New Bern, a city of approximately 30,000 people, is located at the confluence of the Trent and Neuse rivers as they flow into the Pamlico Sound, bordered by the Outer Banks chain of barrier islands; it is a water wonderland! We look forward to seeing you in New Bern in 2016.

 

Meeting Website: https://waterbirds.org/annual-meeting/

 

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The following article has been published on the Ornithology Exchange. This and other articles can be found under the Articles tab in the navigation menu or by clicking here.

Long-term research at Bahia Kina
Stephanie Jones

In this edition of the Editor's Choice series, Stephanie Jones, Editor of Waterbirds, highlights an article from the December 2015 issue of Waterbirds (vol. 38, no. 4), titled Diversity, Abundance and Nesting Phenology of the Wading Birds of Bahía Kino, Sonora, México.

Click here to view the article

The following article has been published on the Ornithology Exchange. This and other articles can be found under the Articles tab in the navigation menu or by clicking [url='http://ornithologyexchange.org/articles']here[/url].[br][br][size=5][b]Editor's Choice: Waterbirds[/b][/size] [br]Stephanie Jones [br][br]

Dippers are very cool birds, and the Rufous-throated Dipper may be the coolest of the dippers!

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Dan Cristol at William & Mary wrote this lovely memorial for Ruth for the Coastal Virginia Wildlife Observatory:

 

 

 A TRIBUTE TO  Ruth Beck

Ruth was the Observatory’s Vice-President and Songbird Team Leader.

The Observatory will be establishing a Special Fund in her honor.

This tribute is written by her College of William and Mary colleague and friend Dan Cristol, of the Biology Department.

 

 

The birds have lost a great friend. It is spring and life is in the air. Eastern Bluebirds are fledging their first broods and wildly attacking any squirrel or snake that comes close, Brown Thrashers are franticly gathering insects from the driveway for their newly hatched chicks, and twittering hordes of Barn Swallows are scrambling to gather mud for their nests in every puddle. Sadly, though, Ruth Beck, Emeritus Professor of biology at William & Mary, passed away suddenly May 7th at age 72. 

 

Ruth helped birds at many levels, starting with the superb bird feeders at the lakeside home which she shared with husband Sherwin. Her feeder spread was so alluring it drew in species rarely fond of birdseed, especially Rose-breasted Grosbeaks and Indigo Buntings. Ruth worked right up to the time of her death documenting and managing the nesting success of our dwindling colonial waterbirds, most notably the Least Terns of Craney Island in Portsmouth and Grandview Beach in Hampton, and the huge tern and gull colony dependent on the rocks of the Hampton Roads bridge-tunnel. 

 

These human-created habitats have become important refuges for birds being displaced from our Barrier Islands as rising sea levels slowly drown out their natural nesting colonies. The owners of these properties have reason to resent the descending hordes of waterbirds, which create transportation hazards and require workers to accommodate in all sorts of ways. But for decades Ruth has been able to graciously negotiate fair treatment for the birds, and to enlist an army of dedicated volunteers and students to manage their habitats. I have worked alongside retired school teachers, conscripted college students and members of a prison work detail to ensure that the picky Black Skimmers had the proper surface of weed-free, flat sand for their nests.

 

Ruth, who started at William & Mary in 1969, developed, taught and supervised biology laboratories for tens of thousands of college students. These were the first intensive lab experiences for freshmen, and were often formative. She inspired countless undergraduates to go on to take courses in ornithology and to pursue birds as a hobby or profession. Ruth also hired scores of students to assist in her summer research with tern and gull nesting colonies, and turned many apathetic field hands into aspiring scientists. To the end she carried out weekly surveys of Craney Island, one of Tidewater’s most exciting birding destinations, with a crew of volunteer local birders. Like a reporter who gets to every crime scene first, Ruth’s group broke the story on many local rarities, including last year’s Snowy Owl, and many, many more. 

