Audubon In Action

• Raptor Rehabilitation Center in Wyoming
• Chandler Robbins Wins Audubon Medal
• Preserving California's Gaviota Coast
• Volunteer Vacations at Audubon Sanctuaries
• Venezuela: Audubon's Ricebird Alliance
• Environmental Leadership Awards Presented

Chapter News
On the Mend

Between power lines, cars, and lead shot, it's hard to be an eagle in Wyoming. Now things are getting even tougher: A convalescent home for the state's injured raptors is falling apart. 

Operated by the Murie Audubon Society, the Wildlife Rehab and Rescue Center serves all of Wyoming and even takes in golden and bald eagles from surrounding states. Located 12 miles west of Casper on Eagle Ridge Ranch, the rehab center is set in a 50-year-old barn donated some 20 years ago by the ranch's owner. Over the years Wyoming's harsh weather has taken a toll on the building. 

"All the boards in the roof are cracked. It's about to fall in on my head," says Joe Scott, grandson of the ranch's original owner and a volunteer at the center. So Scott, a 17-year-old high school senior, has been raising money to build a new $35,000 flight barn. Pacificorp, a unit of Pacific Power and Utah Power, donated $5,000, and Scott received $5,000 from the Wyoming Governor's Youth Initiative for Wildlife and Natural Resources Conservation. When a local paper ran a story on his work, donations came in from across the state and as far away as the Middle East. Still, he's $15,000 short.
Convalescing eagles need a large flight area so they can exercise their muscles before being returned to the wild. And the center's location, far from human activity, ensures that the eagles remain wild and not habituated to humans. 
The Scott family also plans to give legal ownership of the new barn to the rehab center. "My grandfather donated the original barn, but my dad has decided to put it on paper so it's an eternal lease and nobody can take it back."

For Scott, the project has been about more than fund-raising. "I've learned a lot about the idiosyncrasies of eagles," he says. "And you really get a great feeling when you finally release them." Donations, which should be marked "Barn Project," can be sent to the Murie Audubon Society, Box 2112, Casper, WY 82602.

--Paul Thacker

Audubon medal
In Praise of Robbins

On June 16 the National Audubon Society presented Chandler Robbins with this year's Audubon Medal. The medal is Audubon's most prestigious award and recognizes substantial accomplishments in conservation or environmental protection. 

"Few scientists have contributed as much to our understanding of bird migration and identification techniques as Chandler Robbins," says John Flicker, president of the NAS.

Robbins, a senior ornithologist with the U.S. Geological 
Survey at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland, has written more than 400 papers, reports, and books on ornithology, including the popular Golden Guide to Birds of North America.

In 1965 Robbins initiated the Breeding Bird Survey, a program that tracks bird populations with the aid of volunteers. This project helped document the effect of DDT on birds. Over the years Robbins has enlisted the aid of many colleagues and, more important, thousands of volunteers. "With birds, the manpower is out there at the amateur level, and they contribute a great deal," he says.
Robbins, who recently turned 82, is still involved in numerous bird-conservation projects, both in Maryland and in such far-flung locales as Guatemala and Midway Island. 

When will Robbins retire, or at least slow down? "When I catch up," he says. "I'm not yet done." 

 --Paul Thacker

Chapter News
Coastal Conservation

On U.S. highway 101, just west of Santa Barbara, California, there is an inconspicuous street sign that catches the eye of every passing nature lover. It says, next services 32 miles. Beyond it lies the Gaviota Coast, which, besides some agricultural development and low-density residential development, is the last remaining relatively intact stretch of coastline in urbanized southern California.

Overlooking the Santa Barbara Channel and Channel Islands National Park, the Gaviota Coast is a hot spot of biological diversity. Its waters are home to steelhead salmon, at least 25 species of marine mammals, and towering underwater kelp forests. A diverse assemblage of wildlife, including mountain lions and black bears, inhabit its chaparral-covered mountains, and the National Audubon Society recently designated portions of the region as a Globally Important Bird Area.

The Gaviota Coast, for all its diverse beauty, is also highly imperiled. For years threats of development have loomed over its pounding surf like a thick summer fog, but now local citizens, politicians, scientists, and landowners are banding together in an attempt to preserve the area's rural character. But within that general alliance is a movement to create the United States' next national seashore out of the area's mosaic of private, state, and federal lands, some of which are already protected. 

Efforts to preserve the Gaviota Coast got off the ground in April 1994, when the Santa Barbara Audubon Society sponsored the Coastal Preservation Conference. The conference was organized by Lee Moldaver, who now serves as vice-president of the Santa Barbara Audubon Society, representative for California's Central Coast Audubon chapters, and vice-chair of Audubon's California board. According to Moldaver, "The Coastal Preservation Conference brought together--for the first time--a diverse group of stakeholders to discuss the future of the Gaviota Coast. Whereas many other conservation groups in California had been left to fight for the last remnants of critical habitat, we began planning proactively on the scale of an entire region." 

Since 1994 the Santa Barbara Audubon Society has continued its coastal conservation efforts through the restoration of local creeks and wetlands, the support of slow-growth planning policies, the scientific monitoring of local bird populations, and conservation education. The chapter also helped start the Gaviota Coast Conservancy, which was established specifically to preserve the Gaviota region.

