News from Scientists at the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center
Monday, October 30, 2006
|
Creation of Mexican Breeding Bird Survey Following wrap-up discussions conducted in late October, the North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) announces the success of its initiatory step toward creating a Mexican BBS program. As the primary source of large-scale, long-term population data for over 400 of North America’s breeding bird species, the BBS is the Federal government’s flagship wildlife surveillance program. This collaborative effort between the USGS and the Canadian Wildlife Service, and headquartered at the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, has been identifying species at risk and informing bird conservation planning efforts of U.S. and Canadian resource management agencies for over 40 years. To date, the ability of the BBS to document the status of species whose ranges extend into Mexico has been limited to the U.S. portions of these species’ ranges. Now, on the heels of a comprehensive strategic planning effort, the BBS is embarking on a course aimed at implementing a Mexican BBS program by 2010. This initiative has been enabled by a productive dialogue with Mexican government biologists and by the promising results of a 3-year feasibility study. On October 3, USGS biologists Keith Pardieck and Dave Ziolkowski kicked off this initiative by conducting a ‘Mexico BBS Expansion’ workshop in Veracruz, Mexico, with the collaboration of the Canadian Wildlife Service and Mexico’s Comisión Nacional para el Conocimiento y Uso de la Biodiversidad. Held in conjunction with the North American Ornithological Congress, this workshop was very well attended by potential Mexican participants. It introduced them to the great potential of the BBS for improving coverage of shared avian species as well as for tracking populations of their own endemic species, many of which may be especially vulnerable to environmental degradation. By emphasizing expansion through the enlisting of trained Mexicans, the workshop was a significant step toward making the BBS a truly North American program. |
||
|
See Previous HiLites: |
||