 

Besides inspiring countless future scientists, birders and conservationists, and spearheading important local research and land management projects, Ruth was also a stalwart contributor to what is known as citizen science. Citizen science is the enlisting of non-professionals to gather data for scientific research, and for more than forty years Ruth and a crew of birders has been monitoring the bird populations of Williamsburg as part of the Audubon Christmas Bird Count. Never satisfied to stick to her own territory, the college campus and surrounding forests, I would often catch Ruth sneaking on to my adjacent territory to make sure that I was counting things accurately. I forgave her readily, because I never missed a chance to sneak on to campus to count the Rusty Blackbird flock, just in case Ruth had missed a few.

 

Ruth may be best remembered locally as one of the founders, longtime presidents, and benefactors of the Williamsburg Bird Club. My current fondness for the bird club is directly the result of Ruth having engaged me in various roles soon after I arrived on campus. At a time when I should have been focused solely on my duties at the College, I developed a lasting relationship with this thriving civic group. Under Ruth’s direction, the club has for decades raised money to provide research grants to William & Mary graduate and undergraduate students undertaking bird research, as well as providing scholarships for kids to attend Nature Camp, purchasing books for the library, and sustaining educated interest in birds. With generosity, humor and intelligence, Ruth Beck left the world a better place than she found it, and inspired many others to do the same. When generosity, humor and intelligence were not enough, she would turn to the most potent of her charms, extravagant spreads of food, always including strawberries. And like the Rose-breasted Grosbeaks and Indigo Buntings, people were drawn to Ruth Beck’s strawberries. Ruth, we miss you already.

Ruth Ann Beck, a long-time member of the Waterbird Society, died the morning of Thursday, May 7, 2015. She was especially supportive of the student members.  She worked on population dynamics of wading birds and seabirds (terns, herons, gulls and

skimmers), biological monitoring of colonial waterbirds, behavior and population dynamics of Colonial and Solitary Beach Nesting Waterbirds, and biology of endangered and threatened species  (Piping Plover, Least Tern and Red-cockaded Woodpecker). Ruth was a longtime educator in the state of Virginia. She began her teaching career at Longwood College and then joined the faculty of the Biology Department at the College of William & Mary in 1969. She was a graduate of Radford College and obtained a master's degree from UVA in 1966. She was a committed researcher in the field of ornithology and a leader in efforts to understand waterbird population dynamics in the Chesapeake Bay region. She was the author/co-author of over 30 research articles and book chapters. In 1980, she earned her private pilot's license to expand her research capabilities. In 1991, the U.S. Department of the Interior awarded her the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Commanders Award for Public Service. That same year, the Governor of Virginia awarded her a certificate of recognition for her wildlife conservation efforts. She contributed to eight television documentaries on avian wildlife and in addition, her Siamese cat became the star of a memorable National Geographic program, "The Secret Life of Cats." For nearly four decades, Ruth was a highly visible presence in the Department of Biology at William & Mary, where some 32,000 students have passed through her introductory laboratory classes. Her enthusiasm and talents brought the natural world of microorganisms, plants, animals and especially birds to life. She had been a dedicated mentor (and friend) to literally hundreds of individual students. She was predeceased by her parents, Lillian Mary Androvich and Michael Paul Androvich of Highland Springs, Va. She is survived by her husband, Sherwin Beck; her son, Michael Beck; her daughter-in-law, Ann Drewing Beck; her grandson, Aiden Beck; and a large, extended family in Pennsylvania and Virginia. 

Joseph T. Bagnara, a colleague and friend of Joe Marshall's going back to their days at the University of Arizona, kindly gave us permission to post his recollections of Joe Marshall from his book, Unfinished Business: A Biologist in the Latter Half of the 20th Century

 

Writing of Joe Marshall during their days at the University of Arizona, Joseph Bagnara wrote: 

 

Joe Truesdell Marshall, Jr.  a former professor of zoology and curator of birds at the University of Arizona, passed away on 22 February 2015. He was a life member of the American Ornithologists' Union and the Cooper Ornithological Society. Dr. Marshall collected thousands of important specimens from the southwestern USA, Mexico, and elsewhere. He was elected Fellow of the American Ornithologists' Union in 1960. He also served for a time as the curator of birds at Occidental College.