The federal government is now involved in coastal conservation efforts, and National Park Service officials are currently studying the feasibility of creating a new national seashore along the Santa Barbara coastline. Designation as a national seashore could establish conservation easements, provide a framework for regional conservation planning, and limit new development within the area. For additional information about preservation 
efforts along the Gaviota Coast, see the Santa Barbara chapter's web page at 
www.audubon.org/chapter/ca/santabarbara/.

--Peter S. Alagona

Sanctuary News
Taking Matters Into Your Own Hands

The national audubon society has 200 sanctuaries that cover 250,000 acres and a wide variety of habitats. (For a partial listing, visit www.audubon.org/local/sanctuary/.) While many can be visited, here are three where conservation is a hands-on effort you can participate in. 

STARR RANCH sanctuary:
 Bird Banding
Audubon's Starr Ranch Sanctuary, in Orange County, California, recently joined the Institute for Bird Population's Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship Program to gather data about the area's birds, specifically about declining populations of neotropical passerine migrants. The 4,000-acre sanctuary represents some of the last remaining fully protected patches of coastal sage scrub, grassland, and chaparral in the area. Pete DeSimone, sanctuary manager, says of the program, "It's also a way to get the public involved." Last spring Dana Kamada, a sanctuary biologist, and 20 volunteers set up 10 nets in sanctuary woodlands to catch birds. They recorded each captured bird's wing length, weight, and body-fat content, and placed an aluminum band around its leg. Call 949-858-0309 for more information.

TEN MILE CREEK sanctuary:  Bug Catching
Volunteers in and around Audubon's Ten Mile Creek Sanctuary on the central Oregon coast are learning what it really means to be up a creek. Following an afternoon-long lesson by an entomologist, the volunteers collect bugs found in the creek and other coastal basins. The presence or absence of insects can tell experts about the health of the watershed. "It's a citizen-science–type project. We have everyone from 11-years-olds to 70-year-olds out there getting wet," says sanctuary manager Paul Engelmeyer. "It's a way to educate the community about the health of a watershed."
The project will help establish baselines for water quality and will be used to assess the effectiveness of future restoration activities. Although the sanctuary is closed to the public, you can initiate your own water-monitoring project by calling 541-547-4227.

ALKALI LAKE sanctuary:
 Prairie Planting
Audubon Dakota has been working at Alkali Lake Sanctuary, near Jamestown, North Dakota, to return previously farmed tracts to native grasses. Genevieve Thompson, the executive director for Audubon Dakota, helped develop the construction plan and select the native grasses, which include the purple prairie clover, yellow cornflower, and big blue. Audubon bought seed to plant the 170 acres of farmland within the sanctuary. Thompson fondly remembers the day last summer when dozens of volunteers started planting, especially, she says, because "there were tornado warnings that day." Alkali Sanctuary is open to the public by appointment, and volunteers are needed for ongoing maintenance. For information, call 701-298-3373.

--Gretel H. Schueller

Chapter News
Northern Imposer

Each september the skies of Northern Venezuela darken. The local farmers' worst nightmare has arrived from the central United States. Though the dickcissel, a melodic little songbird with a big taste for seeds, looks harmless, it has been eating local farmers out of house and home. Some lose their entire rice and sorghum crops. In recent years farmers have resorted to spraying entire roosts with pesticides, leaving the ground strewn with dead birds. This can be disastrous for the gregarious dickcissel. 

"The birds are very vulnerable because they gather in large roosts," says Clemencia Rodner, president of the Venezuela Audubon Society (VAS). One roost can have 3 million birds, and with the global population of dickcissels estimated at 10 million, it wouldn't take a lot of roost attacks to wipe it out. Birds that flock with the dickcissel or that feed in the same areas are also at risk. 
A few years ago Venezuela Audubon began approaching farmers to find a solution. "In the beginning it was pretty tough," says Rodner. But in 1998 VAS held a workshop that resulted in an unlikely but powerful union, the Ricebird Alliance, led by VAS and the region's two most important farmers' groups.

Since then "cooperation between the conservation organizations and farmers has been wonderful," says Rodner. Farmers, for example, have requested training in pesticide use, and this fall Venezuela Audubon will host its second Ricebird Research pesticide workshop. Plus VAS, with the help of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is working on a nontoxic pesticide substitute. Future plans include testing various bird-scare techniques and setting up a network to establish patterns of migration and damage. By having farmers record when and how dickcissels attack their crops, the birds can be managed better, says Rodner. In that vein, VAS is seeking funding to continue its educational and field-research projects. 
"It's an effective project in dealing with the growing problem of pesticides in the tropics," says Alejandro Grajal, director of the National Audubon Society's Latin American and Caribbean Program. "The more alternatives we offer the farmers, the better off we'll all be." For information, call 305-371-6399 or visit www.audubon.org/local/latin. 

--Gretel H. Schueller

Inaugural Ball
Leaders Honored

More than 500 people dined and danced at New York City's Chelsea Piers on May 15 at the National Audubon Society's inaugural Environmental Leadership Awards. NAS president John Flicker (far left) presented the awards, which recognize significant contributions to conservation, to (left to right) Paul Tudor Jones II, a philanthropist and hedge-fund manager who has done much to help protect the Everglades; Marion Heiskell, a dedicated Audubon board member and former director of the New York Times Company; and Roy Disney, a leader of the Peregrine Fund and vice-chairman of the board of Walt Disney. Nearly $750,000 had been raised during the evening when Tudor Jones kicked in an additional $250,000, bringing the total to $1 million.