 

Marshall earned his undergraduate (1939) and graduate degrees (1948)  from UC Berkeley where he studied under Alden Miller.

His graduate work was interrupted by his service in the U.S. Army in World War II. From 1943-1946, he served as a parasitologist in Micronesia. 

 

Returning to Berkeley, he wrote his thesis on the Song Sparrows of the San Francisco Bay region. This research was published in two parts in the Condor in 1948: 

 

Ecologic races of Song Sparrow in the San Francisco Bay region Part I. Habitat and Abundance. 1948. Marshall, J.T., Jr. Condor 30:193-215

 

Ecologic races of Song Sparrow in the San Francisco Bay region Part II. Geographic Variation. 1948. Marshal, J.T. Jr. Condor 50:233-256.

 

Following graduate school, hoped to work at the field station on Kosrae in the Caroline Islands, but that position did not materialize so Marshall took a research position at the Hastings Reserve in Carmel, California, where he unfortunately contracted polio.  

 

He then worked in the Marshall Islands in 1951. That same year, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. 

 

Marshall resumed his career in parasitology in 1964, when he began working for the medical research laboratory of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization in Bangkok, Thailand. He remained in that position until 1976. During that time, Marshall also studied and collected vertebrates of that region, publishing A synopsis of Asian species of Mus (Rodentia, Muridae) (Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History; v. 158, article 3).

 

Marshall's career also took him to the National Museum of Natural History, where he worked in the collection of what is now the U.S. Geological Survey but was then under the management of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.The Smithsonian archive record of his field notes spans 1932 - 2001:
 
This collection contains 63 field books and two folders by Joe T. Marshall, originally maintained by the Division of Birds. The field notes mostly consist of journals with daily entries, and species accounts with multiple dated entries containing information regarding a certain species. Entries mostly relate to birds, but there is also information on mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and plants. Marshall takes particular interest in gibbons and towhees as well. Localities include but may not be limited to the United States, Canada, Mexico, Thailand, the Philippines, Arizona, Indonesia, Malaysia, Costa Rica, Nepal, Taiwan, Puerto Rico, India, Fiji, and Singapore. Information included in journal entries and species accounts relates instances of observing and collecting animals, often detailing their age, sex, coloration, physical measurements, calls, the surrounding terrain, specific locality, weather and wind conditions, altitude, and coordinates. There are also many animal sketches and sketched and printed maps, some with a great degree of detail.
 
In 1964, Marshall co-authored the Birds of Arizona, together with Allan Phillips and Gale Monson. Ken Parke's  review in The Auk stated:
 
The adjective "long-awaited" should probably have been honorably retired from the book-reviewer's vocabulary after the appearance of Todd's Birds of the Labrador Peninsula (see Auk, 81: 461-464, 1964). Nevertheless, the earliest drafts of Allan Phillips' The birds o! Arizona were written some 30 years ago. As stated in Guy Emerson's preface, Phillips is a perfectionist, and was never quite ready to publish his Arizona book. This was complicated by his moving to Mexico and devoting his research time almost entirely to Mexican birds. A fortunate combination of circumstances and persuasion several years ago resulted in an arrangement whereby Joe Marshall, then of the University of Arizona, undertook most of the actual writing of The birds o! Arizona, using Phillips' notes supplemented by observations of his own and of Gale Monson of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Much revision of the text was then based on conferences between Phillips and Marshall, to the extent that the latter has characterized the book (p. ix) as being "Phillips' Birds of Arizona 'as told to' Marshall and Monson." 
 
In 1978, he published a monograph on the systematics of smaller Asian nightbirds based on Voice (Ornithological Monographs 25, American Ornithologists' Union). On the other side of the world, the Nuttall Ornithological Club published his monograph on Bicknell's Thrush (The Gray-cheeked Thrush, Catharus minimus, and its New England Subspecies, Bicknell’s Thrush, Catharus minimus bicknelli. Joe T. Marshall. 135 pp., 2 color plates, 5 maps, 6 figures, 2 photos, 2 tables, 2001).

 

In addition to ornithology, Marshall also had an interest in harpsichords, which he built himself. 

A new meeting has been added to the =1']Ornithology Meetings database.

 

Meeting Description:

We cordially invite you to attend BirdsCaribbean's 20th International Meeting in Jamaica, home of reggae and amazing birds and biodiversity, from Saturday, July 25th to Wednesday, July 29th (inclusive). The purpose of the meeting is to bring together Caribbean and international wildlife professionals, ornithologists, educators, students and others to share their knowledge, passion, and experiences, and participate in practical activities that promote applied conservation. These include concurrent paper sessions, poster sessions, workshops, symposia, round-table discussions, working group meetings and project development sessions.

The meeting will be held at the Knutsford Court Hotel in New Kingston, Jamaica. We have arranged for discounted rooms at the conference hotel; restaurants, shopping and more are located within walking distance. Members of the Local Organizing Committee include the Forestry Department, Hope Gardens, Jamaica Conservation Development Trust, Caribbean Coastal Area Management Foundation, University of the West Indies, Windsor Research Centre and others.

The theme of the meeting is "Birds—Connecting Communities and Conservation ." The call for abstracts to present a paper or poster will be open soon; deadline for receipt of abstracts is May 15th. In addition to the 5 days of the main conference, there will be pre- and post conference workshops and field trips, so be sure to save dates on your calendar for several days before and after the conference to participate in some of these events.

 

Meeting Website: https://sites.google.com/site/birdscaribbeanmeeting2015/home

 

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The following article has been published on the Ornithology Exchange. This and other articles can be found under the Articles tab in the navigation menu or by clicking here.

Auk Ornithological Advances - Editor's Choice: Study Confirms Feasibility of Tracking Parrots with GPS Telemetry
AOUCOSPUBS

Outwitting parrots takes ingenuity. Researchers in New Zealand figured out how to keep Keas from removing and destroying data loggers.

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The following article has been published on the Ornithology Exchange. This and other articles can be found under the Articles tab in the navigation menu or by clicking here.

Editor's Choice: Importance of survey timing on shorebird density estimates
Stephanie L. Jones, Editor

Waterbirds editor Stephanie Jones highlights a paper describing the importance of survey timing on shorebird density estimates at East Bay, Nunavut, Canada

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A new meeting has been added to the =1']Ornithology Meetings database.

 

Meeting Description: Announcing the 2015 Annual Meeting of PSG in San Jose - A Future for Seabirds.

 

Registration is open and abstract submission has begun. Looking forward to seeing everyone in San Jose. Please use the on-line system for everything. To submit abstracts, register, purchase field trips, banquet tickets, and merchandise, just access RegOnLine www.regonline/psg.2015

 

Travel awards are available for presenting students (all countries) and international scientists (except US and Canada).

 

Special Papers Sessions are:

• SPS 1: Can seabirds be used to predict impending climatic events in the Pacific?-Lead Convener: Grant Humphries (humphries.grant@gmail.com)
• SPS 2: Merging seabird and fisheries data to track marine ecosystem processes and fluctuations Lead Convener: Stephani Zador (Stephani.Zador@noaa.gov)
• SPS 3: Community-based seabird conservation- Lead Convener: Peter Hodum (peter@oikonos.org)
• SPS 4: Ashy Storm-petrel Rangewide Science and Conservation-Lead Convener: David Ainley (dainley@penguinscience.com)
• SPS 5: Shearwaters forever or cause for concern? The conservation and status of shearwaters-Lead Convener: Mark Rauzon (mrauzon@peralta.edu)

Important deadlines

• Travel Award Applications ends: 31 October 2014
• Abstract Submission ends: 17 November 2014
• Early Registration Rates end: 19 Dec 2014
• Hotel Reservation Group Rate ends: 2 Feb 2015

 

Meeting Website: http://www.pacificseabirdgroup.org/index.php?f=meeting&t=Annual%20Meeting&s=1

 

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